I ran the 21 km Mumbai half marathon on Sunday January 20, 2008. I completed it.
Mere words cannot, frankly, express the pride and joy I feel at having done it. This has been one of the tallest moments in my life in a long, long time. And as in all such cases, there is a story around it.
Sometime in June 06, I became conscious (after a lot of gentle and not-so-gentle ribbing by family and friends) that I was developing a significant tummy, brought on by generous helpings of food, alcohol and aided by a very sedentary lifestyle. Having had knock knees for a significant portion of my childhood, I had never really gotten into physical exercise of any sort. As I grew older, the knees sorted themselves out through physiotherapy but the excuse remained and I never knew what really I was capable of in terms of physical exercise.
Having discovered a treadmill in our colony in Bangalore, I started getting onto it. Every day I would run 1 km and feel good.
Life has a way of disguising opportunities as problems and my problem arose when I moved to Mumbai. The office has a gym but to stay back and use it would mean reaching home late, not a good idea when the distance anyway takes 75 minutes to cover. The building did not have a gym and I was wondering whether to buy a treadmill. Cost considerations prevailed and I pondered the second alternative, to run on the road. That did not seem very nice so I hit on the third best alternative, to run in a park nearby.
Almeida Park is a mere 2 minute walk from my place and is essentially a haunt of senior citizens before 6 am every morning. An entire round of the park is 300 metres. The first time I went there, I forced myself to run ten rounds, i.e. 3 kms.
I stopped ten times during that run and realised for the first time, how completely unfit I was. Gasping for breath at the end of each round, I swore that I would beat the run (rather than have it beat me). I had also started an aggressive diet program then, eating only salads for 3 days and then cutting out the sugar, ghee and butter completely from all my food.
Realising that I was lazy enough to stop if I gave myself an excuse to do so, the next resolve was to run every day. This presented unique challenges, for example, the day I had to leave home at 5 am to catch a train from CST at 6 am. I woke up at 330 am to run for 45 minutes .. the watchman in our building looked at me as if I was an apparition, when he saw me stepping out of the building at 345 am in a tracksuit. But was fortunately polite enough not to say anything.
After a month, I was doing 5 kms, stopping a few times, but doing it every day. Initially everyone had put down the idea to a fad, something that I would not doubt outgrow in a few weeks. Doing it for a month, I had begun to enjoy it and had also lost a kilo or two of weight in the process. Madhu started pushing me to see a doctor. I met the Company doctor, who confirmed that I could go ahead as long as I did not experience pain.
The first 2 months were chaotic, in the sense that right through the day, I used to keep taking very deep breaths (the running used to, for some strange reason, make me want to breathe very deeply). I also used to get very thirsty, easily drinking something like four litres of water every day. On the positive side, I used to sleep better and earlier and as a result, reduced socialising sharply (difficult to party if you are used to sleeping at 10 pm every day!!).
I also used to have sharp spells of demotivation, when I used to wonder why I was doing all this. At that point in time, in a discussion with a younger colleague, I learnt about the Mumbai Marathon and that it was held every year in January in Mumbai. We chatted up on it and I decided as a motivator, to set myself a goal to complete the Mumbai Half-Marathon in January 2008. Some of my friends thought I was a bit strange, since the Half Marathon is 21 kms and I was at that time doing barely 5 kms at a stretch in a run. No doubt they thought I was getting a bit soft in the head. I was actually a bit easy on myself, initially telling my friend that I my goal was to “participate” in the half marathon. He looked at me straight in the eye and said, “you could do that by running for five minutes and completing one km. Participation doesn’t mean much”. Suitably chastened, I adjusted it to “completing” the half Marathon.
