Culture, Women
The culture that I come from doesn’t celebrate females and sports
My name is Rav. I’m an almost 40 year old mum of 3! I have a really busy work life and running really is my “me time”.
My running journey from someone who didn’t even own a pair of flat shoes let alone trainers 3 years ago to someone who is now over 725 consecutive days of running a minimum of 5k a day and I am training for my first marathon in London this April!
As someone who has avoided all forms of exercise for almost my entire life, I cannot recommend daily exercise enough. To be honest it’s not really been about losing weight or being able to eat what I want. I don’t view exercise as a form of punishment and nor do I see food as the enemy anymore. After almost starving myself for most of my teenage and university years, I don’t believe in fad diets at all. The impact of daily exercise is far wider reaching than just the physical changes we hope for.
Last May 2017 I took the plunge and decided to do my first run outside in over 15 years. I’ve struggled with body confidence my entire life so I wore a baseball cap, an oversized loose T shirt and running leggings and prayed that no one in my village would recognise me and mock my silly attempt at running. To my surprise no one batted an eyelid. I was slow, I was full of nerves leaving the house but I enjoyed it so much! There’s not many things that can beat the post run buzz!
What has been really interesting about sharing my running journey online are the number of other runners, but specifically women runners, that I have connected with. I get several messages from female runners every day where they share their running struggles and will mention that seeing that I manage to get out there every day inspires them to find the time a few times a week to get out too. It’s a great gift to be able to support another new female runner on her running journey too.
In fact the best compliment I’ve had since I started my running was a few weeks ago and a running male friend said he loved how I was trailblaizing the path for more Asian females to take up running. He had mentioned me to another Asian girl he worked with and soon she started following me too. She’s now taken up couch to 5k!
Whilst there are a number of awesome Asian female runners on the various social media platforms, it’s still not common place. The culture that I come from doesn’t celebrate females and sports so much. It’s actually the best feeling showing my daughters that they can break those barriers down too and there’s no stigma attached to them doing it from me.
I never set out to inspire anyone as I believe we all inspire others in some way, but to hear that I’m helping breaking the stereotype!
Happy International Womens day to all of the women who are runners and thank you to all of the male runners who support us and the support we get from families to enable us to keep on doing this sport we so love.
