In the beginning of the year I had 3 goals in mind. By the end of the year another one added but that was accidental than a planned one because I was trying to accomplish Goal #3.
✅Run a marathon under 3 hours (sub 3);
✅Run an ultra trail, in my case it was Tengri Ultra 100K
❌Run 100 miler (160 km).
✅Run another +10000 km
The first quarter of 2023 started great. Here I am, on a beautiful day during Nowruz holidays, on March 24, 2023, at 6 AM headed out for running. My first sub 3 hour marathon. I recall to have a plan to run a sub 3 hour marathon but not specifically on March 24.
It was already bright since it’s relatively warm in March here in Tajikistan. As I started running and in approaching the first 3 km, I feel good. I check my heart-rate and it is correlated with my rate of perceived exertion (RPE). I always check my heart-rate with my RPE because in my opinion relying only on heart-rate is not sufficient. Sometimes my heart-rate could be low but I feel terrible, out of energy and exhausted. Or in other days, my heart-rate could be a over my Maximum Aerobic Function (MAF rate developed Dr. Phil Maffetone) but I feel lite as feather and can run forever. That’s why I always double check my heart-rate against my RPE and determine how well I am into my running.
I felt good and strong. As with my all running goals, I always try to run my PB (Personal Best) in more or less in aerobic zone. In my sub 3 marathon, I managed to hit 152 bpm a little bit above my MAF rate and a cadence of 200. Happy with my performance and felt having so much energy be the end of the run. I love finishing the run and having so much energy left. I certainly could push much more but I don’t like finishing and lying on the ground like a dead body or vomiting. Trust me, I have been in those situations many times and it’s not a great thing. I would rather take a bit easier on my body and finish with energy left in tank so I can celebrate it with no injury.
First goal was done and in Q2 during April I prepared for Goal #2, Tengri Ultra 100K trail. May 8, 2023, Almaty, Kazakhstan, I run 107 km instead of 100 km.
As summer entered, it got hotter and hotter. Goal #3 to run a 100 miler was put off to end of Q3 and beginning of Q4. During summer, temperature at times reaching +42 degrees Celsius, grilled me during my runs. I tried to teach my body to adapt in running under warmer weather with no luck. My heart-rate would go up and I would quickly feel dizzy when under direct sunlight.
Another interesting running experience was in end of Q3 in Turkey when me and my family went there for a vacation and running in Istanbul was like taking a shower and running at the same time. Istanbul had many hills and humidity was high. Both of which differs from Dushanbe which is relatively flat and no sea or a proper river around. In terms of running, running in higher humidity was a bit difficult. I don’t know if it was due to the fact that I am so much used to Dushanbe weather or it is indeed more difficult to run near seas and oceans.
Around July, one of DAV.TJ runners - Parvina was struggling to meet her goal of accomplishing full split. I challenged her for a full split and whoever does full split first by end of 2023, wins. If she won that meant I would take out people participating in the challenge for a free dinner. Parvina was way flexible and she had only 17 cm left for a full split, while I was fascinated by the desire to do full split, I had little knowledge how torturing it will be 😅 Next day, I measured. My split was 50 cm before full split.
If you are beginner in full splits or newbie to this thing, let me explain you. It means nothing compared to 17 cm of Parvina’s. I was ambitious and doing leg stretches quite often. I started doing more warm ups and cool-downs after my runs including good stretches that was mildly painful. I started watching YouTube videos and educating myself on how I can achieve full split. At the end narrowed down to 5 exercises that I would try to stick to.
As couple months passed, I managed to get it to 32cm but that came with a huge cost. I overstretched several times and started to feel sudden and quick pain in the adductor magnus area of my legs. That would occur randomly during my runs be it in the beginning or in the middle of it. Sometimes the pain was so sever I would stop and do several slow squats to relieve the pain, shake my legs and then continue my running.
I stopped doing stretches for full split for several months as I was causing more damage to my ligaments with my exercises than helping my body be flexible. Perhaps I was impatient with my stretching routine as I try to flex them because by end of October, I managed to damage my hip flexors while doing lunge hip flexor exercise.
I kept the stretch for too long 🙈 Now when my adductor magnus was about to get fully recovered, I managed to earn another strain in this part of my hip flexors.
