If I am still standing at the end of the race, hit me with a board and knock me down, because that means I didn’t run hard enough.

— Steve Jones.

ADHM is home turf. It’s the race where I set myself formidable targets and achieve them. In every attempt I am significantly faster and end up moving ahead in the starting line-up. This year too I was remarkably faster than my previous attempt and scored a new personal best.

There was one thing different this time. I fell short of my time target and a line-up jump. Short by fifty three seconds.

At the end of the race I spent a few minutes at the finish line holding on to a railing as I gasped for breath. Upon regaining my composure I walked ahead to collect the medal along with refreshments, and occupied a spot by myself on a stair case. It’s terribly difficult to eat immediately after a hard run, but it’s also crucial for a speedy recovery. So I forced the food down my throat, and as I did that I recollected my entire run and the activities preceding the race—

• At about 300m to finish I took a walk-break for a few seconds. Another one about 500m to finish, one about 700m to finish, at the 20th km, at 19.5 kms and at 19.2 kms. The final push was painful, but I could’ve possibly ignored the pain.
• At the 18th km I was on the verge of falling behind my target pace. I pushed harder in panic. Could’ve possibly held my nerve.
• At 17.5 kms I reached out for water and briefly paused to drop the bottle into the bin. Could’ve possibly endured the thirst.
• At around 16.5 kms a fellow runner asked me for the time. I switched my sports watch screen thrice to answer her. Could’ve politely refused her.
• Right before the 16th km, in front of India Gate, I took a sly cut across the runners to get myself captured by the official photographers. Could’ve ignored them.
• Between the 11th and the 16th km I took occasional 30-sec walk-breaks and let my first half advantage slip away. At the 14th km, right after the timing mat, a runner tapped on my shoulder and egged me to push myself. I thanked her and resumed running. I thought I’d be able to cover up for these walk-breaks later. Could’ve possibly been on my toes during this segment.
• Right after the 8th km I mistook an orange coloured sponsor board for an energy station. I prematurely slowed in anticipation. Could’ve possibly been more careful.
• At the 3rd km I took my first walk-break. Keeping up with the 2 hr pacer was getting tough. Could’ve possibly stuck along until the 5th km.
• In the holding area the 2:10 pacers went ahead in the crowd and I couldn’t be with them at the start. A 2 hr pacer was close so I chose to hang around him. Instead could’ve possibly paced myself at the start.
• Prior to the start, I was a tad casual with the pre-race warm up. Could’ve been more sincere.
• Chose to skip the Snickers bar in the morning, something I’ve always eaten before my races. Thought a couple of bananas would be fine.
• Spent the evening before at Weekender. It was too close to home to skip. Mostly sat around. Didn’t dance. Tried resting myself as much as I could. However I stood through the A.R. Rahman gig and also breathed in a fair amount of smoke (in spite of wearing a dust mask).
• In the week leading up to the race I cheated on a couple of strength workouts. Also the last easy run.
• In the month leading up to the race most of my long runs were on flat easy roads. Could’ve trained on the undulating Gurgaon Faridabad Expressway instead.
• In the months leading up to the race I didn’t adopt a training plan. Nor did I make a sincere effort to shed some weight.

A couple of seconds faster each kilometre is all that was needed and I screwed up so many times. This was the worst I’ve ever felt after completing a race. I wanted to cry, but my eyes wouldn’t tear. Perhaps the glands were dehydrated. I wished someone would hit me with a board and knock me down.

All this while I had imagined that losing on home turf must be a shameful feeling for a sportsperson. That ManU players would be embarrassed to lose at the Old Tafford. That the Brazilians must be ashamed of losing to the Germans in the 2014 FIFA World Cup semis. But now I think the most intense feeling isn’t that of shame. It’s grief.

Much grief.

I live in a world where one is trained from a very young age to exhibit courtesy (or gratitude) through gifts. This is ingrained so deep in the society that on many occasions gifts have become a thoughtless obligation. It is often considered rude to not carry something. Receiving gifts during such obligatory occasions feels redundant, and conversely I feel pretty helpless when I’m forced to decide a gift for someone. Rarely am I able to come up with something that’ll suit the occasion, match the expectations and most importantly, make me happy and proud.

My parents have religiously purchased a gift on every such occasion. They always considered a few possible options and typically went for the most convenient one. In rare cases — for the closest friends and family — they planned far in advance and went out of their way to purchase a well thought gift. They further ensured that the marked price was scratched out from the package. In contrast, the norm across North India is to gift cash. It’s convenient, requires little thinking and gives the recipient a choice to buy what he / she wants (or needs). It’s like a “gift card” valid across every store. These cash gifts are popularly referred as shagun (a good omen), and the amount typically ends in ‘1’ which makes the value auspicious for reasons best known to no one. In fact, as I was growing up, cash gifts gave birth to an entire industry of coin envelopes which have a Re 1 coin pasted on them — more convenience for fulfilling obligations.

Cash gifts were a rare occurrence in my family, usually limited to informal meetings where the well-wisher and the recipient (typically a kid) were divided by a generation gap (or two). For example, if someone visited their relatives after a very long time, they’d usually give some money to the kids — say, the grandchildren or nephews / nieces — as “blessing”. While I was a child, every time I was offered such a gift my mom would opposed it and I joined her in opposition. Only if she relented would I, and often I handed the money to her instead of keeping with myself. In our society convenience trumps purpose, and over years I’ve found the trend of gifting cash growing in popularity. My opposition too has intensified, especially since I started making money and was empowered enough to meet my own needs.