The first sign I got that things were actually getting better were that by September, I was able to run 10 kms a day with a lot of rest intervals. By then, I had also lost enough weight (10 kgs, in fact!!) to need a brand new wardrobe, something I really enjoyed doing. Some of the reactions then were really cute – some of my older friends who were seeing me after a long time used to assume I was sick and ask me in hushed tones “are you all right?” while some of the more polite ones would make curious enquiries. In the office, people were just plain confused. One of my younger colleagues realised that I was serious about running when he saw the weight loss (incredibly good athlete himself) and served as a broadcast system, letting a whole lot of people know that “Sameer really runs a lot now”. Another one, pretty scared of physical exercise and never having done it all his 35 years, commented that I would wear out my knees and need knee replacement surgery in the next 5 years. I took that sage bit of advice with the humorous response it deserved, that since I was going to die someday as well, it made sense not to live today …
I then got a coach. Rather, Unilever gave me one. Savio D’Souza is a Olympic level marathoner who now trains people in running and trains a huge contingent from Unilever every year in long-distance running. He’s a very interesting trainer, who fits the classical mould of an irresistible force. He is warm, friendly and consistent and used to run with me. It only struck me later how frustrating it would have been for him – when I run with someone very much slower than me now, I have to remind myself that someone spent time on me as well. Aside from the physical fitness lessons, I also learnt some of the things that make long-distance running a ruggedly individualistic sport with some subtle rules:
1. stop to help someone who needs it
2. you must be able to speak while running. If you can’t speak, you are doing something wrong. Slow down.
3. never stop running once in the race. Running slowly is acceptable, stopping is not. Even walking is preferable to stopping.
4. you will never do the full distance in training. The idea is to come close to it but to keep the actual “full” run for the big day.
As the distances I covered increased, I stopped running every day. It was really too much anyway to try and run over ten kms every day. Ironically, by running every alternate day, I actually increased speed. Give the body time to recover and it responds much better. Every Sunday, I would run with Savio and slowly, the speeds improved. By mid-November, I was doing 13 kms at a stretch, and by end-November it had touched 15 kms.
Some interesting things were also happening at home. Smriti and Yash started developing a sudden interest in running, to the point where Madhu and I had to regulate their running a bit (overdoing it can do nasty things to a delicate system). Fortunately for them it was a fad that passed.
Recovering from the run was another slow process. I would typically run for about 75 minutes and it would then take another 90 minutes for the breathing and pulse rate to return to normal, with the result that I would be inactive for a while.
December was possibly the very worst month as far as my training went in the sense that I was not in Mumbai- travelling a lot. I spent two weeks in Jaipur on the ISABS program and that put paid to a significant bit of training. By then, the marathon had been announced for Jan 20. Applications were filled and routed through Unilever, which coordinates over 2000 entries directly with the sponsors (Chartered Bank). The Bank threw a shock – in the past five years, every year the event has been attracting increasing numbers of entries and it was now curtailing entries, upon request by the Police. Unilever in turn threw a fit when it discovered that last year, one person had run the half marathon without realising he had a severe case of arterial blockage (without symptoms) and the Company doctor mandated every participant to go through a medical exam.
Turned out to be more good news. I used to have a triglycerides problem – it is now normal. As for the stress test, I just got on to the treadmill and kept walking, 10 minutes into the test, when I had just about started breathing deeply, the doctor looked at me and said “are you into fitness?”. I grinned and said I run 15 kms every Sunday. I had to repeat that before he understood, and then increased the speed of the treadmill sharply …
And so, despite the Bank trying its best to curtail entries and Unilever insisting on medicals for everyone, I found my application accepted …
And the one Sunday before the marathon, I touched 17 kms. Now I was pretty sure I would do it, though not very sure how and in what shape. Chartered bank had very kindly put up a recreation centre at Azad Maidan and Unilever managers were invited there. Madhu and the kids decided that they would cheer me off to a start and wait for me to finish.
We reached at around 620 am for a 645 am start. The whole of Azad Maidan was buzzing and there was an air of anticipation. The start of the race in fact was a bit anti-climactic in that there were 8000 participants for the 21 km run and as a result, the first two kms were just a fast walk (the real running starts from the second km on).
