I could see the finish line in front of me, I could virtually hear my favourite lines from the Pink Floyd song "Learning to Fly" - "There is no sensation to compare to this, suspended animation state of bliss" and I swear a few drops of tears rolled down my eyes. The magnitude of what had happened struck me quite hard - I had finished my first 1/2 marathon - for many it would have been a stroll in the park, but for me it was a personal statement that I had put the past behind me and moved on and moved on with a purpose.
With several of my friends completing marathons, 1/2 marathons and 10k's I keep hearing how running can be a life changing experience and this time I got to experience it first hand. I had barely completed 2 miles and was doing good pace when I was thinking of the "failures and disappointments" in life and how completing this run would be my way of saying that I've learned to look beyond failures and focus on the end result. As these thoughts were crossing my mind, I saw this lady, who must have been in her late 30s, doing excellent pace, only that she had a prosthetic limb - for a moment, everything before me froze and all I could see was empty, infinite space in front of me and this woman running. It was quite a mind-altering sight and it struck me then that "failures and disappointments" are issues of perspectives. I'm very sure the lady would have completed the 1/2 marathon in great time and put most of us "regular" runners to shame, but her effort was quite admirable.
There were several others - young, old, men, women, cancer survivors, people running for their loved ones, in memory of some - running is so simple, yet it can carry a powerful message. I was quite blown away by the sheer number of thoughts that were flowing through my head during those 2 hours 15 minutes and 3 seconds. Every time I felt a pain in my legs, there would be a band round the corner playing rock'n'roll music that would pump me up to pick up pace - putting mind over body and blanking out the pain.
The human body is an amazing feat of engineering - the sheer magnificence of this feat was put to test during this run for me by pushing it beyond the limits. Despite having trained for over two months, I was constantly doubting my ability to complete even 10 miles et alone finish the run. The constant self-doubting pushed me to train harder and try "innovative" routines to build stamina, all this while I had to spend close to 16-18 hours trying to balance a work-study routine. At the end of it, I am extremely pleased with myself for having completed the run and instilling a ton of self-confidence and motivated to push myself to achieve greater things in life.
It is definitely a crazy thing to do, but I think I’m beginning to like pushing myself to achieve things that I once thought were either beyond me or irrelevant to what I would want to do – but its only a matter of perspective.
Labels: running