A few years back my grandmom offered me some money and one uncle of mine noticed me vehemently refusing to accept it. I still remember his remark (to my grandmom) “Aapni dosh taka din, oo chot kore niye nebe” (Give him 10 rupees and he’ll accept it immediately). I sense he knew exactly how I felt about it. A gift, in my mind, is an attempt to shape your abstract feelings into a tangible form. Cash, quite to the contrary, strips away all the emotions and reduces the gift to a monetary value — in it’s purest form. The raw monetary value almost always overshadows the gesture. It is arguably the most unremarkable and thoughtless form of gifting, even if it were sealed inside a pretty envelope. I hate gifting an envelope. I hate accepting one.

Two weeks ago, on the occasion of Bhai Duuj, in spite of my repeated requests to avoid gifts I ended up receiving two envelopes. One from a younger cousin and one from an elder. I haven’t opened them yet. I’ve been indecisive about what to do with the money and the thought of discovering the value makes me a tad uneasy. My mom, on the other hand, managed to look into one of them and has asked me several times how much money the other one contains. She’s changed over the years. It took me a while, but I’ve finally decided to open them tonight and donate the money straight into my fund raiser which closes in a day or two. Perhaps I am clumsy. Or maybe uncool.

There was a third cousin. She gave me one handkerchief — the simplest one you’d have come across. I’m going to use it until the cloth rips apart.

In a marathon, the glory is in covering the magical distance, and it doesn’t matter if you’re running, jogging, walking or crawling. It’s the formidable distance that’s intimidating, and time is merely a measure of one’s performance.

Till date all my practice runs have been pre-decided distances with no particular time target in mind. The idea is to keep moving until the distance is achieved with no intent to work on speed. If you think of it, this training methodology (if at all you can call it one) has been largely aimless. It’s hard to pin-point if I am any better today than yesterday, and over the last few months whenever I’ve gone out for a run (be it training or a race) I have been regularly revisiting the question — Am I mastering anything at all?

I’ve been following Galloway’s run-walk method for most of my runs. For months, the voice of RunKeeper has prompted me to switch between jogging and walking every minute. Having done this for a while, I had noticed two things. First, my body had started pre-empting when the announcement would blare through my earphones — almost as if a clock ticks inside me counting down 60 secs in each interval. And second, the perception of time changes in a very strange manner over the course of a run. Initially, my body clock is more or less in sync with my phone. I would know when the 60 secs are about to run out and the announcement would soon follow. But as the run goes longer, during the jog intervals my body would start counting the seconds down faster (than my phone), and the exact opposite would happen in the walk interval. It’s as if time slows down whenever I speed up, and it passes faster whenever I slow down. As the body wears out, this phenomenon becomes more apparent — a jog-minute sometimes feels as much as 5 and a walk-minute feels like a handful of seconds — almost as if the body is urging the tiring jog intervals to get shorter, and the comfortable walk intervals to carry on longer. In some ways, the run-walk pacing strategy had brought time back in focus.

On Independence Day, the folks behind the upcoming Millennium City Marathon conducted a 6 hour run at the Thyagaraj Stadium (around a 400m running track) starting in the evening and going into the night. They called it a run, but everything about it sounded like a challenge. Not only were they asking distance runners to run around a small loop (something I intensely dislike), but also unlike a marathon, this was a run where the problem truly was time. Time goals have a quirk that isn’t quite apparent when the duration is short — that one isn’t in control of the pace at which the goal is achieved — and it completely threw me off. Speeding up wouldn’t help, and coming to a dead stop wouldn’t hamper the progress either. Time will flow at its own pace, unaware of my effort or lack thereof. At some level it made me feel weak and helpless.

I signed up for it after thinking for nearly a week — by far the longest I have taken to make up my mind for a run. And when I told my friends, it evoked predictable reactions — mostly WTF, but few put it quite hilariously—

Yaar 6 ghante bhi koi kuch kar sakta hai, siwai sone ke?

The 6 hour run is now done and dusted. It was arguably the most insane mental battle I had knowingly walked into — chasing down time while moving around in circles. My speed was slower than usual but as the event drew to a close there was something immensely satisfying about the run. Unlike Run The Rann, where 10 hours of running felt like nearly a day, this one felt a lot closer to 6 hours.

That night my doubts got rested. I was able to sway my limbs for a long time without losing the sense of time — for a large part of the run seconds felt like seconds, minutes felt like minutes, and hours like hours. Unintentional it may be, but this is perhaps what I’ve been mastering through my runs all this while — controlling the speed of time.

Your twitter handle is like your name. That’s how people know you, refer to you, remember you, search for you… (the list goes on). Your handle is for others first.

That wasn’t the first time I had communicated something to that effect to someone I knew. By now I’ve shared my take on this subject so many times over that I thought I should simply put it down as a blogpost.

Tweetbot is an old school software. When a retweet appears on my timeline, it displays the account holder’s name to inform me who retweeted it. Name is how I know people in real world. That’s how I refer to them. That’s how I remember and recall them. Their decision made perfect sense to me. All was good until a couple of people I followed decided to change their’s at random intervals — from movie characters to displaying support for national movements. Random retweets by those folks got specially annoying because it took an extra step to identify the person responsible for the retweet. One of them continued the practice for far too long and I ended up unfollowing the account. Similarly, it’s a tad annoying when people randomly decide to change their profile pictures — after all, pictures remain in my memory for longer and are much faster to identify. When a new profile picture doesn’t have a recognisable face (or is a group photo), it takes a while to identify it with the actual person. The urge to be expressive through profile pictures is understandable, but it completely misses the point if it’s done at the expense of the account holder being identifiable.

