Drat! I am not getting the requisite vacant space, if it can be called that, to write and so I will have to wait for some shift to come up where I can eke out some time to write about some of the things that have been running through my mind for quite a while now.
Last Sunday, May 15th, I attended the Bangalore Marathon which was one hell of a mega event. I ran in the celebration run that required running for a stretch of 7 km under not so hot conditions though it was a good 35 degrees that time of the day but I kept on egging myself by thinking had it been in Delhi at this time I wouldn’t even have thought of running.
I had been totally out of practice for a month or more then because I had stopped going for my morning jogs once she felt she did not need anymore slimming. However the sight of 12000 people running along you and some of them much older and more courageous was enough to not let the spirit flag and I managed to complete it without much ado and I guess I must have had a decent four figure finish which one of my colleagues refuses to believe. He says I must have been in the top half as I say but in the bottom drawer of the race. I don’t buy that.
I got a lot of plusses out of it. It has lifted my spirits for sure because prior to it I had been acting like someone who just lost the thread of it all. There was an indescribable pleasure on reaching the finishing line. This race was more about fighting it out, not giving up and I am happy I could last as I was hoping to. It didn’t at all matter that by the time I could reach the starting line, almost half the people had already taken off because there no one was competing against anyone. Everyone was running for something though it may have varied from person to person. I am still trying to figure out what I was running for and honestly I still don’t know except that I feel much better than I was before the event.
Somehow the immense pain that lingers on in the ribs and the chest does not matter. The fact that I still cannot stretch my legs fully too fails to make any impression because I believe the race was in one way or the other a sort of a RESET button which hopefully has reset a lot of things to a point from where I can hope to find my bearings again and fast too. I look forward to another one of them and hope that the next time I won’t be looking out for reasons to join. I will join it just for the pleasure of perseverance and the opportunity to be among a large crowd of extremely determined people.
I know I should be doing that in the future definitely and if not for any reason mentioned above then for that one reason that belies all skepticisms. It was the sight of a 72 year old man completing the 42 km run and the whole stadium erupting in a joyous uproar followed by an impromptu standing ovation. It was the sight of one man making everyone’s day…and suddenly the 7 km didn’t look that heroic anymore.
Real courage is not about a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.
---to kill a mocking bird
No comments:
Post a Comment