Welcome to Joggers on the right.
If you've landed here, you are either looking for run coaching, or you know me and you're curious as to what this is!
Well, those who know me know that I've been wanting to get into run coaching for a little while. Last year, I took the first step towards this and obtained a certification as a Road and Trail Run Leader from Athletics Canada. I am currently in the process of taking the next step, which is a Trained Endurance Club Coach.
Now about me! I've been running since 2004. I was introduced to running by a friend in college, and in the early days running was very much an outlet to be social and for fitness accountability. If you were into the running scene in Toronto during the 2000's, Nike was dominating the space with Nike Run Clubs at various Nike Stores and their big Nike RunTO 10k on the Toronto Islands. After this 2000's running boom, my relationship with running became sporadic. I would lean on it if life got a little crazy. I began to see running as an outlet for stress relief, structure, and "I've gained weight and I need to do something about it" but the momentum would soon fade away.
I would run the occasional race and a lot of times it would be because someone offered me a bib, but again, running never really stuck. I would come back to it for brief moments, and I felt like I missed it, but I could never hold on to the feeling of why I enjoyed running.
Going into 2017, I was in a rut. I was not healthy, and with a demanding finance job, I was starting to feel the impact of a poor diet and not being satisfied with the physical activity I was getting (to be fair, I should not have leaned on slow pitch softball as an outlet for physical activity). I once again started running and signed up for the Sporting Life 10K. Later that spring I cheered on a friend running a half marathon (a distance I had never accomplished) and it lit a fire in me. Watching someone I knew accomplish something I never thought I could ever do, inspired me to get back to running for good.
After purchasing the cheapest pair of Asics from National Sports (IYKYK) and investing in some dri fit clothing from Old Navy, I signed up for a few more races including my first half marathon and got to work. A couple of things I want to point out here that I think helped to make a difference in my motivation:
1- Signing up for a big, scary goal
2 - Choosing to make time to run
Say what you want about sharing with the world that you have a big, scary goal - it works! I was now accountable. I went on to finish that half marathon, and in the process, discovered the "why" that was missing and reignited my love for running for good.
Since then, I've run more half marathons than I can remember, 5 marathons, 3 ultra relay races and a dozen 5 and 10ks, and have hit PRs at every distance. At the same time I've changed careers twice, adopted a dog, and built a life with my partner Priyanka.
Signing up for a big, scary goal was the change I needed. Life is full of big, scary goals, and in this case, proving to myself I could run a distance that I once thought was something I would never be able to do, made the idea of other big, scary goals a little less scary. This is something that I love about running. The lessons you can learn from running and how it can help in other areas of life. I'll discuss this theme frequently in these blogs, and I hope you follow along.
Now, this leads me back to Joggers On The Right. We'll get to the name maybe in a future post, but this is me taking on yet another big, scary goal: Coaching. This blog series will introduce you to who I am, why I want to coach, my take on running, and some of my challenges and success with my training.
I hope you follow along, and get to know me better. If you've ended up here because of a search for a running coach, hopefully my story and approach aligns with what you are looking for in someone to help with your running journey.
Jay P.
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