There are stages to a Marathon (or any intensive long duration physical exercise, for that matter) in terms of emotions. These have been mapped and generally found to be applicable, though not universally true. They serve as a rough guide to inform that feelings can arise that you do not anticipate or understand fully. In the first stage, is excitement and exhilaration at the fact that I am commencing a challenging task. That is what happened at this stage.
The route also had a carnival air about it- music, announcements, and crowds cheering you on. Interestingly, Jan 20 was a very cold day by Mumbai standards. It was really good because it is easier to run in the cold than in heat!! And every 2 kms or so, there was a drinks counter that served water and Electral … good fun. I had by then also learnt the useful art of grabbing a small bottle from an outstretched hand, drinking and then throwing the bottle by the side, without reducing speed .. it is possibly the one time in the year when you can litter without guilt and in fact are expected to litter. The run was initially a blur. I just kept moving, recognising faces from Unilever and elsewhere, but just concentrating on getting the next step. At 2 kms, I smile at the stranger next to me and say “10% of the run is over”. He laughs as well and confirms, “10% is over”.
At this stage, I become aware that there is a great deal of work yet to be done. I am not frustrated or in awe, just conscious that I have just started out. There is a sense of challenge building up and I begin to activate the cerebral part of my being. I am trying to figure out how I am going to do this one. Humour and an acknowledgement of realities plays a role at this point.
One of my training partners kept pace with me for a while, then slowed down. Crossed Babulnath with ease and Mumbaikars on this list would know that that is the point at which the upward incline leading upto Peddar Road starts. As I ran up Peddar Road, I found myself slipping into a steady pace, enjoying the pace and the sights ….
For some time initially, thoughts and feelings align. I get into the rhythm of the run. Legs move repetitively, you remember the rules about where to hold your hands and the slight swing of the body that propels it forward. This is an important stage, however, it is deceptively shallow and short.
Sights, did I say? Yes. There was one guy dressed in a Spiderman costume (I am still not too sure why, but he was not in the race only for fun. He seemed to be running seriously). By the time we hit the 8th km, the potential winners of the race were doing the 15th (and were hence coming back and passing me in the opposite direction). For the record, Milind Soman is a great runner. I do remember thinking as I passed Haji Ali, that I never knew Worli Sea Face was such a long stretch. It just seemed to go on and on, not a pleasant feeling when you are running. I challenged myself and said that I would not stop till I had done half the distance and turned around. At Mela restaurant, we turned around.
Do you get what happened at this stage? You might have read between the lines. In order to make a stressful task bearable, I separate thought and feelings. I may not always be able to explain why and how this happened, or even what I felt just then (except for the physical sense of tiredness). So I report intelligently and intellectually, on what I “saw”. The mind is going into hyperdrive, measuring, calculating, recognising. It takes attention off the physical tiredness that is beginning to creep in. It challenges itself temporarily by setting artificial targets (“I will rest after the halfway mark is done”). It blocks off feelings, because to acknowledge tiredness and exhaustion at this stage will mean that I might slow down or stop, overwhelmed by the size of the task before me. The disconnect between thought and feeling is complete.
Strange thing there. On the way back, I actually reduced speed more often and was not so consistent in the speed. As a result, I thought it would have taken longer to come back than it did to go. Turned out to be the opposite, I took longer to cover the first half distance. I met up with Savio at some point on the way back and we chatted while running. That kind of kept my motivation high enough to cross 17 kms. At that point, I became conscious that I had now crossed my earlier personal best.
Feelings and thoughts begin to re-integrate in the next stage. How long will you ignore my tiredness, my body shouts at me. You are going to complete this, my mind argues. The training for long-distance running is not only about physical training. It also focuses on aligning body and mind to send consistent messages. So my mind gets kind on my body and says “yeah … at the next water pit, you may slow down for a minute. 60 seconds. Not one more. But till then, work with me”. And my body is grateful for the concession and does as it is told.