Playful user profiles, however, don’t just result in annoyance. At some level, it obscures identity and misguides people. While some account holders might feel that’s okay but as I pointed before, user profile on any public forum is for others first. It’s unfair if others are deterred from identifying the real person behind the thoughts, opinions, pictures and other content an account broadcasts. It’s unfair if people are unable to interact as equals, be it online or offline.

There are few people I know who demonstrate the sincerity to write their real name, put their faces and make an attempt to use a handle that easily identifies them across every online service they’ve chosen to join. Maybe they’re stupid. But I harbour special respect and appreciation for them.

Stay real. Everywhere.

I shook my head in protest, but they wouldn’t relent. There was a loud cheer as I gulped down the half-filled beer bottle I was holding. And immediately the focus shifted back to the shot glass. Their chant was unanimous. I could feel my heart sink as I raised it and held it close to my nose in an attempt to gauge its potency.

“Speech and shoot!”

The smell was pleasant, like an Ayurvedic medicine made from herbs and spices. It didn’t help though. I remained tense. Several loose thoughts ran through my head, but I failed to converge them into a speech. It came out as a spiritless thank you. At that moment one of them darted into the kitchen and brought out a second shot, for reasons best known to him, completely oblivious to my reluctance. Now there were two shots of potent liquor intensely staring at me.

I’ve escaped similar demands all my life — through four years at a hostel, a year and half working at a corporate and nearly four years of running a business — and I could’ve avoided it again. Only this time a hard-headed refusal would’ve unturned every effort I had made to put together a memorable shindig. A rejection would’ve been the most prominent memory they’d have carried back home.

“Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!”

And I did. The liquor gushed through my gastrointestinal tract leaving behind a warm soothing sensation. It didn’t burn. It felt good. They all charged up. The celebrations continued.

Hours later it was time to hit the bed. Everyone had fun. Everything went well. But yet, as I laid back, I was upset. And I knew exactly why. It was the feeling of compromising on a principle that I had proudly lived by all my life. It was the pain of succumbing to peer pressure.

Now it’s history. The kind I wish never repeats itself.

My birthday was (and still remains) understandably special for my parents and they’ve always insisted on some form of celebration. As a kid, I used to look forward to my birthday — in particular, to the party where friends would come over and bring me presents. I’d be unhappy if there were no celebrations. The celebrations outshone the significance of the day. The gifts brought me joy. Over the years I’ve grown over these. Even thought of receiving gifts makes me uneasy. Guess I’m ageing.

Celebration follows happiness, and not the other way round (which I’d classify as partying — to break out of monotony and attain pseudo-happiness). Birthday by itself hardly brings me any joy (except from few nostalgic memories). There are days in life when I’m way happier. Heck, there are days at work when I’m happier. When I look back, I find that I usually derive happiness and pleasure from accomplishments — things I’ve worked towards, and achieved. It could be a contest, an interview, an exam, a race or a personal / life goal. If it’s consequential enough, it’ll spark a celebration. While one could claim that birthday is a celebration of all the little successes over the entire year, in reality though I am yet to attend a birthday celebration that comes anywhere close to capturing that spirit.

Today birthdays feel overrated. Perhaps as a consequence, I’m really bad at remembering them (including the best of my friends’) — and I put no effort at getting better at it. I seldom wish people on birthdays, and when I do it’s mostly a social obligation. However, on the other hand, when people confide in me their aspirations or when I discover something that they’re working towards, I wish them with all my sincerity. The journey and the outcome is extremely clear in my head. There’s clarity in what I’m wishing for.

In an unequivocal tweet, Ramesh Srivats says “Pride and shame are for actions in which I had a choice.” I’d like to extend the notion and say that celebrations too should be based on actions (and accomplishments) where one had a choice. My birthday happens each year. It isn’t my choice. I just manage to live through a year, and it comes back again. Survival, even in India, is such a low bar for celebrations. These views may change in the future, but this is how I feel today.

As I write this post, the anxiety is at its peak. Wish there was a fix. Wish people celebrated accomplishments, and not mere days.

This post is about my journey to becoming a marathoner. The story isn’t really remarkable and the only reason I’m writing this is because it was a personal project of a magnitude I had never undertaken (and accomplished) before. Way tougher than running my first distance run. It ought to be documented, for a future me, if not for anyone else.

The marathon is Mt. Everest to a lot of people, but it’s Mt. Everest in their backyards.

— Jeff Galloway

I don’t think there’s anyone who wouldn’t want to be on top of the Everest. But the thought of scaling the peak is so scary, and the chances of making it appears so slim, that our appeal for the feat never translates into an attempt. A marathon is quite similar. Everyone would love to have a marathon under their belt. But it’s kind of a fairy tale — just short of impossible. My fascination for marathons was no different than any other ordinary person.

I’m still trying to pin-point what exactly made me participate in Airtel Delhi Half Marathon (ADHM) three years ago. There was no prior running experience — in fact, I managed to skip every running trials in school and college. There was no aspiration to run — I didn’t see myself gaining anything out of it. There was no inspiration to run — none of my friends or family members participated in any running events. No one even suggested that I should participate in the event. And worst of all, running hurt every part of my body and I hated it. The only good part about running is the part where it ends. After much introspection, the best reason I’ve been able to narrow down to is ego. I couldn’t accept that thousands of ordinary people (some much older than my grandparents) were running a long distance which I felt I was physically incapable of achieving in the permitted time frame.