Throughout October to end of November, I tried to do several long runs only to find my strains come back hunting at me. By beginning of December Goal #3 of running a 100 miler seemed ❌impossible for 2023. I wasn’t far behind for another 10000 km. Running another 10000 km this year it was relatively easier compared to last year because last year by December I was doing almost 35km day.
One of the reasons behind so much running was that I tried to teach my legs, body and mind to run when they are tired. No matter what your running experience is, running 27km a day for 365 days straight, for 2 years, there will be some days when you feel super tired and exactly on those days you need to teach your legs and body to push yourself because running a 100 mile is not an easy task. You will surely get tired legs, body and mind and you will have to push yourself. I think running on those days have not only helped me to build aerobic capacity but also endurance and patience that needed.
Among other memorable things related to running during 2023:
Helped and coached several runners in their running journey
Organized several of trail running | hiking with team DAV.TJ 👇🏻
Trail runs | hiking in Shahriston and Fan mountains with family and friends 👇🏻
Visiting Sarez lake 👇🏻
Participated with team DAV.TJ in Samarkand marathon 👇🏻
Exploring Artuch loop via Ghazza with Wayne, Brian, John and Ozar (great things coming this year!)👇🏻
Team organizes another running campaign 16DaysOfActivism against gender based violence👇🏻
Team DAV.TJ inspires so many runners to finish their first half-marathons, marathons and ultra 👇🏻
Now it’s beginning of January 2024 and I am not giving up on my 100 miler and never will. I think I fell in love with running long distance and ultra runs, runs over 50K. I find peace in them. This year, I will be focusing more on building strengths through body-weight workouts, also known as calisthenics. I am gladly looking forward for finishing 100 miler and patiently working toward that goal.
Also this year, as my son Neki is growing I want to take him on my regular group runs. I want to dedicate more time to him running, hiking and doing sports together. He used to hate running. I remember when I first took him to our team DAV.TJ group run on Saturday morning, he hesitated to do warm up let alone running. He just sat in the car and looked at us like bunch of crazy guys. I celebrated and treated him with the things he loves and one Saturday after another, he started doing warm-ups, repeat them at home and run 1 km, 2km and now 3km. I want him to love sports as I know it will make him a better person in the future.
As we celebrate his small wins and steps, he is starting to love our group runs and can’t wait until Saturday. Before going to bed, he warms me to wake him up in the morning, despite 6 AM being a bit early then his usual wake up time. When I come to him and ask him: “Neki, do you want to go with me for group run?”, before I finish, he is already up as if he was not sleeping and waited all night long. He loves our runners. He has his favorites that he likes to hang around like Saodat and Bahodur. He looks at the Saturday picture posts in our Telegram channel DAV.TJ and asks me everyone’s name. He knows all runners by name regardless their from Dushanbe, Khujand, Tashkent or another place.
Another goal for this year is doing more trail runs in new locations - Ayni and Yaghnob areas. Last year (2023), my brother Firuz and I went for several trail runs together that was 20-30 km long, like the ones in Shahriston with couple mountain passes, where we climb up and eat our breakfast in the mountain pass looking over at the beautiful scenery.
Comparing 2022 with 2023, I managed to increase elevation gain by +12000 meters (one and a half mount Everest height). Lot’s of elevation gain and I love it.
TL;DR goals for 2024:
🎯Run 100 miler;
🎯Do more strength training through body-weight workouts
🎯Spend more time with my son and family doing running|sports
🎯More trail runs and elevation gain. Heck why not 100,000.00 meters of elevation gain this year.
Of course, running every day is not going anywhere 😎
What began as nothing more than a spark of a thought has now taken shape before us, alive and undeniable. We didn’t just imagine it, we lived it, we felt it, and we proved that a simple idea can become something powerful when we dare to believe in it. This journey reminds me that every dream starts quietly, almost invisibly, yet with courage, effort, and heart, it grows into something that touches our lives and inspires us to keep reaching for more.
At the top of the Double Pass (northern), my brother Firuz asked me about our estimated plan of when we will be reaching the finish. Based on the information we had, I said: “Best plan is we reach by 7 PM, given or taken plus/minus 1 hour.” Little I knew how things could go wrong so fast.
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