At 18 kms, I become aware that I have now done better than my earlier best. I feel good for barely a few seconds. Despondency kicks in. What am I doing this for, I asked myself. I could quit and stop now. I am 41 years old, not as young as I used to be and not as young as some of the people I see around me now.
As body and mind are aligned, thoughts and feelings have also aligned. The challenge is, I am now aware that I have pushed myself beyond accustomed limits. Also, I am now exploring territory that I never did before – and there is already a sense of achievement that is being created. Paradoxically, the sense becomes that since I am already achieving, I do not need to achieve in full. 18 kms is as much of an achievement as 21 kms, for me who has only done 17 before. Now the challenge is different. Earlier, I was using mind to negotiate with body and body to prove a point to mind. Now I need an integrated response, failing which I will succumb and fail.
And very quietly and peacefully, an image formed in my mind of my children. Their Dad is not a loser, I thought. He’s a winner who started out doing something for the first time in his life when he was 40. And then I started moving again.
The final stage is of resolve. The differences have been reconciled, the limits explored, the hesitation encountered, the anxiety confronted. I explore deep within myself and ask, what is it that I really want to do? And where does the energy come from? Steel comes into my eyes, I set my mouth in a line and mouth to myself, “I will make this happen in full. I will complete the half marathon”. Frankly I have not understood the imagery of my children, though I very much own the image. I always thought this was something I was doing for myself, with myself. I thought it was about doing something that I had never done before. Obviously the approval of my children means a lot to me.
Last three kms. I turn round the corner at Not Just Jazz By The Bay.
The crowd is now bigger, and the sense of euphoria in me builds. “You’ll do it!!” shouts a teenage boy. “I will”, I smile back at him.
With resolve comes confidence.
One of the most touching and in one way intriguing moments in the run happens a few seconds after that. Every 500 metres or so along the route, there are water stalls. A small family operates one such stall. They are very obviously poor. Their clothes and demeanour show it. The father has a collection of small mineral water bottles before him and his son clutches two, waiting for a runner to signal thirst.
I catch his eye. He would be all of ten years old, if at all. I jerk my fist to my mouth.
His eyes widen and he runs to his father. Runs back. Holds out a bottle. I grab it.
In some way I can’t fully fathom, I have impacted him. He has been watching me since 50 metres away, when I first signalled. Now, barely 5 metres away from him, I notice him looking up (and it is virtually up, at his height and our mutual proximity). He is not blinking. He is just looking at me.
“Thanks” I say and smile and he scampers back, to tell his father … what?
I observe more reflectively, contemplatively. I have outgrown the obsession about distance, speed, tiredness and all the rest of the noise.
At 2.5 kms to close, a trainer appears out of nowhere. I don’t know him, he is an appointed route guide. He is trying to motivate a man before me, who has apparently given up and is walking along leisurely. “Come on, man. Only half a kilometre more. You’ve almost done it. You cant’ give up now.” It seems to work. The man starts running.
Liar, I think. It’s not anything less than 2 kms. I wonder how that guy will react when he realises that it’s actually not half a km. But I am doing this in a very matter of fact way, I’m not excited or worked up about the plainly manipulative style. It’s just something I have observed, en route to my goal.
Incidentally, the man who was walking before me does realise that the distance is significantly more than 500 metres, and resumes the leisurely pace. I overtake him soon after. He notices a friend along the boundary lines and stops for a conversation.
I can hear the noise at the podium long before I see it. The mayor of Mumbai and John Abraham are welcoming all the participants back. I can see the crowd gathering. There’s a band playing. Water, food. I am 500 meters away.
I notice a digital clock above the welcome arch, announcing the time in hours, minutes and seconds.
At exactly 2 hours and 29 minutes, I pass under the arch. I have done it. Adjusting for the fact that the clock started before I passed the start line, my time chip has recorded that I took 2 hours and 26 minutes to cover 21.067 kms.