The days following ADHM 2012 was a mixed bag of experiences. There was pain, fatigue and complains on one hand, and at the same time excitement, bragging, satisfaction on the other. As the adrenaline settled down, it struck me that I had experienced merely a half marathon. It was a little unsettling to imagine how might one feel after completing a marathon. In the same flow of thoughts I went on to look for marathon events in India and it didn’t take me too long to stumble upon the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon (SCMM) — undoubtedly the most popular marathon race in India. As I looked through their website, I discovered that there was no open participation under the mens category. To participate a runner must have previously completed at least a half marathon under a specified cut-off time. My ADHM timing, in spite of my herculean effort, wasn’t good enough. I let that sink in and went on with my life. However, it continued to haunt me every time I recalled my ADHM experience.

Fast forward to summer 2013. The registration for ADHM 2013 was about to open, and I hadn’t run at all since the last ADHM. I wanted to participate again, primarily for two reasons — to re-live the high at the finish line, and maybe, just maybe, meet the SCMM qualification. A running gear upgrade creates an added pressure (and motivation) to run, so I ended up buying myself my first running tee, a pair of shorts, and a pricey pair of sports earphones that came with an armband. And then I resumed training — all over again — building up from a 5k walk.

In September 2013, I was scheduled to travel to Bangalore. While planning my travel I accidentally stumbled upon the Kaveri Trail Marathon. The pictures and the event description was super tempting. I had a strong urge to be there. I pondered for a while and soon fell for the offer. It turned out to be a terrific decision. The beautiful location, the sunrise, the enthusiastic participants cheering one another, and the unexpected sights and sounds throughout the half marathon course — till today it remains one of my most memorable running experience. I was so ecstatic that I handpicked and storified some of the official photos.

Back in Delhi I continued training for ADHM. A few weeks before the race I attended the ADHM runners meet where Tanvir Kazmi explained the science behind training plans. At the same event I asked Tanvir if there’s any ideal run-walk ratio for beginners. He pointed me to Galloway’s run walk run technique which I adopted for my runs. On 15th December 2014, I found myself at the ADHM start line once again. I needed to complete the run in under 2:45 to qualify for SCMM 2014. This time the event was far better organised than the previous year, and each of my complaints from last edition was addressed in some manner. I continued run-walking until 17-18th km. In the last 3 kms I sensed that I might be able to finish in under 2:45. I pushed myself one final time and completed the run in 2:43 — thanks to the dedicated lane for the half marathoners in the final two kilometres where the route merges with the Great Delhi Run. Although my timing was within the SCMM 2014 cut, the feat was merely notional as the registrations had closed by then. I had to wait a full year and hope that the SCMM 2015 cut-off doesn’t get more stringent. After ADHM, with no races in sight, I once again stopped running. This time I experienced what they call the post-race blues — quite similar to how one feels after returning back to normal routine from an extended vacation.

A month later (early 2014), I stumbled upon two really interesting runs — one at the Rann of Kutchh and another at the Buddh International Circuit — both in their very first edition. Once again, just like the Kaveri Trail Marathon, I felt like being there at both these places.

In February 2014, one of history’s most ancient cities will be on every serious trail runner’s map. Only 300, though, will embark on a gruelling trail run through vast salt marshes and unforgiving cacti. They will be circling the arcane ruins of Dholavira, one of the largest, grandest, most advanced metropolises of the Indus Valley Civilisation. Set against the silver-white landscape of one of Earth’s most scenic salt deserts which is frequented by a plethora of migratory birds, the Great Rann of Kutch, the event kicks off on a gorgeous full moon night. It’s everything India’s most rugged footrace should be.

— Run The Rann, 2014

Until this moment I wasn’t quite certain about why I was running (though I can totally relate with the reasons shared on The Oatmeal). However, this was the first time when I had some clarity on why I should continue participating — to explore new places by foot. Runs provide a great opportunity to not only travel to a new place, but also to explore them — be it a city like Delhi, a trail like the Kaveri Trail, a desert like the Run of Kutchh or a property like an F1 Circuit. I don’t think there can be a better way of soaking in the charm of a place than going around on foot.

When you run through 26.2 miles of this city you can see how magnificent it is.

— Lee Flaherty, Founder of Chicago Marathon, in the documentary Spirit of the Marathon.

It took me about a year and a half to arrive at clear reason (and a purpose) behind running. The further I can run, jog, walk, crawl or move, the more I can explore and experience places.

I couldn’t participate in Run The Rann as the dates clashed with a conference in Bangalore. This was slightly disappointing, and all I could do was promise myself to go there the following year. In Bangalore however, I ended up running with the conference organisers at Cubbon Park. It is at this run that I was introduced to post-run stretches by Kiran. I was surprised by how fast those simple stretches relaxed my aching muscles. From that day onwards it became a ritual after each run. My race calendar for 2014 finally kicked off in March at the Buddh International Circuit where I sported a new pair of high-end running shoes. Running on a race track designed for the world’s fastest cars felt part surreal and part thrilling — shouldn’t be a surprise that I shaved a couple of minutes off my ADHM timing.

I’m slightly asthmatic, and the condition aggravates during the months leading up to summers. But despite my breathing woes, and against unanimous suggestion by friends and well wishers, I went on to run in Corbett, the Manger trail through the Aravallis (south of Gurgaon) and Mukteshwar. I didn’t want to surrender to my medical condition and let these opportunities go by. After all, I’m expected to live with it all my life.

