Accidental Runner

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On Aug 4th, 2019 after tiring 24 hours flight from San Francisco to Mumbai, I ran my 12th marathon within 3 hours of landing. There was flood warning, torrid rain, flooded roads, absolute fatigue and had every reason to abandon my effort. But the promise to my then 9 year daughter of running in front of the houses of Bollywood stars kept me going. It was revelation, a couch potato junkie who never ran more than a mile and not been to gym for almost 2 decade, to be running one half marathon a month for last 11 months. What was more important was that I never trained for marathon, I did not join any running group, nor followed any training regime but accidentally discovered the joy of running with my friend in 2018 Rock & Roll Marathon, San Jose. My friend egged me to join him for the half marathon and told me that there is going to be plenty of rock music on the way and I will love the experience. And I did! I ran my first half marathon and the energy of the people on the sideline were vibrant. I was wowed by the cheering school kids, neighbors offering drinks, bands playing music and some cheeky motivating messages. Somewhere around 11th mile, I could not stop myself from stopping in front of Live Band stage for headbanging and then joining back the race. While I did struggle to complete my first ever run, seeing my family at the finishing line just pepped me up.

I never planned to run full marathon but a very scary accident in March 2019 triggered me to run it. Again, my joy of running was slowly turning bit painful by the time I reached 20th mile, a cheeky message “The wall is record album” triggered me to pull through the remaining 6 miles to complete my first full marathon. 

Covid19 and Shelter in Place, derailed my plan of running one marathon/month. I saw heartbroken athletes about possibility of cancellation of Olympics. It bothered me to see people who inspire others needing inspiration. I decided to run my monthly marathons in my house. On May 8, my 10 year daughter threw me a challenge of contributing $1 for every mile I ran and asked me to match 10 times the money she will contribute for a local charity. On that day, I finished my last meeting at 4 pm. I started my goal to run my first 50K Ultra at 4:47 pm and, 6 Hours, 15 minutes and 48 Seconds later I finished my journey of 31.35 miles in my own backyard.

On August 16, 2020 amid the scorching heat and fear of thunderstorm, I completed my 25th marathon (23 half marathon in 23 month) along with 1 Full and 1 Ultra 50K. Out of these, 6 half marathon+1 Ultra 50k were in my house backyard. 

I have a very simple mantra- Don’t over analyze anything, if you want to do something- Just do it! Enjoy the journey more than reaching the destination.