Madhu and the children are waiting for me. It’s an incredibly heady moment. “You did it!!!” is what all of them have to say. We head off the to the Chartered Bank pavilion for snacks, drinks, entertainment …
Mere words cannot, frankly, express the pride and joy I feel at having done it. This has been one of the tallest moments in my life in a long, long time. And as in all such cases, there is a story around it.
Sometime in June 06, I became conscious (after a lot of gentle and not-so-gentle ribbing by family and friends) that I was developing a significant tummy, brought on by generous helpings of food, alcohol and aided by a very sedentary lifestyle. Having had knock knees for a significant portion of my childhood, I had never really gotten into physical exercise of any sort. As I grew older, the knees sorted themselves out through physiotherapy but the excuse remained and I never knew what really I was capable of in terms of physical exercise.
Having discovered a treadmill in our colony in Bangalore, I started getting onto it. Every day I would run 1 km and feel good.
Life has a way of disguising opportunities as problems and my problem arose when I moved to Mumbai. The office has a gym but to stay back and use it would mean reaching home late, not a good idea when the distance anyway takes 75 minutes to cover. The building did not have a gym and I was wondering whether to buy a treadmill. Cost considerations prevailed and I pondered the second alternative, to run on the road. That did not seem very nice so I hit on the third best alternative, to run in a park nearby.
Almeida Park is a mere 2 minute walk from my place and is essentially a haunt of senior citizens before 6 am every morning. An entire round of the park is 300 metres. The first time I went there, I forced myself to run ten rounds, i.e. 3 kms.
I stopped ten times during that run and realised for the first time, how completely unfit I was. Gasping for breath at the end of each round, I swore that I would beat the run (rather than have it beat me). I had also started an aggressive diet program then, eating only salads for 3 days and then cutting out the sugar, ghee and butter completely from all my food.
Realising that I was lazy enough to stop if I gave myself an excuse to do so, the next resolve was to run every day. This presented unique challenges, for example, the day I had to leave home at 5 am to catch a train from CST at 6 am. I woke up at 330 am to run for 45 minutes .. the watchman in our building looked at me as if I was an apparition, when he saw me stepping out of the building at 345 am in a tracksuit. But was fortunately polite enough not to say anything.
After a month, I was doing 5 kms, stopping a few times, but doing it every day. Initially everyone had put down the idea to a fad, something that I would not doubt outgrow in a few weeks. Doing it for a month, I had begun to enjoy it and had also lost a kilo or two of weight in the process. Madhu started pushing me to see a doctor. I met the Company doctor, who confirmed that I could go ahead as long as I did not experience pain.
The first 2 months were chaotic, in the sense that right through the day, I used to keep taking very deep breaths (the running used to, for some strange reason, make me want to breathe very deeply). I also used to get very thirsty, easily drinking something like four litres of water every day. On the positive side, I used to sleep better and earlier and as a result, reduced socialising sharply (difficult to party if you are used to sleeping at 10 pm every day!!).
I also used to have sharp spells of demotivation, when I used to wonder why I was doing all this. At that point in time, in a discussion with a younger colleague, I learnt about the Mumbai Marathon and that it was held every year in January in Mumbai. We chatted up on it and I decided as a motivator, to set myself a goal to complete the Mumbai Half-Marathon in January 2008. Some of my friends thought I was a bit strange, since the Half Marathon is 21 kms and I was at that time doing barely 5 kms at a stretch in a run. No doubt they thought I was getting a bit soft in the head. I was actually a bit easy on myself, initially telling my friend that I my goal was to “participate” in the half marathon. He looked at me straight in the eye and said, “you could do that by running for five minutes and completing one km. Participation doesn’t mean much”. Suitably chastened, I adjusted it to “completing” the half Marathon.
