A Long Distance Relationship that will last forever
Update: This entry was written right after running a marathon. A person tends to be highly sentimental and elated after running for 4 hours and 26 miles, as anyone who is done it will tell you. I am not as emotional as I sound in what follows but I have kept this entry just to reminisce once in a while.
November 20, 2005. For most people this was probably as ordinary a Sunday morning as any other. Late waking up and brunch. 
But not for me. And not for 18 of my team-mates. For us, and I think I can speak for everyone of them, it was one of the most exciting mornings of our lives. The one we will remember forever. It was the day when we ran and FINISHED our first marathon. Each one of us has a story to tell about this day and although mine is not as inspiring as the others’, I think it’s still worth telling.
Our day started at 5:00 AM. By 7:20, all the members of the AID-Asha team had arrived and we did our usual stretching exercises. The temperature was slightly chilly - around 4ºC . I was feeling very unsure about myself. I had not trained properly in the last 4 weeks. I had missed the 12 miler due to my Germany trip and had not done most of the smaller runs. Also, I had not done any stretching exercises during the last week. I was feeling all stiff and cramped. I was really apprehensive about running too fast. It was a very uncomfortable feeling.
Then came Tom’s pep-talk. I was too occupied with my lack of confidence, but some of the sentences made deep impact: “This marathon is about FUN and RELAXATION… YES. Relaxation. Be relaxed and have fun. And DON’T GIVE UP.”. I kept playing this sentence in my mind from the start to the end. Whenever I started tensing up about my stiff legs or my pounding heart, I just kept saying to myself “Relax. Relax. Have fun. Have fun. You are having fun. Don’t give up.” I had seen coaches giving last minute talks to their athletes in movies but I could have never imagined the difference it can make.
When the race began, I was in the loo. When I finally started running, there was a huge crowd in front of me, and I could not see any of the team-mates. The pacers were nowhere to be seen either. If not for Tom’s advice, I would have panicked and done something stupid, like sprinting to find them. But I kept a pace just slightly above my usual. In a minute, I saw Shreedhar and then Ady. He repeated Tom’s Advice (in Marathi): “Shanti la dhar re (Hold on to peace)”. I laughed it off then but I was munching on it for quite some time.
After about 5 minutes, there was a downslope and I could see a set of balloons somewhere up front. It had to be the 4:00 pacer, I thought. I felt a tiny twinge of excitement and, for the first time, I wondered about attempting to finish a few minutes over 4:00. But the woman disappeared in the sea of bouncing heads as I came down the slope. I was still flirting with the idea of a near 4:00 finish when I saw a familiar yellow T-shirt. I jumped onto the pavement, to get a clearer running path. Without warning, my shins started hurting and my calves became stiff. I was not sure if this was psychological. But the T-shirt was only 100 feet away so I increased my speed. It was Pravin. We decided to keep the 4:00 pacer in sight. We caught up with the 4:00 pacer ran with her for a while. At 3 miles, my shins were not hurting too much but my calves were still very stiff. I reasoned that it was because of the cold and will go away. So I left her behind. I was initially trying to look for the 3:50 pacer, but soon gave up. The next few miles were uneventful. My calf situation hadn't improved but I managed to ignore it. At 8 miles there were some Asha volunteers cheering for me. At around 10 miles I had become a bit slow and was doing 5 minutes slower than the 9min/mile pace. But I was feeling pretty tired and was reluctent to accelarate. A short way up, Sujit, Rajani and Anish were standing ready to cheer me up. I got a couple of packets of Gu from them. And then something miraculous happened. I think this was the point where my adrenaline kicked in. All the pain was forgotten, all the tiredness vanished. And for the first time, I actually decided to go for a 4 hour finish. I ran the next three miles at almost 8:20 min/mile thinking "This race is a lot of fun".
I stopped after the 14 mile mark and did some stretching. I was still worried about getting cramps. At the 18 mile mark was going at 2 minutes slower than 9min/mile. In a few minutes, I saw Ram. We ran for a while together. At around 19.5 miles I could feel serious cramp building up in both my thighs and both my calves. So after the 20 mile mark I stopped for stretching. It turned out to be a bad move. I got a really bad cramp in my left thigh as I tried to stretch it and had to sit down. I did some self massage on it. That helped and I was back on the road. A short way up, Rajani was waiting with a Camera. That was a real moral booster. I gained some speed repeating to myself, “Relax, Relax”. I kept imagining in my head that my thigh muscles are loosening up and that my heart is pumping slower and my breathing is becoming even, imagining the actual anatomical processes in detail to distract my brain from thinking about the pain. I kept telling myself that as long as my heart is doing okay, I should be fine. The self hypnosis was actually working. In the next two miles I was back to my 2 minutes slower than 9min/mile pace.
