8 Lessons learnt from indulging into sports for recreation

It’s been three years that I have been seeking recreation in outdoor and adventure sports. It all began when my health started going down south in mid of 2017. I started with short walks to run, then bike (cycling) and then unlearn and learn to swim. Over time I swam in Open waters and moved on to road/race bike. I have been a recreational triathlete for more than 2 years now. Started 2020 by learning to fly — did an intermediate Paragliding pilot course.

I have begun embracing sports over time. I learned a lot of new life lessons and few old ones that got testified.

The following lessons could be helpful in day to day life:

1. Set clear outcomes from a goal with a long term vision
2. Being consistent
3. Try simple solutions to achieve similar outcomes
4. Being patient and amenable
5. Weather isn’t bad, It’s just sporty
6. Watch and learn
7. Avoid trepidation to sink in
8. Being in the present moment to avoid “Target Fixation”

#1. Set clear outcomes from a goal with a long term vision:

Having clear outcomes is one of the crucial aspects, like running a 10k under 1 hr in 6 months without any injuries. That’s right, the last part “without injuries” needs the additional effort of building core strength, conditioning, nutrition, and most important — rest. This means if you need 7 or 8 months instead of 6 months, remember that isn’t a compromise. Just running miles might just work to achieve the goal for the short term but is dangerous for the long term.

These days it’s too common to hear like 100 days of running challenges. A lot of recreational athletes land up falling into such traps without assessing current form, core strength, and the fatigue that it would take on one’s body. I am too guilty of setting a self 40-day running goal to compensate for the miles and form lost during the lock-down. Just to make it worse, I injured my Achilles tendon on the 24th day.

Setting a personal goal helps and works like a lighthouse for most of them. I realized I was a goal-driven person myself and performed well when I set my personal and professional goals.

From an organization’s perspective, it’s a milestone in a company’s long term vision. Most of the time, the outcomes are not explicitly talked about, and focus is high on just reaching goals. It leads to teams burning out and “injuries” as well, which can have a hard-hitting impact on long term vision of the company.

#2. Being consistent:

The best part about any sport is that you can feel and measure your form/fitness dropping when you stop being consistent or overdo (Thanks to the smart/sports watch and gears that capture and analyze a ton of data points). Last year while prepping for Ironman 70.3, I could see a great deal of progress and maintaining fitness by simply devoting 30 mins for an exercise during non-weekend days during 4 months (July to Oct 2019) before my Ironman 70.3 race on 20th Oct 2019. You can read more about it here: My Journey to Ironman 70.3

Training Status Data (July — Oct 2019) from my Garmin multisport watch. These 4 months I was consistent except for the patch of 10–12 days in August when I wasn't well. Had a viral infection, even a 30 min exercise post-viral took a toll on my body. I could clearly feel fatigued and data validated it. Had to rebuild with smaller intervals and proper rest. The last month was the best, had maintained my fitness and was all geared for the race.

When learning a new skill/technology/research, working on it over a span of time helps to gain and establish expertise that lasts for a longer duration as some of the concepts are now part of your second nature/brain.

Participating in hackathons for X technology gets you off the ground in less time, but if you are not consistently working on post hackathons, it would be of lesser or no use.

#3. Try simple solutions to achieve similar outcomes:

Triathlon is an expensive sport, is what you would hear from most of the recreational triathletes. It, of course, has a higher cost as it involves three sports (Swimming, Cycling, and Running), making it expensive is up to an individual.

A lot of athletes go for upgrades that they won’t even benefit or can have alternatives too. To cite an example, a lot of entry-level athletes go for lightweight bikes that have carbon frames that cost a bomb. They forget that a lot of pounds can be shed from their body instead of their wallet. This applies to entry-level / recreational athletes and not professionals, for whom these are made as their body has almost been optimized, they operate in a different environment/state. Here is a good article talking in great details about the benefits of upgrades - Bike weight and the myth of ‘fast’ bikes.

In technology, there is a lot of hoopla around new emerging tech, Like so and so companies used X technology and scaled Y users. Most of the time you would fall for those and implement just to realize that it has made it worse, resulting in loss of time, money, bloated software, and hampering TAT on adding new features in the product. Be cognizant of the implications and assessing the state.

Upgrade when you have exhausted all the solutions at hand.