The first sign I got that things were actually getting better were that by September, I was able to run 10 kms a day with a lot of rest intervals. By then, I had also lost enough weight (10 kgs, in fact!!) to need a brand new wardrobe, something I really enjoyed doing. Some of the reactions then were really cute – some of my older friends who were seeing me after a long time used to assume I was sick and ask me in hushed tones “are you all right?” while some of the more polite ones would make curious enquiries. In the office, people were just plain confused. One of my younger colleagues realised that I was serious about running when he saw the weight loss (incredibly good athlete himself) and served as a broadcast system, letting a whole lot of people know that “Sameer really runs a lot now”. Another one, pretty scared of physical exercise and never having done it all his 35 years, commented that I would wear out my knees and need knee replacement surgery in the next 5 years. I took that sage bit of advice with the humorous response it deserved, that since I was going to die someday as well, it made sense not to live today …
I then got a coach. Rather, Unilever gave me one. Savio D’Souza is a Olympic level marathoner who now trains people in running and trains a huge contingent from Unilever every year in long-distance running. He’s a very interesting trainer, who fits the classical mould of an irresistible force. He is warm, friendly and consistent and used to run with me. It only struck me later how frustrating it would have been for him – when I run with someone very much slower than me now, I have to remind myself that someone spent time on me as well. Aside from the physical fitness lessons, I also learnt some of the things that make long-distance running a ruggedly individualistic sport with some subtle rules:
1. stop to help someone who needs it
2. you must be able to speak while running. If you can’t speak, you are doing something wrong. Slow down.
3. never stop running once in the race. Running slowly is acceptable, stopping is not. Even walking is preferable to stopping.
4. you will never do the full distance in training. The idea is to come close to it but to keep the actual “full” run for the big day.
As the distances I covered increased, I stopped running every day. It was really too much anyway to try and run over ten kms every day. Ironically, by running every alternate day, I actually increased speed. Give the body time to recover and it responds much better. Every Sunday, I would run with Savio and slowly, the speeds improved. By mid-November, I was doing 13 kms at a stretch, and by end-November it had touched 15 kms.
Some interesting things were also happening at home. Smriti and Yash started developing a sudden interest in running, to the point where Madhu and I had to regulate their running a bit (overdoing it can do nasty things to a delicate system). Fortunately for them it was a fad that passed.
Recovering from the run was another slow process. I would typically run for about 75 minutes and it would then take another 90 minutes for the breathing and pulse rate to return to normal, with the result that I would be inactive for a while.
December was possibly the very worst month as far as my training went in the sense that I was not in Mumbai- travelling a lot. I spent two weeks in Jaipur on the ISABS program and that put paid to a significant bit of training. By then, the marathon had been announced for Jan 20. Applications were filled and routed through Unilever, which coordinates over 2000 entries directly with the sponsors (Chartered Bank). The Bank threw a shock – in the past five years, every year the event has been attracting increasing numbers of entries and it was now curtailing entries, upon request by the Police. Unilever in turn threw a fit when it discovered that last year, one person had run the half marathon without realising he had a severe case of arterial blockage (without symptoms) and the Company doctor mandated every participant to go through a medical exam.
Turned out to be more good news. I used to have a triglycerides problem – it is now normal. As for the stress test, I just got on to the treadmill and kept walking, 10 minutes into the test, when I had just about started breathing deeply, the doctor looked at me and said “are you into fitness?”. I grinned and said I run 15 kms every Sunday. I had to repeat that before he understood, and then increased the speed of the treadmill sharply …
And so, despite the Bank trying its best to curtail entries and Unilever insisting on medicals for everyone, I found my application accepted …
And the one Sunday before the marathon, I touched 17 kms. Now I was pretty sure I would do it, though not very sure how and in what shape. Chartered bank had very kindly put up a recreation centre at Azad Maidan and Unilever managers were invited there. Madhu and the kids decided that they would cheer me off to a start and wait for me to finish.
We reached at around 620 am for a 645 am start. The whole of Azad Maidan was buzzing and there was an air of anticipation. The start of the race in fact was a bit anti-climactic in that there were 8000 participants for the 21 km run and as a result, the first two kms were just a fast walk (the real running starts from the second km on).