In July 2014, the registrations for SCMM 2015 opened. I was overjoyed to find out that the criteria hadn’t changed from 2014, and that I had made the cut by a slim margin. Even though I was keen to participate at the event, I wasn’t sure if I was ready to take the dive. I asked myself a few times “Can I do this? Am I sure?”. I didn’t have an answer. But at least that was better than 2011 when I was sure about not being able to complete a half marathon (and ended up not registering for ADHM). Here was a chance that I might not fail, and that was enough for me to add my name to the list.

You should run your first marathon for the right reasons, because you’ll never be the same person again. You must want to do it, not do it because your boss did it or your spouse did it.

— Bill Wenmark

Registration was done. Cheap air tickets were booked. I was going to run my first marathon. Everything was in place except that I wasn’t trained. The race was 5 months away. I had a long time at hand. But the distance was simply intimidating. Most marathon training plans demanded about 5 months of zen-like discipline. I started cursing myself for registering without researching about the training involved. After much hunt, once again Galloway came to my rescue. His website had a plan that made things appear easier. I did not really follow the plan religiously, but instead used it as a reference to keep a check on my progress (Tanvir’s explanation helped greatly in this regard). As an alternative, I registered myself in as many public races I possibly could, and went for long runs every other weekend. Running up to ADHM 2014, I had run half marathons in Gurgaon, Guwahati, Dwarka (Delhi) and one from Qutub Minar to Chandni Chowk. Alongside the races, I continued training and had to come up with long routes that would not be monotonous. I hate running in loops, and I figured that a good way to run long distance would be to go from point to point and end with meeting people or having breakfast with friends (great motivator!). Some of the routes I took were Connaught Place / Hauz Khas to American Diner for their All You Can Eat breakfast, Dwarka to Chandni Chowk to attend an Old Delhi walk by friends at Delhi Dallying, or Indiranagar to MTR to meet a friend and gorge on those idlis and vadas. By this time I bought myself a hydration backpack to carry enough water for runs exceeding 15-16 kms, and a pair of knee support as soon as I felt a niggle to prevent injury.

This is the week when you taper physically but peak mentally.

— Rahul Verghese, briefing first time runners exactly a week before ADHM 2014.

For me running has always been a personal activity. I jog-walk at my own pace and I can’t get myself to run in a group. I’m too skeptical about pushing hard or slowing down depending on the others’ speed, and expecting others to do the same for me feels unfair. In spite of living in a neighbourhood with one of the most active running group in town, I never ended up joining their group runs. But for the first time, I joined the folks at Running and Living at their pre-ADHM group run along the race course — exactly a week before ADHM. The group ran together for the first 10 kms or so and then slowly spread over a large distance. I wasn’t completely comfortable, but it wasn’t as bad as I had imagined either. This was the first time I ran without music, and chatted with fellow runners throughout the 19 kms.

A week later I scored another personal best at ADHM 2014, shaving nearly 21 minutes off last year’s timing.

You can slough off and still get through a 10K or a 5K. The marathon commands your attention.

— Jeff Galloway

Once ADHM had passed, I had about a month and a half to get marathon ready. Shit was getting real, and doubling the ADHM distance felt tough. I needed to get a few 30+km runs during this time. As I entered into December I dragged myself through a 31 km night run and realised how hard it was to push beyond 26-27 kms (and also keeping my mind engaged in a night run). A week later I ran another half marathon in Gurgaon and a couple of weeks later a 25k in Kolkata. As the distance increased, I started experiencing things that I had only encountered on the web before— blisters, cramps, deformed black toenails, chafing etc. Mid-December onwards Delhi mornings had become so cold that even stepping out to run felt daunting. I often woke up with an aching head (due to the cold) and had to talk myself into stepping out for a run.

Running is 90 percent mental, and the rest is all in your head.

I was terrified about the marathon distance — can’t be more candid about it. There’s no way my body could endure the stress over 42 kms. At some point the body will give in, and then it’s a battle between the mind and the body. The only way to make it to finish is by having an unbreakable resolve.

Stories built my grit — mostly through first hand narrations by runners around me. Tanvir Kazmi talked about his Comrades experience at the ADHM runner’s meet in 2013. Rahul Verghese, who organises the Running and Living races, ran his 50th marathon at the Everest Base Camp and blogged about it. Shshank Pundir narrated his 100 km Zen Endurance Ultra experience in Leh at the end of a race in Gurgaon. Anupriya Kapur who can be easily spotted in the runs around Delhi has not only shared her her first full marathon experience but also touches upon many other aspects of running on her blog. I also watched Spirit of the Marathon during the peak of my training. There were moments in that documentary that I related so closely with that it nearly watered my eyes, and in turn made me stronger.

Determination to complete is one part, but keeping the mind in charge through the training period (and into the race) is another. After all, it’s not easy to ignore the weather (extreme cold or heat), ignore the pain, turn down social plans, negotiate unexpected challenges (like my breathing ailment), pace oneself, and complete the committed distance (walk it out, but don’t quit) — especially when one’s forcing himself to do something that he inherently loathes. Mental preparation was kind of like counselling my own brain, and every now and then I’d be talking to myself — sometimes in the bus, sometimes during the runs, sometimes in front of the mirror and sometimes in my dreams. The battle wasn’t only internal, but extended to defending myself from the society’s opinion. They expressed their concerns. They advised me to take rest. They called me insane. They poked fun. But they also admired, and sometimes tried to instil confidence by saying that it’s going to be all good. None of that mattered however, and I didn’t listen to them. What mattered was what I said to myself, and sometimes they were simply quotes.

