My ideas : My Blogs: Running001: A beginner's full-marathon experience - F1 track

NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE

with my partner-in-time

"If you want to win something, go run 100 meters. If you want to experience something, go run a marathon."

- Amby Burfoot

'Nothing is Impossible' is the feeling you get when you finish a marathon(42.195km) run. To me, reaching to the finish line is not important, but the humbling life experience of struggle, anxiety, pain, 'never give up' attitude makes it memorable even if you are in tons of pain.

This time I participated in the fastest running marathon organized by running and living at the f1 race track in gr. Noida (link) on 12th Feb 2017. Running and living is not a big corporate event like ADHM/SCMM, where you can find pro athletes participating in it as well as much more facilities in terms of hospitality, participation, crowd. It was for those who share the passion of running in the void of above factors. It was my 2nd marathon overall after one full and two half marathons. I wanted to finish the marathon under 5:0hrs to improve my previous marathon's record of 7h. I couldn't complete the whole marathon training of about 4 months due to the busy schedule as well as strong winters in Gurgaon. So I took engineer's approach. I had experience of running half-marathon in ADHM in 2H and based on that participated in a Full marathon, hence it was very tough.

I learned that when you do something for your interest even if it's not great, It gives inner satisfaction and joy that boosts your confidence and which makes you improve upon it and motivate to do it further. Being in the early 20s and in IT domain, it feels quite boring to do the mundane desk job, but following your passion makes you unique and motivated. The hard work you put up to achieve something and the joy you get after getting it is priceless. You feel like you’ve achieved so much, you could probably die without any regrets in life. The feeling of getting gold medal reminds me the dialogue of Aamir khan `medalist ped pe nahi ugte, unhe banana padta hain`. Again it's quite personal, some people wants to live life as it's going with adapting themselves, some people wants to change their life, but they think whatever they do, won't be that great and thus they don't do it, for me It was getting the experience, no matter if it's failure or success but the feeling of doing what I wanted!

Through this event I met many like minded people, one guy was running his 100th marathon, there was a guy who was planning to run the marathon twice in every month. Out of 19 people who participated for full-marathon, only 7 could complete it. My plan was to complete it in 5h, but the lack of training made me complete it in 5.3 hours with many rest points after 30k. During one point, I just sat down on the road and was thinking to give up, but watching your fellow runners cheering for you and motivating you, make you run. I was lucky that I completed first 20k with a group of 3 whose pace was matching mine. but after 20k, I could not keep up with them and was running solo. During this time you need to keep moving and stay motivated because there won't be any force to keep you moving other than yourself. Being a fan of hard rock band AC/DC and watching Angus Young doing duck walk even at the age of 61, kept me motivating during the run. There were many runners who might be running for only 6K and just walking on steep roads of the track. It feels proud when you can pass them with full sprint.

The marathon was on the F1 race track, Gr. Noida and to reach there in the morning at 5 AM is like running another marathon. I planned to leave from Gurgaon at around 3 on Royal Enfield. It was an amazing experience to run your new bike on an 8-lane highway during the night time. It just gives you goosebumps when you reach the destination don't know if it was due to cold or excitement :P

Hope to continue on this running series with next runs on solan valley.