Amateurfitathletic

24/11/2025

Desi run club does it again.

This time in Norwich, UK, we finished the half marathon drenched from rain and covered in dirt.

Congratulations to Adarsh on finishing his first long distance run. He overcame his mental barrier which was his biggest win.

07/11/2024

This is how my university looked today. It’s the perfect set-up to forget about the stress of end-term assignments.

06/08/2024

India’s biggest hope and expectation on the shoulders of this giant.

NEERAJ CHOPRA - THE BEAST HAS ARRIVED IN PARIS 🥶

18/04/2024

Almost after a decade of running my first half marathon, I recently rediscovered my affection for running. Outdoor running is quite unique in that it’s outdoors, self-propelled, grounded, translational — you are one with the environment around you. It’s these elements that keep pulling me away from my confined gym setting to tracks, parks, hills, and meadows. It’s magnetic. So much so that I recently signed up for a half marathon in Hastings.

Read the full article on my blog Amateur Fit Athletic:

https://open.substack.com/pub/vipinpt/p/am-i-missing-something-by-not-running?r=2qeu6n&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

(Link also in my story)

09/04/2024

Jack of all, master of diversity. Or call me a hybrid athlete.

Long ago, I used to view exercise with a narrow lens of cardio and strength training; now the lens is wide and I also keep changing the lens (perspective I mean).

None of us is an elite athlete, rather amateur yet keen fitness enthusiasts. This is a good thing, because being elite is extremely hard and it doesn’t guarantee long term fitness — but injuries are almost always guaranteed. Amateur is a sweet place to be in.

You can — you should — still chase athleticism, enjoy variety of exercises, play multiple sports, compete, and push boundaries once a while (by running a half marathon for example). Work on strength, endurance, mobility, stability, resilience and whatever fitness parameter that you think is important for you.

However, even as an amateur, what you can’t be is complacent.

06/04/2024

Which one are you?

Also what’s your experience either as a “weekend warrior” or as an “all-week-hustler”

This was a part of an “Exercise I.Q.” quiz in the , and I got this one wrong.

03/04/2024

There are lunges, also called pistol squats, done carrying a heavy weight overhead on a bosu ball (don’t ask me what’s the point) — hurts just imagining doing it I know. Then there are lunges which a one year old baby does, learning to get up from the floor, holding the mother’s fingers with one hand and a cradle edge with another.

There is a whole universe between these two. The trick, the key, is to determine which one suits you the best, i.e. provides you the most benefit.

Why not simply ditch lunges?
Because you need more diversity and more compound movements, not less, in order to be fit, to play, to perform better in life.

Find yourself somewhere in the below sequence:

1. No lunges
2. Climbing stairs
3. Less than body-weight lunges meaning lunges by holding on to a support such as a chair.
4. Body weight lunges
5. Body weight lunges with more than 3 sets
6. Step ups
7. Lunges with smaller weights
8. Lunges with smaller weights, more reps and sets
9. Lunges with bigger weights
10. Bulgarian lunges (done without alternating legs in one set)

Few months or years later, may be buy a bosu ball.

30/03/2024

One week later after my half marathon that left my calves sore for 3 days, it’s time to hasten the recovery. Yes, I don’t feel fully recovered yet, especially in my lower body.

Have patience, listen carefully to your body, and actively work on recovery. Don’t drag yourself just because you feel ‘okay’.

26/03/2024

On Sunday, I ran Hastings Half marathon, with a finish time of 1:54:28 which is almost the average finish time for men in the UK.

It’s a strange feeling to have completed what felt like a gruelling task with an average finish. I have not trained for long distances for a long long time now, my previous half marathon was in 2014 in Bangalore. This was a great opportunity to reflect how much (of my fitness and mindset) has changed in almost a decade.

As I sat down after the race with an extremely sore calves, I read that somewhere else on earth, a 40 year old woman (Jasmin Paris), completed a 100 mile run. She didn’t merely finish it, she did it in a record time (59 hours, 58 minutes, 21 secs). The mental fortitude it would’ve taken her to do that is unimaginable for the rest of us.

That news left me a bit more humble, and a bit less sore.