Around the 22 mile mark as I was falling back into the feeling extreme tiredness, a few more Asha volunteers cheered me up and Kasturi took pictures with a very fancy SLR. I got very charged up. Then, at around the 23 mile marker came a short up-slope that looked steep but mostly harmless. I was WRONG. As I ran over it, I thought my legs have disappeared and I am going to faint. I felt all dizzy and out of focus. I just let myself fall under gravity over the down slope on the other side. I HAD to stop to gain perspective. After eating some Gu, I started running slowly and was thinking, "So I am not finishing in 4 hours after all :( ". I started finding excuses for not doing it in that time. Then a guy in his mid 40s came from behind me and said, “I have been watching you and you have done okay till now. But you know what, you are not giving it your best shot and you are gonna regret it at the end”. And he passed me. That was very irritating. But it worked for me. I started speeding up. But the 24 mile marker just wasn’t showing up. I would check my watch after what felt like an iternity and it would just be a minute. When I finally reached it, I had exactly 18 minutes left to finish in 4 hours. That meant slightly faster than 9 min/mile and I was feeling a tiredness like never before. My head was buzzing and my vision was blurring intermittently. But that guy had done it. I thought, “what the heck. Shreedhar is attempting to run a marathon in spite of having serious health issues, Pravin is trying hard to finish at around 4:00 in spite of having fever for the last few days, I would be a real yellowbellied chicken if I didn’t try to finish it below 4:00. The Asha-AID volunteers have worked very hard for last 5 months. Tom has been very helpful and inspiring. I will be seriously undermining their efforts if I didn’t attempt it. That guy is right. I will regret it if I don't try”. So I started accelerating even more. Chanting in my mind “Left--Right. Left--Right. DON’T -- GIVE UP. DON’T -- GIVE UP. ALMOST--THERE. ALMOST--THERE.” My only worry was that I should not faint or it would defeat the whole purpose. I decided to talk to people, since as long as I am talking, my brain is active so it’s unlikely that I will faint. Unfortunately, no one was in a mood to talk. So I kept overtaking people one by one and saying “hallo”. That was enough. It kept me going. But in this process of trying stay concious, I missed the 25 mile marker. According to my watch, it was obvious that I had passed it. I decided that since I can’t be too sure when it passed, I will start sprinting when I see the 26 mile marker. It never came. The soles of my feet were burning like crazy. I was becoming agonizingly aware of some muscles in my body that I didn't know existed. Then suddenly, there were a lot of people along the road cheering very hard, “You are looking good, you can do it. Go Asha. Almost there”. One very cute little girl was sitting on her Dad’s shoulders holding a hand out for a high five. It was getting highly emotional and my speed was increasing automatically. Everyone around me was speeding up. And I could feel the end was close. But still was not sure how close. The excitement was contagious. I could almost smell the Adrenaline. The air was infused with it. Then some guy said, "You are done, It’s just around this bend". My watch was showing 4 hours. I thought – "Sh%t". I started speeding up as much as I could, but there were too many people in front of me. When I turned around the bend, I saw the timer showing 3:59:58 and I felt a serious urgency to run my a$$ off. Just before finishing I saw the clock showing 4:00:05. I was sort of phased out for a while after that. I was standing there but didn’t know what exactly I wanted to do. A woman in front of me said “right or left” or something like that. I didn’t understand what she was saying but just went to the right side. Someone said “Let me help you with your shoes”. I didn’t even reply. I was trying to look for AID-Asha volunteers but couldn’t recognize anyone in the pattern of blurred circles. I walked out of the running zone and someone wrapped a metal foil around me. I was very grateful because I was shivering. I felt like lying down right there. But I wanted to be found by the AID-Asha people before I did that since I was not sure if I will be okay once I let go. Finally, I heard someone calling my name. It was Sreedhar. Relief oozed in me and I immediately slumped on the ground, feeling happy that I was part of a team and not alone.
My chip time (the actual time from when I crossed the startline to when I crossed the finish line) turned out to be 3:57:56 (3 hr 57min 56 sec). Three days have passed since then but the high of finishing my first marathon below 4 hours has still not receded. I must say that it would have been impossible without my team-mates and Coach Tom and the Asha-AID volunteers who were there at all times to take care of our comfort. Half of the credit goes to them.
Here are stories from my other team-mates:
Pravin's Blog
Malathi's Blog
Amit's Blog
Ady's Blog
Vivek's Blog
Shreedhar Kale's Blog
Photos:
taken by Kasturi
taken by Diwakar
