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Rekha Miraksar, a 33-year old PhD student at Warwick Medical School, had never done much exercise before last year. In 2017 she is running the Virgin London Marathon for Action Medical Research. Impressed? You should be!
Here, Rekha tells us her amazing story of how she went from couch potato to marathon runner and charity fundraiser in just six months.
"I'm originally from India, where I did my medical degree. Later, I went to the university of Edinburgh to study for a Masters in Medical Sciences in research. For the past three years, I've been working towards my PhD at Warwick Medical School.
Throughout 33 years of life, I associated physical activity with ‘pain’ (even though I study medicine!) and thought I was incapable of any form of sports. I love to eat and I've a tendency to eat more when I feel stressed.
Six months ago I was overweight and it started to affect my wellbeing.
It was time to take action and change my lifestyle!
I started to change what I eat and joined a gym. At first, even doing a few lunges (very badly) got me sweating. Then one fine day, people who I knew at the gym told me about a 5km run at the War Memorial Park in Coventry. It's 'just 5k', they said, 'it's easy'. I decided to join them.
For the first part of the run, I felt tired and had leg cramps. It was hell but I did not want to disappoint the group from the gym. So I completed the first run of my life. I was sweating profusely but it made me feel good. It was probably the endorphins that were being released that gave me feelings of euphoria. Until then, none of the exercises that I did at the gym had given me this experience and I wanted to experience those good feelings again.
About a month or two later, when I did my second park run, I realised that I had only run 2km of the total 5km route... But by then, that was it!
I had fallen in love with running.
I also went on to lose three stone of my excess weight within four-six months.
My new-found love of running (and weight loss) motivated me to keep upping the miles over the weeks. One day, I just wanted to see how far I could keep running and I completed more than 13 miles, a half marathon! The following week, I had completed 36km. That’s the point I decided to enter a marathon.
I decided on the Virgin London Marathon but had missed the general ballot entry. Looking for a charity place, I knew it had to be one that supports the research areas that I am interested in. That is why I am now running the distance for the children's charity Action Medical Research.
My fundraising has been challenging at times. But I have held two healthy bake sales across Warwick University and at my Pure Gym which raised £1250 for the charity. Once in a while everyone is likely to feel stressed or unfulfilled in today’s competitive world. Doing something for charity has not only helped to enhance my social and business skills, but it has also helped my self-esteem.
When you feel good, you can generate more good. It’s like a virtuous circle!
It's been hard at times to balance my training, my study and my fundraising. So far though, I've managed to run beyond marathon distance three times during February. [ED: Wow!]
There are lots of training plans available online. However, I've just steadily increased the miles while I enjoy running and burning calories. I'm focusing on the quality of the run and enjoying the distance, rather than thinking about a specific time goal.
Since I got a place with Action to run the Virgin London Marathon, I remind myself every now and then of a quote which I have modified slightly, ‘enjoy what you do and do what you enjoy'."