There are stages to a Marathon (or any intensive long duration physical exercise, for that matter) in terms of emotions. These have been mapped and generally found to be applicable, though not universally true. They serve as a rough guide to inform that feelings can arise that you do not anticipate or understand fully. In the first stage, is excitement and exhilaration at the fact that I am commencing a challenging task. That is what happened at this stage.
The route also had a carnival air about it- music, announcements, and crowds cheering you on. Interestingly, Jan 20 was a very cold day by Mumbai standards. It was really good because it is easier to run in the cold than in heat!! And every 2 kms or so, there was a drinks counter that served water and Electral … good fun. I had by then also learnt the useful art of grabbing a small bottle from an outstretched hand, drinking and then throwing the bottle by the side, without reducing speed .. it is possibly the one time in the year when you can litter without guilt and in fact are expected to litter. The run was initially a blur. I just kept moving, recognising faces from Unilever and elsewhere, but just concentrating on getting the next step. At 2 kms, I smile at the stranger next to me and say “10% of the run is over”. He laughs as well and confirms, “10% is over”.
At this stage, I become aware that there is a great deal of work yet to be done. I am not frustrated or in awe, just conscious that I have just started out. There is a sense of challenge building up and I begin to activate the cerebral part of my being. I am trying to figure out how I am going to do this one. Humour and an acknowledgement of realities plays a role at this point.
One of my training partners kept pace with me for a while, then slowed down. Crossed Babulnath with ease and Mumbaikars on this list would know that that is the point at which the upward incline leading upto Peddar Road starts. As I ran up Peddar Road, I found myself slipping into a steady pace, enjoying the pace and the sights ….
For some time initially, thoughts and feelings align. I get into the rhythm of the run. Legs move repetitively, you remember the rules about where to hold your hands and the slight swing of the body that propels it forward. This is an important stage, however, it is deceptively shallow and short.
Sights, did I say? Yes. There was one guy dressed in a Spiderman costume (I am still not too sure why, but he was not in the race only for fun. He seemed to be running seriously). By the time we hit the 8th km, the potential winners of the race were doing the 15th (and were hence coming back and passing me in the opposite direction). For the record, Milind Soman is a great runner. I do remember thinking as I passed Haji Ali, that I never knew Worli Sea Face was such a long stretch. It just seemed to go on and on, not a pleasant feeling when you are running. I challenged myself and said that I would not stop till I had done half the distance and turned around. At Mela restaurant, we turned around.
Do you get what happened at this stage? You might have read between the lines. In order to make a stressful task bearable, I separate thought and feelings. I may not always be able to explain why and how this happened, or even what I felt just then (except for the physical sense of tiredness). So I report intelligently and intellectually, on what I “saw”. The mind is going into hyperdrive, measuring, calculating, recognising. It takes attention off the physical tiredness that is beginning to creep in. It challenges itself temporarily by setting artificial targets (“I will rest after the halfway mark is done”). It blocks off feelings, because to acknowledge tiredness and exhaustion at this stage will mean that I might slow down or stop, overwhelmed by the size of the task before me. The disconnect between thought and feeling is complete.
Strange thing there. On the way back, I actually reduced speed more often and was not so consistent in the speed. As a result, I thought it would have taken longer to come back than it did to go. Turned out to be the opposite, I took longer to cover the first half distance. I met up with Savio at some point on the way back and we chatted while running. That kind of kept my motivation high enough to cross 17 kms. At that point, I became conscious that I had now crossed my earlier personal best.
Feelings and thoughts begin to re-integrate in the next stage. How long will you ignore my tiredness, my body shouts at me. You are going to complete this, my mind argues. The training for long-distance running is not only about physical training. It also focuses on aligning body and mind to send consistent messages. So my mind gets kind on my body and says “yeah … at the next water pit, you may slow down for a minute. 60 seconds. Not one more. But till then, work with me”. And my body is grateful for the concession and does as it is told.
At 18 kms, I become aware that I have now done better than my earlier best. I feel good for barely a few seconds. Despondency kicks in. What am I doing this for, I asked myself. I could quit and stop now. I am 41 years old, not as young as I used to be and not as young as some of the people I see around me now.