By winters a few friends in South Delhi had started running regularly. Running together to a breakfast joint became popular among the group. Each of us ran at our own pace along a pre-determined route with a check point or two where we would wait for the slower ones and continue from there. I started planning more of those, generally starting from Hauz Khas (most friends were located nearby) to Café Lota, American Diner or Biker’s Café. But unlike a couple of months back, instead of taking a bus to Hauz Khas, I started running from home (Dwarka) to Hauz Khas and then a further 8-12 kms with friends. By the time I joined my friends I had already run about 18 kms, and then trailed behind them with wobbly knees to achieve my target miles. At this point I must thank Sumit, Nigel, Bhavya and Apoorv because had it not been for those runs (and their cooperation), I can’t imagine having pulled off 26-32km practice runs. I clearly remember a day when I ran from Dwarka to Green Park slower that I had anticipated, and Nigel patiently waited for me nearly half an hour out in the cold.

By December 2014 I had participated in over a dozen running events in that year, and also managed to feature in a couple of news stories.

I flew to Bombay a couple of days before SCMM 2015. It gave me a sense of the weather, which was warm and quite unlike Delhi during that time. A day before the race I collected by race bib, consumed a lot of carbs (mostly pasta), booked a cab for the morning and went off to bed early. My alarm was set for 3:15 am.

The next day the cab dropped me at CST during the wee hours. I was a little early but so were a hundred others. We waited for the gates to open, walked through the slow and understandably stringent security, dropped our bags at the baggage counter and headed to the holding area. The race started at 5:40 am. It was still dark. We started moving slowly, and crossed the start line in front of the beautifully lit CST station. Unlike ADHM, I couldn’t spot celebrities flagging off the race. Perhaps they were at the Half Marathon start line at the other end of the course (scheduled to start about 20 mins after us) or maybe they’d come in when the elite runners start their run (about 100 mins after us). There was very little energy at the start and hardly any noise. The city was still sleeping. The sponsors were still setting up their stalls. At the second corner, I was surprised to find a couple of cops on duty clap and cheer us. I ran through Marine Drive, where the sea was making a serene sound. About 45 mins into the run, the sun had just risen and the city was slowly waking up. By the time I reached Peddar Road, the darkness was gone, and Mumbaikars had taken over the street sides. That’s when I experienced the terrific crowds of the city — smiling, clapping, cheering at the top of their lungs, handing out water, fruits, refreshments and helping out runners in need. The run turned even more lively near Haji Ali, where bulk of the half marathoners crossed me on the other side. A little later I was on the Bandra-Worli Sea Link, with a magnificent view of the Bombay skyline. Just before the half way mark the elite runners ran past me like a herd of gazelles lead by timing cars and media buses. I kept going strong until about the 27th km, more or less keeping to Tanvir’s pacing strategy. But the weather kept getting warmer — something I couldn’t really train for in Delhi — and soon after I started losing steam. Till about the 30th km I was hopeful of finishing within 5 hours and 30 mins, but somewhere around the 32-34th km the Peddar Road incline wore me down. I simply couldn’t push anymore and realised that I wouldn’t make it in 5:30. The moment that realisation set in my pace started dropping. I speed-walked much of the last 7 kms, stopping a few times for sprays and ice-packs and jogged the final 500m to the finish line — 20 mins slower than what I had hoped for. It was a re-realisation of how much of a role mind plays in pushing the body.

The marathon can humble you.

— Bill Rodgers

I missed my target, but I was extremely happy about completing the distance. It was inexplicably special. Later that night I quietly celebrated a personal victory with a friend from college over my first mug of beer.

Three weeks later in early February I participated in Run The Rann, again under the full marathon category. It was mostly a self-supported run with very few aid stations along the course. The terrain varied from salt flats, to cemented track, to steep climbs on rocky thorny hills, to loose sand. Pretty much throughout the race the sun scorched on us mercilessly. It was exactly how I had always imagined a military field exercise to be like. It was unarguably the toughest run I’ve done till now which I finished in a little under 10 hours — scratched and bruised all over, with a huge blister under my foot. The experience was profound in many ways, and I haven’t yet managed to completely put it in words. Very few would have experienced the island of Khadir Bet the way I had, and I proudly describe it as the most expensive torture I’ve bought myself.

At Run The Rann, while camped at the desert island, the participants had ample opportunity to interact with each other — sharing experiences and stories. Stories that can fill its audience with awe, inspiration, and might even leave them dumbstruck. In fact, such stories were not just were being told, they were happening right at the event e.g. the gear-less Dan Lawson running 161k of the desert in 24 hours non-stop. One of the runners who I met at the base camp was Bhaskar Desai — a 62 year old who also ran the full marathon course. I read his story after I got back to Delhi. The grit only gets grittier.

Even today I continue to hate running. And I have 3 months to train for my next marathon. If the two sentences didn’t add up… you’ve got to read this post again.

Back in school days, during my 9th class summer holidays, I joined the school swimming pool to learn how to swim. I started off in the children’s play pool and as soon as I got a hang of the basic limb movements I moved to the full-size pool. Each time I completed one length of this bigger pool I took a fairly long rest before turning back again. My dad, who used to accompany me to the pool nearly every day, had obviously noticed this pattern. After a few days he asked what made me spend so much time resting while in the pool. When I complained about my tired legs he said, “Legs never tire”.

