The Reason Why I Started Jogging

Before giving the reason, I'd like to write a buildup to help the reason to be understood better. I was born on 2 Dec 1986, time (I don't know) in a middle class family. I don't know my condition at birth (I suppose it was normal). As a kid I was very hyperactive. In my house I used to go to places where old things were kept, then open a sack or box  containing old  unused things &  liked to find something interesting like an old magnet, used air filter mask & whenever I found something interesting I enjoyed it very much as if I had made a new discovery. But this hyperactive nature was lost after 12 years of age because I was beaten a lot by parents & that made me dormant. As a kid I was average in studies & wasn't good in playing anything & wasn't encouraged either. My mother is little thin with a normal height housewife & is well talented in cooking delicious food. It's very easy to eat extra when she has cooked food. That's the reason I like eating lot. My father also has a normal height & weight, works in a government firm & can be seen in the house doing yoga, supporting eating green vegetables. Now let me explain reason for me going into fitness thing. Infact there are few reasons which introduced me to fitness & then built my interest towards fitness. As a kid I had few fights with other children. Always after the fights while sitting or sleeping in my room I thought with my little brain, that if I've little more muscles, little more strength, I can easily beat the kid. If I've big muscles, no one else would try to beat me. Also as a kid I was beaten many times by father whenever I did a mistake in solving simple addition & subtraction. Father used to call me in evening or night time for doing math & at the very moment my heart beat slowed down to zero as if I'm dead, my feet felt heavy in the anticipation of I will not be able to solve & I'll be beaten up. Father gives me a algebra equation to solve & at that moment my brain decides to take a rest. I think it was more than math, I feared him. Again my little mind came up with a bold idea that if I become stronger then even if my father will beat me, it'll have no effect on my body. But the thing that I like about father is his health. He's about 55 years  now but doesn't have any disease except for little high blood pressure. I inherited his fitness interest as a child. While in school I had a chronic problem of stamina while running or playing football. But I also had speed as my strength. When I participated in my first race (200 m) for which, first one had to run a qualifying race. The day before qualifying race I ate lot of food as I believed with eating extra food I'll have extra energy to run the race. Next day in the morning I asked mummy to give me 1 more glass of milk with Horlicks (energy drink for kids). That was my preparation for the race. My younger brother came with me to racing ground to see me running & performing. Before the race, I didn't knew how I was going to perform but I was excited that I'm going to run a race.  The race started; I ran with all the energy with full speed & that was showing on the field. I was way, way ahead of all kids. I was at the front & ran like that. But when the last 10 m remained, I ran out of breath; my heart decided that it should stop working now & so not support me for last 10 m; everything inside me strangled me to stop running. At that point our selecting sir cheered me to run & complete it. I completed the race but at 3rd position. Only 2 people had to be selected but he selected me because of seeing my performance in initial part of the race. I was feeling lucky to be selected. Later the person who came first in qualifying race went up to become the best sprinter of our school. I was feeling happy that I was infront of him in the qualifying race for the most of the time but was also disappointed a lot that if I had more stamina, I could have become a very good racer. During last year of school I suffered from epistaxis (nose bleeding), to be specific I suffered from Nasopharyngeal Angiofibroma. My normal life changed to not so normal life. My nose suddenly started to bleed in middle of the class & the teacher told me to sleep on the bench to make bleeding stop & all others started to look at me. This wasn't the kind of attention I wanted. It was also irritating to me as because of me whole class was being disturbed. I bled a lot & when I slept, the whole blood from nose ran backwards to my stomach. It tested bitter. I was worried because all the energy I was getting from food was getting lost due to bleeding. I was admitted in the hospital. Before the operation day, I was told not to eat anything at night & not to drink water after 8 PM. That night I wasn't getting sleep easily. I went out from the bed for 2 times to roam outside. I was having the feeling of a person that is going to be hanged on the next day. But the whole operation went on smoothly thanks to good doctors & anesthesia. I was transfused with 2 bottles of blood. When I gained consciousness at 4 PM next day, my eyes was opened with a very bad headache which