#4. Being patient and amenable:

In Paragliding, ever-changing wind conditions are fun and also dull sometimes. There are times you spend hours just waiting (Also known as Parawaiting in the paragliding community) for better weather/wind conditions to take off (“Better” is Subjective, will be addressed shortly). Impatience can sometimes lead to a mishap.

Our day to day life in cities has spoiled us in many ways. We are impatient from ordering food online till it gets delivered at the doorstep; relentless honking to get moving in a traffic jam. In Paragliding, you just need to be patient till weather becomes good enough that your “gut” feels poised to take-off.

Accepting that you aren’t in control of the situation helps you maintain composure and focus for a good flight. A lot of this can be applied to our real-life situations :)

Here is my blog on my paragliding pilot course.

#5. Weather isn’t bad, It’s just sporty:

Be it swimming in the ocean or flying in the mountains, risk assessment and management is a significant part of these sports. You are continually gauging risk to reward quotients and basing your decisions on them.

Sporty weather conditions for one can be simply an ideal open door for an adventurer to hone new skills.

I personally started to like some chop and swells while swimming in the sea/ocean. It sort creates a swinging effect physically, I enjoy it while focusing on my strokes, it gets me into a calm/meditative state.

A bit off-topic, there are quite a lot who like the sea to be wild/choppy and for a different reason. The person gives their perspective about swimming in the wild/choppy sea.

#6. Watch and learn:

During my paragliding pilot course, when I wasn’t flying, I would be spending time at take-off or landing area. I attribute most of the learnings by watching others fly. I tried to understand the pros and cons of their flight and then hear the instructors say on the radio about the flight. Over the course, I got better at analyzing flights.

It reminds me of Warren Buffet’s quote (That I read on the internet, not sure if its his, but a good one indeed) — “It’s good to learn from your mistakes. It’s better to learn from other people’s mistakes.”.

Even if you do fewer flights comparatively, it will help you do quality ones. That indirectly enhances your learning and skills.

#7. Avoid trepidation to sink in:

There are times when a failed take-off/landing or an injury/mishap leads to losing confidence and fear starts to sink in. These are the worst enemies in such extreme adventure sports.

One of the instructors at the Paragliding course was a paratrooper in the Indian Army. He shared about some practices followed by their regiment. He said, when some soldier dies from a para jump, the whole battalion does a para-jump in the next hour. It just ensures that the fear doesn’t sink in. It holds for a lot of real-life situations.

One way to deal with fears is to go head-on with your fears/worries.

#8. Being in the present moment to avoid “Target Fixation”:

During my paragliding pilot course (Jan 2020), there were incidents when the instructor on the radio talked about the target to be avoided and bam the pilots hit them as perfectly as they were the destination. What happened with them is generally called target fixation.

This is one example of TF. Can happen to anyone. :) . Courtesy: Imgur

Target fixation is an attentional phenomenon observed in humans in which an individual becomes so focused on an observed object (be it a target or hazard) that they inadvertently increase their risk of colliding with the item. (More examples of Target Fixation).

I did experience this a few months later (In March 2020, while I was flying near Pune). In Paragliding, it helps by visualizing an obstacle-free path while flying. During landing, you can avoid TF by focusing on the exact spot you need to ground.

After about 40 mins into the flight, I started to descend. While approaching the landing area, I had planned an S turn as marked in the right side image as L1 Or would straight head to L2 landing. The landing area in charge called out on radio and asked me to watch out for the tree (marked as T on the image above). The moment he said to watch out the tree, my whole focus then shifted there, I remember for a brief second — A thought that I could fly over the tree and just touch my feet on the top branches before landing flashed in my mind :D. Not sure how those adventures thoughts came in. A minute later I was just doing that :P. The landing in charge on the radio kept warning, I was so much engrossed, I could not really process his warnings. Finally, when I approached the tree, and my foot touched the branches, my leg got stuck in one of the branches at the tip end for a brief second. My glider overshot but I managed to pull my leg out and had a hard landing. I was lucky to not get hurt (Also the tree was about 15 feet high), just a whiplash.

An earlier landing of mine into Landing area L1. You can see the trees clearly. My foot got stuck in one of the branches of the second tree.

In our daily life as well, we sometimes get fixated on things/people that we need to avoid and bam we land up in a conflict with it/them. Being in the moment and focusing about your priorities helps to prevent such situations :)