My legs had rarely been subjected to rigorous activities during school days. I usually opted out of the sports day races citing my asthmatic tendencies. Hopping from one shop to another for a few hours was perhaps the harshest my legs had to endure when I accompanied mom on her biannual visit to Sarojini Nagar. Things however changed when I moved to Chandigarh where most days I had to walk to college — about 2.5 kms from my hostel in Sec 14. Cycle rickshaws are a popular mode of transport within the city but I usually avoided them to save money and, more importantly, because I find the idea of being transported by someone else’s muscle power to be somewhat inhuman. I found Chandigarh to be a friendly city for walkers having low traffic, better air quality and a peaceful, slow-paced life. I never owned a vehicle there and often covered reasonably large distances by foot. One of the earliest instance was the day I went out for my first movie with hostel friends. After watching the night show at Piccadilly Cinema (Sec 34) one of them suggested walking back. Somehow we all accepted, even though we were still unfamiliar with the city. None of us realised that we were signing up for a 5+ km stroll. There were very few people in the streets that late at night and we had to mostly trust our guts with the directions. We walked more than an hour and by the time we reached our hostel most of my friends were infuriated. I, on the other hand, was one of the few ones who had enjoyed the walk. A few months later, on my birthday, I found myself walking back to hostel from Tehel Singh Dhaba (Sec 22) after treating my friends. Needless to say, most of them had opted out the moment I had proposed it. Over time walking turned into my preferred mode of commute whenever I was not pressed by time. One of the many memorable walks was a two hour one from my hostel to Sukhna lake (pretty much across the city) along with two friends. Often when the weather was merciful I went out alone exploring the undiscovered parts of the city and listening to music on my iPod. I could simply keep walking.

Near the end of my final year few friends and I went on a short unplanned trip to McLeod Ganj. I experienced my first trek on that trip. Totally unaware of the demands of a 9 km walk up a mountain trail we decided to carry our belongings (pretty heavy backpacks) on our trek to Triund. Three (out of four) of us were grossly over-weight, to say the least, and the walk turned out to be an arduous one. So bad that had I been aware of the trail beforehand, given my fitness levels at the time, I would have probably never attempted it or, at the very least, never carried our belongings with us. In spite of the fatigue not only did I keep walking throughout the trail but at times even encouraged my heavy-weight partners in crime. Dad’s words were perhaps the only thing playing on my mind at that time.

***

I had mostly remained away from Delhi since passing out of school. When I returned to Delhi last year I realised that the onset of winters was the best time to be in the city with innumerable festivals, carnivals, events and performances happening all around. I had a great time visiting a bunch of such performances, food exhibitions and other events. Also, around the same time, I had noticed few ads of Airtel Delhi Half Marathon — unarguably the most pronounced running event in Delhi. I have never been a fan of running, but the word ‘marathon’ has always fascinated me — not just the meaning but also the sound. So much so that I didn’t want to let go of my first opportunity to experience it. I asked a couple of friends if they wished to participate but they didn’t show much interest. Even then I was willing to participate and pulled out the details from their website. However, my confidence soon shattered when I came across the following request, “Please do not apply for Half Marathon race category if you cannot complete it in 3 hours 30 min.”. I gave up my hopes of participating that year and instead decided to train rigorously and try the following year. I shared this with many friends but no one took me seriously. After all, there was nothing in my past that would even remotely connect me to marathons. All I got were playful remarks — “Do you know it’s going to take you all day?”, “Chal behenchod rehne de”, “Agar tune kar diya main usi din Dilli aake tere gale milunga”, or a sarcastic “Oh yes of course” — which I quite enjoyed myself. I guess I was as amused (and surprised) at my own decision as my friends.

The thought of 21+ kms in about 3 hours was scary. I was not sure if even a full year of training would suffice. However, the lazy one in me immediately stepping in with a long list of reasons to procrastinate training. At the top of the list were “My iPod’s broken” and “I don’t have a device to measure my runs”. At that time I was carrying an old Nokia phone that was falling into pieces. Getting the then-rumoured iPhone 5 (which later came out as iPhone 4S) was on the cards. Since an iPhone would double up both as a music player and a measuring device I decided to start training only after procuring one. It took me nearly 6 months to get hold of one and soon after I was travelling out of Delhi. When I returned, the list was still going strong, “The weather is too hot”, “Need a good shoe.”, “Armband!”… Apart from these petty reasons one of the lingering question in my mind was “How to train?” All training plans on the internet looked like a strict military training regime. They expected people to start training with an easy 4 mile run. Wait a sec, ain’t “easy run” an oxymoron? A 4 mile walk is not a problem but no run is easy. So I did a feasibility check by searching if people have walked it in under/around 3 hours. The answer was yes.

By the last week of May I got myself a new pair of shoes, ditched my desire to buy an armband and a new pair of earphones, and started training. Given that Delhi Half Marathons usually took place in the month of November, I had a little over 5 months to train. With no concrete training plan at hand I started with casual 5 km strolls. I picked a new route around Dwarka every time and measured my walks using RunKeeper. To beat the heat I started at around 5:30 in the morning and was pretty regular in the first month or so. Beyond that things started to get monotonous as there was no significant progress in either speed or distance. Further I could manage only 4 days of training in July and August due to work and the rains. Somewhere around this time Sumit informed me that this year the race would take place on 30th Sep. At that time I was training at barely half the target distance and with the training period cut down by 2 months the task got even harder. The thoughts of giving up for another year had passed my mind a few times but deep inside I was scared that if I couldn’t do it while still 25, it would perhaps never happen. I baselessly backed myself and registered on 30th July.