quickly developed into a high fever. So after a major operation, I had a headache & then a high fever. Then an acute pain started in my lower spine which my father enquired to the doctor & was told that there I was given some anesthetic injection. This pain added to the problems & I was unable to lie on the bed properly due to pain. After not drinking water for about 21 hours, I felt very thirsty. Parents asked doctor when I could drink water to which they replied after 6 hours. My lip skin had dried up & broken up due to dehydration like tree's bark. After 6 hours, doctors only allowed to have little amount of water. My mummy gave me little water to drink in a glass but I was unable to drink as some blockage was placed in between mouth & nasal passage during operation. So mummy tried to give me water with the help of a spoon. Even with that it was very difficult to get 1 spoon of water down the throat. Drinking even 1 cup of juice was a problem & it took me 1-2 hr to finish it. Agitated with all this I decided "I'll never let my fitness go down so that I've to come to hospital for a operation again". My mummy is great at cooking & loves me very much. After finishing her work by the end of the day mother would lie on the bed & complain me of getting exhausted, chest pain, headache at top of her head & lower back pain. After completing her work she would lie on bed & ask me to gently rub her back to get relief. Rubbing her back did give her little relief but I didn't like that my mom who looks so fit is undergoing this problem. I very much wanted to do something to get her out of this situation. She asked me that we should visit a doctor. I thought, as she got exhausted by the end of the day, the problem was with her stamina & some kind of cardiovascular workout needs to be done to get permanent relief. We went to the doctor first. After conducting ECG doctor told that the report was ok but gave some calcium & iron tablets. Me & especially my mummy was very happy with the report. Now I thought to make her heart stronger, jogging will be a good option. But I knew mummy that, if she goes for jogging alone then she would give up quickly because she likes someone on her side for the support. I told mom that we both can daily go for morning jog to which she agreed. I didn't had any personal interest in it because I was daily going to gym in the evening & I considered myself fit enough but I did jogging with mummy only for mummy to get fit. We went to jog in the morning on the road which is bordered by tall green trees on both sides & has an ample amount of fresh air & it also had a lot of ups & downs. When mummy would jog, she would stop when some person or school busses passed by because of shyness which made me laugh & told her no need to worry about them & continue to jog but she wouldn't do. Other problem was the ups & downs on the road. It was very easy when the road goes downhill but when it came to jogging uphill, it left her gasping & had to change over to walking. As few weeks passed by, mummy claimed that jogging was helping her & now she wasn't getting as much tired walking uphill as before. I was little happy but not that much. I was thinking if there is a way so that she could do continuous jogging without feeling shy of public & some kind of leveled road to make jogging easier. There is a club near our house which has a grassy lawn in it. I suggested mummy if we can jog there to which she agreed. This move was the turning point. After starting jogging in lawn mummy improved steadily from first able to complete 1 round, then to 2 rounds & then 3, 4, 5 …. I also ran with her for the support. With jogging, mummy's complaining of chest pain, headache stopped. It made me very happy. In the meantime I read in the book "7 habits of highly effective people" by Stephen R Covey that for today's knowledge workers, strength is important but Endurance & Stamina are far more important. At that time I was happily lifting weights in gym & had made very good muscular body. After reading the book I thought should I stop gym & start jogging as I only had limited time because I had to study for college. I was struggling to make the decision of should I start jogging & let my gymming subside so my well developed body will not develop well from now on or should I do jogging which can be overall more beneficial for me in the life. I choose to do jogging because of it's benefits in the long run & it was the best option. Also I gave little time to dips & abs for building strength. When I'm doing any work & if I have a long endurance then it'll help me to complete the work. In jogging, training for endurance is done so that endurance develops slowly. I thought that if I develop endurance physically it will help me mentally in keeping endurance in other works I do as I can tell myself that I have developed endurance in other area of life, so I've the ability of endurance. When I started jogging, I continuously reminded myself of this. 

Regards, 
Ricky 

P.S - As I'm busy with a product promotion, I'd like my readers to allow me to post 1 post / week for a month. It'd mean a lot to me.