At the core of Pyllon is a belief that we can all learn from each other. The running experience level or backround in the sport doesn’t correlate directly with how useful a seemingly insignificant piece of advice or insight can be when it’s received at just the right time!
We are incredibly fortunate to work with athletes all over the world and we’re grateful when our passionate athletes share their experiences. This a blog by Arjit and he was happy to share it with the wider Pyllon family. Thanks Arjit!
Hi Team Pyllon, I am a Pyllonian from Australia and James Stewart is my coach. I am sharing with you a surreal experience I went through a few weeks ago. This blog is to share the lessons learnt.
A little background story
Last year I was inspired by a colleague at work who had set a Movember challenge to do progressive runs throughout the month i.e. 1km on 1st Nov, 2 kms on 2nd Nov…. 30 kms on 30th Nov. When I first heard about this challenge, I thought what a legend!
A few months later I thought the next step up from this challenge would be to do a half marathon every day for 30 days of the month. But then I really questioned the intent of setting up a challenge. Is the intent to outdo a hero from prior year till there is nothing left to outdo? Or is the intent to really create a lasting impact within the community?
Making Connections
In June this year, I visited my parents in India and while I was there connected with a few work colleagues in the Delhi office. After meeting with them, I thought can I come up with something that will help connect people throughout the global offices of the company I work for?
Inspired by previous Endeavour challenges, I worked out that I can possibly gather a team of 12 or so people globally. Assign each person 1 hour running in the morning and 1 hour in the evening. And we do this across time zones, we can ‘follow the sun around’ to achieve a 24-hour relay. Even better if we can do this for an entire week. So that was the challenge.
I came back to Australia in September and got to work. After several shameless cold emails to locations that I didn’t even know my company had an office, I was able to gather a team of 60 or so people. We launched the event on 21st Nov and successfully relayed till 28th Nov. Each hour of the day there was an employee pounding the pavement, a track or a treadmill somewhere in the world.
The main Lessons
Multiplier effect
Generally, 1+1 = 2. What we observed during the event that 1+1 turned out to be 5 or even 6. Let me explain how. We did this event to support Movember. Every time a participant left office or home to make it to their assigned slot, there was a conversation ‘I am doing this challenge within my company to support Movember. We are relaying 24 x 7 i.e. someone on the move at every hour of the day. We are doing this to support men’s health.’ The awareness this created was exponentially greater than an individual effort would create either by growing a Mo or by running 30 half marathons.
An insight into what the coaching team goes through
We organised the event over Whatsapp i.e. person who is turning up to a slot would call out next and the one after slot owner to keep the relay rolling. This happened possibly 25% of the time. It required a great deal of effort to keep the chain link intact. This made me realise how important it is to take ownership of our responses and communicate to our coaches
Your view of the world: Title vs grit
Company I work for is a mega company. We are a 12-layer organisation. There were 7 out of these 12 layers within the participant list. Very quickly people left their titles behind and got down to making it to their assigned slot. Common feedback from the participants during the event was that no other activity or platform provides such a connection within the company. It was fascinating to watch how people shifted their perspective within a day or two of the event.
Relationship with your coach
I would really recommend everyone to organise some sort of event that will take you out of your comfort zone for this specific reason. Your relationship with your coach will take a moon flight.
During the event, I saw myself speaking with the group as if its James’s weekly audio. At times my accent event changed from Indian to Scottish. Quite often it was James’s words and my mouth.
Spice for what next
When the event finished, there was a deep sense of fulfillment and at the same time a lingering melancholy that ending of a good thing brings. Two weeks after the event, the melancholy has turned into hunger. I am now in constant search of what spice to add for next year’s event.
Act responsibly
During the event I learnt that there is more to running than just follow the training plan or to get out of the bed and go for a run. I learnt to respect people’s time and personal limitations. Many times an assigned person didn’t turn up to the slot and I had to get out to fill the gap - twice during the week in the middle of the night. Instant reaction was to get frustrated though a perspective shift would suggest that it’s a slot for someone and it’s an event for me.
I didn’t quite understand Pyllon spirit before this event and I think I am only scratching the surface. There is more depth to discover though I realise it’s a journey.
Being in Australia, I naturally miss the connection that would happen if I were based in say the UK. I would love to connect with Pyllon athletes based in Australia / New Zealand or even Asia. My email is below.
If you have any questions on details of the event or would like to organise something similar, more than happy to share details, tips and tricks.
Contact is arjitgautam@gmail.com