I would normally hesitate to talk about any incident that involves any description of my personal exploits, lest I be charged of narcissism, but today I will bite the bullet and risk being described so. Yesterday I ran the Mumbai half marathon and the cup of my joy has been overflowing ever since.
All my life, and which is a considerable number of years, the longest I ran was a 400 meter race way back in class VII, which I had to abandon midway owing severe stress, dehydration and a sinking feeling which made me feel that the sky was descending down to meet the earth. That was the closest encounter with long distance running I ever had. Completely tormented by those memories, I shunned running ever since, allowing much needed 20 years or so to heal the scarred juvenile soul.
Circa 2009 June, I met this funny little thing called a digital weighing machine, placed strategically in the hotel bathroom I was staying in, whose sole purpose was to seduce a middle aged man with a bulging middle wanting to know how much he weighs. The figure that appears on the monitor evokes strange emotions – disbelief, shock, dismay, so on and so forth – but it all boils down to a poignant observation – ‘the machine is faulty’. As it happens in such cases of human misery, the machine was NOT wrong and it displayed a number that, to put it mildly, put more weight on my mind, than it put on the machine.
The long and short of it is that I have been running since. When I did 1 km I was amazed because I had not died. At 2 kms I was jumping with joy. 3, 4 and 5 went off like a dream and when I did 5 kms I felt the same joy that Jonny lever will feel if he ever gets a best actor award. At 6 I bragged to my wife that she had married a man of substance. At 7 and 8 kms I was on cloud nine, also because by this time I had managed to knock off a good 15 kilos off my body and far more off my conscience. Then I moved to Mumbai and someone sold the idea of a half marathon which was 21 kms. Thank you but no thank you, said I. In the last 2 months I did one 10 km and one 12 km, both on the treadmill – and yesterday for the first time in my life I was on the starting line, to attempt 21kms ON ROAD. Did someone say – ‘audacity of hope?’
The experience is heady. The people, the noise, the crowds, the sight of portly, old, young, not-so-thin grand-moms, transports you to another world – where nothing is impossible, where running is the objective and completing it is winning it. After the 15th km, it’s not the body – it’s the mahaul and your will that pulls you along. I was told of this before, now I know what they meant.
Running and completing the 21 long kms will go down in my own autobiographical account as an important lesson/inspiration for my life from my current not-so-young (another name for middle-aged) and beyond – that we can chose our distances, that we can chose our races and that we can complete it – sooner or later, faster or slower – but we will.
Guru
Distance is only in our minds...No distance is too long if our mind accepts it. I have seen you in the last 3 months conquering distance inch by inch....and the excitement when you conquered the 10km mark..
ReplyDeleteVery apt remark:
"that we can chose our distances, that we can chose our races and that we can complete it – sooner or later, faster or slower – but we will."