A 5 km run is a goal that I want to accomplish by running certain distances daily with a constant speed to boost up endurance, strength, agility, and body composition which contributes to my cardiovascular fitness. The components of fitness developed through running have various implications in daily activities and cumulatively contribute to a healthy lifestyle for me. At my first run, I could run 2 km at one go which is far away from the goal I want to accomplish which is why at least 2 months of daily practice would be required although it requires a minimum time of the day. I started my first day at 2 km and increased 100 meters every 2 days which is mandatory to reach the required threshold without succeeding the deadline. I run on a treadmill at the personal gym in my building where I will also collect all the evidence from. 

LO1

During the whole journey of running daily, I experienced several strengths and weaknesses. My strength was that I would not stop until my daily goal of distance was reached and I had the will to go on. I also had a weakness of not being able to run on a wavy and sloppy surface unlike that on the treadmill. This weakness limited my ability to replicate the progress I achieved on the treadmill to real life circumstances. I am happy that I am aware of my weaknesses as it has led to new solutions and contributed to my physique. If I distanced myself from these weaknesses, the desirable changes would not have occurred. It is important for us to be aware of our strengths and weaknesses in order to derive their usefulness in certain circumstances. It can give us leverage in activities we perform while it also can help in informed decision making. I would always work on my weaknesses as it paves the way for personal growth, instead of slowing down I started to run on a treadmill which forced me to maintain a constant speed. I overcame this weakness by alternatively running on treadmill as well as roads so that the body composition, agility and endurance I achieved could be replicated and utilised in other physical activities or processes. 

LO2

Running has never been my forte and I face many challenges. The prominent one being endurance as at start I could only run 40% of 5 km. I tackled this challenge through slowly increasing the distance so that endurance slowly advances throughout the process. The other problem I faced was body composition as after running my right part of the stomach would hurt a lot. I made sure this doesn’t repeat by adjusting the form with my trainer and ensuring it persists by putting the treadmill in front of a mirror. The reason these were so challenging is that instead of developing these components, I have suited my performance and lifestyle towards it causing it to become a habit. After overcoming this challenge, I felt that instead of adapting myself towards these challenges, these challenges should be overcome in order to achieve my maximum potential. It is important for me to undertake new challenges to discover the potential I can reach. New challenges can help me as an individual to undertake more new challenges, causing a feedback loop which contributes to my resistance towards any difficulty I face. 

LO4

Perseverance and commitment are critical to ensure that I complete the 5 km run. I had to commit to this process daily in order to see potential changes in my fitness; lack of persistence wouldn’t have the potential to bring about intensive changes. Perseverance was also necessary as according to me, everyday was a new day and I had to give it all regardless of my past failures and challenges. Although I did not have internal motivation due to my inability to run long distances, I reached my daily goals of distances and speeds everyday due knowing that every small goal will slowly make me come closer to my biggest achievement. I had to commit time and effort into this process. Focus and efforts were constantly needed so that running could create impactful changes on my fitness components and every aspect was perfection towards the nearest like body composition, speed, flaction, etc. showing perseverance and commitment contributes to stability and consistency regardless of the type of process or activity an individual performs. For me it is easy to commit myself as I am not only focused but also heavily desire beneficial results from whatever I participate in which is why displaying commitment and perseverance was not a challenge that I faced.  

Final Takeaway:

This CAS experience had no significance to external parties but was more focused on personal growth, mental well being and a healthy lifestyle. The learner profile attributes that I displayed were reflective and balanced. Due to covid lockdown, the physical state of my body had deteriorated and this activity created a medium to enjoy a balanced lifestyle with equal attention to physical wellbeing as well as mental wellbeing. I displayed the LP reflective through consistent evaluation of my progress as well as doing modifications in the aspects of running through communicating with my trainer. The highlight of this experience was seeing visible evidence of the progress I made. I could see my thighs losing fat, calves building and various other changes which stimulated the internal motivation to continue. This activity was a clear success as in 2 months, I had gone from 2 km runs to 5 km runs which was my initial goal and had been accomplished. This activity had surely given a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction as it justified the work I put in for 2 months and showed the development I brought about. I learned techniques to extend endurance like breathing and hydration techniques and ways to build body composition. I also learnt about the level of cardiovascular fitness and the different cooling down exercises to prevent injuries, succeeding running. This will mainly help me in physical activities that I tend to participate in but this knowledge can further be disseminated to the society to ensure their healthy lifestyle is retained in the long run. 

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