As body and mind are aligned, thoughts and feelings have also aligned. The challenge is, I am now aware that I have pushed myself beyond accustomed limits. Also, I am now exploring territory that I never did before – and there is already a sense of achievement that is being created. Paradoxically, the sense becomes that since I am already achieving, I do not need to achieve in full. 18 kms is as much of an achievement as 21 kms, for me who has only done 17 before. Now the challenge is different. Earlier, I was using mind to negotiate with body and body to prove a point to mind. Now I need an integrated response, failing which I will succumb and fail.
And very quietly and peacefully, an image formed in my mind of my children. Their Dad is not a loser, I thought. He’s a winner who started out doing something for the first time in his life when he was 40. And then I started moving again.
The final stage is of resolve. The differences have been reconciled, the limits explored, the hesitation encountered, the anxiety confronted. I explore deep within myself and ask, what is it that I really want to do? And where does the energy come from? Steel comes into my eyes, I set my mouth in a line and mouth to myself, “I will make this happen in full. I will complete the half marathon”. Frankly I have not understood the imagery of my children, though I very much own the image. I always thought this was something I was doing for myself, with myself. I thought it was about doing something that I had never done before. Obviously the approval of my children means a lot to me.
Last three kms. I turn round the corner at Not Just Jazz By The Bay.
The crowd is now bigger, and the sense of euphoria in me builds. “You’ll do it!!” shouts a teenage boy. “I will”, I smile back at him.
With resolve comes confidence.
One of the most touching and in one way intriguing moments in the run happens a few seconds after that. Every 500 metres or so along the route, there are water stalls. A small family operates one such stall. They are very obviously poor. Their clothes and demeanour show it. The father has a collection of small mineral water bottles before him and his son clutches two, waiting for a runner to signal thirst.
I catch his eye. He would be all of ten years old, if at all. I jerk my fist to my mouth.
His eyes widen and he runs to his father. Runs back. Holds out a bottle. I grab it.
In some way I can’t fully fathom, I have impacted him. He has been watching me since 50 metres away, when I first signalled. Now, barely 5 metres away from him, I notice him looking up (and it is virtually up, at his height and our mutual proximity). He is not blinking. He is just looking at me.
“Thanks” I say and smile and he scampers back, to tell his father … what?
I observe more reflectively, contemplatively. I have outgrown the obsession about distance, speed, tiredness and all the rest of the noise.
At 2.5 kms to close, a trainer appears out of nowhere. I don’t know him, he is an appointed route guide. He is trying to motivate a man before me, who has apparently given up and is walking along leisurely. “Come on, man. Only half a kilometre more. You’ve almost done it. You cant’ give up now.” It seems to work. The man starts running.
Liar, I think. It’s not anything less than 2 kms. I wonder how that guy will react when he realises that it’s actually not half a km. But I am doing this in a very matter of fact way, I’m not excited or worked up about the plainly manipulative style. It’s just something I have observed, en route to my goal.
Incidentally, the man who was walking before me does realise that the distance is significantly more than 500 metres, and resumes the leisurely pace. I overtake him soon after. He notices a friend along the boundary lines and stops for a conversation.
I can hear the noise at the podium long before I see it. The mayor of Mumbai and John Abraham are welcoming all the participants back. I can see the crowd gathering. There’s a band playing. Water, food. I am 500 meters away.
I notice a digital clock above the welcome arch, announcing the time in hours, minutes and seconds.
At exactly 2 hours and 29 minutes, I pass under the arch. I have done it. Adjusting for the fact that the clock started before I passed the start line, my time chip has recorded that I took 2 hours and 26 minutes to cover 21.067 kms.
Madhu and the children are waiting for me. It’s an incredibly heady moment. “You did it!!!” is what all of them have to say. We head off the to the Chartered Bank pavilion for snacks, drinks, entertainment …
