10 things I learnt from 10 years of being married and running 10K!

A lot of tens in that subject title. I thought of trying to make it a clickbait title. I wonder if it will work 😉

This year, I ran my first 10K run, and a few more 10Ks eventually. I also crossed another milestone in my life – being married for 10 years 🙂

If I look back at my twenty year old self, more than a decade back, I don’t think I had plans of doing either. I was never a runner and exercising had always been a chore for me. I was thin by the fact that I walked a lot, danced a lot, and smoked a lot. And I thought being thin was being healthy then.

If I look back at my twenty year old self, I had never imagined being married. Marriage was never my priority and not something I wanted from my life. I had a number of relationships and flings. But to be with one person and commit yourself to them and be loyal to them for the rest of your life, was something that made me shudder then.

And yet, here I am. A decade later, running my 10Ks and sticking to one guy, and being loyal to him, for 10 years.

I was thinking about both these things, and I realized, that they were similar in some way, in terms of challenges, rewards and the things I learned from both these milestones. But I have to warn you here. If you’ve come to this post looking for rainbows, sunshine, all things lovey-dovey and all about positivity, then maybe this won’t be the right post for you 😀

So, here are the ten things that I’ve learned/experienced doing the ’10’ milestone:

There’s a lot of work that goes into it- if you’re new to this. Running and being married I mean. I had never run more than 5K. I had never been in a stable, faithful relationship for more than 3 years, before I got married that is 😛 So don’t assume that it’ll be a piece of cake
Don’t compare your running or your marriage with that of others. Especially the ones who are running marathons and the ones who are celebrating their silver anniversaries. Be realistic for goodness’s sakes! You are unique and your relationship is unique, and everyone goes through their battles to reach where they are today 🙂
You can look absolutely disgusting and still feel great about yourself. Finishing those 10Ks in my stinky sweaty clothes, and having my husband seeing me in those same sweaty stinky clothes and yet being proud of me, made me feel awesome about being disgusting
Music is a good way to bond – both with running and with your partner. Find your playlists, find your mix tapes, find songs that make you smile, reminiscence and do a jig, or pump up your runs
You can have a belly and still be married and still run a 10K – no problem!
You can eat more. Its a simple logic defined by me. The more I run, the hungrier I feel, the more I eat. The longer you’re married, the lesser your partner eats, so you get more food automatically. Don’t ask me why he eats less, its just my gain I guess..LOL
It’s easy to cheat the world, but not so easy to cheat yourself. So got to keep it honest, at least with yourself. Easy to add a run saying you did run a 10K and post it on social media, when you might have actually walked, or not run at all. Easy to post cute pictures of you with your husband, right after a fight, but you know the reality. You can fool the world, but you can’t fool yourself
When you cant have sex because the child is sleeping in the middle, or because your partner is too tired, go for a run instead! Win-Win! You get to wipe out those hormones, and keep your shit together and lose some calories in the process! Also, I doubt couples who have been married for 10 years, are doing it, like teenagers do. Let’s be real now 😀
I couldn’t think of a clever learning for point 9 – so I’m going to cheat and say, just because I ran my first 10K in the same year we celebrated our 10th marriage anniversary, doesn’t mean I’m going to run my 25K when we celebrate our silver jubilee..I cant plan for that ahead in the future!
Coming back to point 1 – yes its hard work, takes a lot of patience, and planning and team work and working around each other and fights and good nights. But I think at the end of that run, and at the end of those 10 years, it feels good 🙂 It feels good to know you can run 10K. It feels good to know you have someone who has your back and had your back since all these 10 years 🙂

So there it is – my great life lessons on marriage and running. Things I have learned so far, that is. I’d love to hear about your lessons on running and marriage or being in a long term relationship as well 🙂