"The magic of a marathon isn’t in the 42.2 kms on the race day, it’s in the nearly 800 kms of training that happens in the months before , it’s in the countless feelings, frustrations, fears, sacrifices that I have worked through while running those desolate tree-lined roads. You see, I wasn’t supposed to be a runner. But I am and life’s better because I chose to be one." - Unknown
I still haven't gotten to the 42.2K mark and am barely halfway there...let's see what life has in store for me.
We run to feel pain, run to be with others, run to find freedom, run to become a better human being, run to find solace, to forgive, to find joy, to find freedom, run to get over stress, run for health...the list just keeps going on and on and on
Keeping at it
Mediocrity is my curse. To not be the best or even amongst the best in any specific field. I may not be a terrible runner but I am a mediocre runner at best. After almost 2 years of running - I frequently breathe the wrong way, or wear the wrong gear, still don’t have the perfect playlist, or the perfect earphones. I sweat too much, I land too hard, I am constantly out of breath, constantly hungry. Droop my shoulders or loose my form during Sunday long runs.
A good analogy is from Murakami, in his book What I Talk about When I Talk about Running. Here he writes about one of his runs where he sees a bunch of Harvard girls kick back their legs and run like the wind. He remarks, “Compared to them I’m pretty used to losing. There are plenty of things in this world that are way beyond me, plenty of opponents I can never beat. Not to brag, but these girls probably don’t know as much as I do about pain.”
When i go for my runs at the stadium, I see these young athletes, smart kids, running drills, fluidly and one with the wind. They run with purpose, concentrate on their form, concentrate on being efficient, not wasting any energy. And they do it without really seeming to try too hard. And then i look at myself, puffing and panting after 30 mins of a consistent run. And then i think... if they can do what i can, at my age, then we can talk :)
Perhaps that is what lousy runners have over the great ones. We know pain, we know losing, so no matter what the defeat, never having known success, we keep at it, and we never lose hope. In short, we are meant to go the distance. The story of distance running is the story of consistent failures. Being consistent is an art form !
Me, I run to be better than what i was. If you ever happen to ask a runner about his/her journey - he/she will always say - i have become better over the years, I used to do X distance in Y time and now i do the same X distance in far far less time !
Very often, you’ll find the soul of a writer synced in motion with that of an athlete. Zadie Smith once wrote a beautiful piece on dance lessons for writers —“lessons of position, attitude, rhythm and style”. If you substituted dancing with running, the prose could remain unchanged. My cousins (and their daughters) from across the oceans can probably articulate this in a better manner :)
Smith is also a runner. She used to get up at 6 a.m. before sitting down to write White Teeth. Dancing, running, writing are similar in that sense; they all rely on beats and breaths, an ability to think in motion, consistently, again and again.
Murakami says he became a runner at the same time he became a novelist. If he hadn’t been a long-distance runner, he says, he wouldn’t have been the same kind of novelist. For Murakami, running and writing happen in one microcosm of being: “First there came the action of running, and accompanying it there was this entity known as me. I run; therefore I am.”
He started running at the age of 33: “The age that Jesus Christ died. The age that F. Scott Fitzgerald started to go downhill. It’s an age that may be a kind of crossroads in life.”
Me, I started in the 4th decade of my life. Did i start too late ? Should I even have started ? Should i continue to abuse my aging bones, muscles ?
I'm just happy that I inculcated running in my life.
I run, therefore I am.
I hope to run till the last Sunday of my life.
The small joys and the love of it
I run for small, consistent reasons of happiness — the beauty of lonely mornings, the promise of fresh air, the "me" time, the feeling of having an empty mind, the solace of running with absolute strangers. I have met random strangers at the tracks and have formed fleeting bonds with them. Just a simple good morning, a smile, a nod, an acknowledgement, a thumbs up, a soundless clap, a "good going", a "come on", a "yes, yes, yes" ... these have given meaning to countless mornings. The peek of the rising sun, the clouds floating away soundlessly, the breeze against my skin, the empty road stretching away into the horizon.
Pooja, mother of twins, says - My kids say that i am a better person on the days that i manage to put in a few kms in the morning. On days, when i am not able to go for a run, i'm not as good as i can be.
There's a hill on my regular Sunday route. Its called the Microsoft hill or the ISB hill, depending upon the person you're talking to. The full hill is about 2.3K of start to finish. Its an out and back route... and the back route is pretty tough. Its 700 mtrs of a 30 degree incline ( i think), before leveling off. Any thoughts of doing regular pace literally go down the hill. Its tough to say the least. Its this segment which really pushes my mental boundaries. I always think about one person all the while running up (slow jog, truth be told). A friend who had twins, if she can go through the pain of delivering twins and subsequently raising them, then i should be able to complete this hill without stopping or walking. A friend who had knee surgery, if she can run marathons, then i should be able to do this segment. A cousin who's due to go into surgery coz her hormones are rebelling, if she can go thru that anguish, then why can't i surmount these 700 mtrs ? My spouse having incurred multiple hardships, and come out stronger, if she can, then what's 700 mtrs ? A friend who has a special child, seeing her patience with her child and the incredible amount of perseverance that it takes to raise her kid... then what's 700 mtrs against that ? A sibling who had back surgery, she endured pain for months... what's 700 mtrs of an incline ? I honestly don't know why it is the female of the species that i think of...but I do.
The Hill has taught me a lot, a lot more than i can articulate.
In the book Born to Run, Christopher McDougall describes this as the basis of the sport, “to be with others”. Marathons frequently come close to mimicking a fleeting moment of shared humanity, of bringing communities together. The Palestine Marathon, which started in 2013 in the midst of despair and occupation, fashioned into strange routes to avoid Israeli checkpoints, is a symbol of just that, a triumph of the collective human spirit.
That bible of barefoot ultra-running, Born to Run, goes so far as to say that running makes you a better human being, because it forces you to adapt to your surroundings, be more kind, patient and compassionate.
Having faced multiple injuries, personal loss and mental fatigue, i run to get over all of them.
I've run through deadlines and dust, stress and humidity, rain and shine, but I ran with the greatest self-belief on most days. I don’t run every day, but I always always look forward to the next run. Some runs defeat me, some give me unbridled joy, but every run makes me better than yesterday. Every time that i have come back from injury or a lay off, i have started afresh, at the starting line. The progress from the starting line is what keeps me going and coming back again and again.
As McDougall says, there “was some kind of connection between the capacity to love and the capacity to love running. The engineering was certainly the same: both depended on loosening your grip on your own desires, putting aside what you wanted, and appreciating what you’ve got.”
Usain Bolt talks of this love, and calls upon it to do extraordinary things. He calls it the “point of no return” in his book Faster Than Lightning; the tipping point where you learn to beat the body’s fatigue. Bolt’s story is extraordinary, not only because of his relentless pursuit of speed, but also because of the realisation that supreme talent without perseverance, suffering and immense love, is worth very little.
The story of running is really the story of the human spirit. It is about running, sometimes walking, but mostly moving forward. It is an ode to fighters, to children who dreamt of being Atalanta, to people who live under occupation, and those who run through the early morning mist to find balance among the stones and love in the darkest of spaces. As McDougall says, “You don’t have to be fast. But you’d better be fearless.”
Signing off... till the next Sunday Long Run :)
Note : Parts have been taken from an article i read. Copyright rests with respective holders.
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