One of the best activities in August was a trip to Binsar with Rungta. It was nearly a perfect trip for an inherently stingy backpacker like me — mostly travelling on foot and appreciating the beautiful nature. The first day we walked 10k uphill with our bags, followed by 4k of relatively flat terrain and finally 3k downhill to a village called Ganaup where we put up the night. By the time we were going downhill my knees had nearly given way. Similarly the next day was also spent on foot covering more than 10 kms. Up until the end of August during my usual training I had covered a maximum of 13 kms at a go. September was the last month and I was still below two third the target distance. This was the toughest month of training. I went out once a week covering about 15 kms in over 2 hours each time. This phase was important as challenges like blisters, dehydration, protein indigestion (proteins take longer to digest than other foods), and whatnot surfaced when my runs started exceeding 15 kms. The importance of hydrating, wearing good socks, having a low protein dinner, etc. were learned only in the last month. Not to mention, the interesting pieces of conversations I had with Sumit who, among all my peers, was clearly most enthusiastic about running.

I ended my training about 4-5 days before the race to give myself adequate rest. Pre-race day preparation included creating a new running (actually walking) playlist, pinning my running bib to my t-shirt, attaching my timing chip to the shoe, purchasing some Gatorade and orange juice, and an easy 3km walk.

I woke up early on race day and meticulously followed a printed sheet of advice that was handed while collecting our running bibs. I kept hydrating myself right from the time I woke up, had some orange juice and a Snickers bar for breakfast and reached Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium well before time. The moment I entered the stadium premises I noticed an atmosphere full of exuberance; bustling with thousands of runner of all shapes and sizes (not kidding you) — stretching, praying, queued up outside loos or busy in casual chats. Minutes before the start I walked into an over-crowded holding area where the runners had to assemble and wait for the race to commence. A little past 6:30 a loud roar rippled through the crowd and we all moved towards the start line. Just as I approached the start line everyone around started running. Somehow even I got soaked into the energy and started running with others. It was only after about 200 meters that I realised that I had a long race ahead and slowed down to my training pace. The start was full of enthusiasm — people cheering from the sides, bands playing some loud rock music and plenty of runners running alongside. Thanks to all my hydration efforts I was compelled to take a leak minutes after starting (in spite of emptying my bladder twice at the stadium). There onwards began a journey full of highs and lows — the gratefulness on being cheered by people (including a little boy on a wheelchair), the astonishment of seeing the race leaders returning on the other side, the excitement of grabbing bottles of water / gatorade from the volunteers, the kick of overtaking a Gold’s Gym trainer, the joy of walking past the India Gate / Rajpath, the anxiety of seeing an ambulance pass by, the agony of sweating out in the September heat, the frustration of passing by empty cool sponge & energy stations, the fun of cheering at the cameras and many more emotions than what could possibly be listed down.

By the 17th km the race had visibly slowed down. Hardly anyone was running and since the energy stations had run out of stock most were deprived of energy drinks. Yet I managed to maintain my pace and by this time was overtaking my fellow exhausted runners. I had planned to pick my pace in the last couple of kilometres but to my dismay our route merged with the Great Delhi Run at the end of 19th km. I entered a sea of people most of who were walking casually. It was painful to constantly maneuver through the crowd and look for gaps to slip through while running on my tired legs.

I finished in just over 3 hours. I was exhausted but coming to a halt felt even more awkward and the physical distress overpowered all emotions. After a while, as the fatigue started wearing off, I tried to gather all my feelings. Just like many other impulsive wishes, participating in a marathon was a pointless one. But it is at this point, when you look back from the other side of the finish line, that pointless things lose their pointlessness.

Oh, and yes, “legs never tire”.

1. Walking through the heavy rain, carrying an umbrella, wearing shorts and floaters. One of the few things I like about rain. Fun, fun, fun. Watching people running around, looking for cover. Jumping over the puddles. It just felt great.
2. People at the bus stop were busy discussing the rains and water logging at Lajpat Nagar. I just love how the conversation at bus stops change with time and season. I have rarely seen a debate. Usually everyone is in the same side of the discussion.
3. An empty AC DTC bus came out of the depot right next to the bus stop. A very rare thing to happen. Today the luck was on my side. A window seat of my choice on a rainy day in an air-conditioned bus. What more?
4. Right at the next stop a random person ran towards the seat next to me. As he reached close enough he flung his handkerchief onto the empty seat, gestured me to take care of it with a bright smile on his face and turned towards to conductor to get his ticket.
5. The radio station talked about the increasing petrol prices, cracked humorous jokes (like gifting your wife a chain having a locket containing 2 drops of petrol) and played some wonderful music. I didn’t care about petrol prices. I rarely drive.
6. Sitting next to the window in an AC bus as it rained outside gave me some good vibes. The entire city looked washed and cleaned. Nowhere throughout the ride from home to office did I find any appreciable water logging. And that’s a good 23 kms. Probably many waited for rains to go away, and so there were hardly any traffic snarls (except for the last km).
7. About halfway through the ride, the clouds cleared up and the sun trickled through. The air was amazingly clean. Every time the bus was atop a flyover I could see the Delhi skyline, far far away. It brought back memories of my days in Chandigarh where I could see the mountains from my hostel after rains.
8. As I got down the bus at Nehru Place, I noticed that the authorities had restored the footpath and the service lane leading to the subway. Don’t know when they had done it, but it felt good to notice it today.
9. A blogpost after quite a while. I had started writing one long back, but due to sheer laziness haven’t got down to complete it. Hope to finish that soon.