I am now a marathoner. 2018 has been a revolutionary year with First 5K, First 10K, First Half and First Full marathon all in one year. This is a couch to marathon story in one year, ignited by a selfie with Ben Stokes in Christchurch, New Zealand.
It was December 5th, 2017 at Christchurch airport in New Zealand when I met Ben Stokes. Our long trip was coming to an end. With the usual lull of emotion you get when the trip is about to end, I saw a bunch of people wearing nice bright red T-shirts and black track pants. They seemed to represent a sports team. I kept staring at their jersey logo to figure out which team they represented. For the longest time I thought they were a smaller county Rugby team. However, I felt that I have seen one of them many times on television. It took me a long time to recognize him as Ben Stokes. Had to make some google searches to confirm the same. He was banned from the England Cricket team playing in Australia and was momentarily playing for Canterbury in New Zealand. I walked up to him and asked him if he was Ben. He indeed was and I got a selfie with him. I was overjoyed and instantly posted that picture on facebook and got a lot of likes too ! However when I came back home and looked at the selfie on a bigger screen, realized how fat and ugly I had become. There was Ben Stokes, fit and charming and then there was me, fat and aweful.
It was this moment that I decided to change myself. I started web searches on how to stay fit. In the process of realization, the facebook feeds from a couple of my friends on their running and triathlon adventures seemed very appreciative. This couple inspired me to do something more outdoors than in the gym. A quick phone call to my friend lead me to a path to Team Asha. Team Asha is a sports program organized by Asha for Education (Asha) that gives the chance to individuals of all ages to discover the magical benefits of physical activities like running and biking including but not limited to an active and healthy lifestyle. All that while helping raise funds for projects supported by Asha in India.
I enrolled in the couch to 10K program in Feb 2018. Prior to that I was a running for a couple of months after the trip on my own. Followed no real method. Just get out of the home, run and back. Injured my knee several times. It was odd on the first day. About 40 people met with a few Asha volunteers and coaches. Our first effort was a 2 min warm up run followed by extensive stretching exercises and then a 5 min run followed by extensive stretching and strengthening exercise. Believe it or not, it was a very tiring experience. It showed how bad my state was. We would run on our own on Tuesday's and Thursday's and meet again as a group on Saturday. Slowly the mileage ramped up. 5 mins became 10 became 20 and soon 45. The pre and post stretching exercises and rigorous strength training felt like army preparation. While the body picked up more strength, there were lots of down days when the knee would hurt, sometimes it would be the ankle and sometimes the frame of the foot. But exercises took care of most of these pains. As a part of this couch to 10K program, I had signed up for the Asha Holi Run. Every week the mileage went up and soon we hit the 5 mile mark. It was a huge milestone and a very satisfying feeling. Soon it was time for the actual 10K run on March 25th. I was nervous. Almost felt like the good old days of appearing in a school exam and the nervousness that goes with it.
It was December 5th, 2017 at Christchurch airport in New Zealand when I met Ben Stokes. Our long trip was coming to an end. With the usual lull of emotion you get when the trip is about to end, I saw a bunch of people wearing nice bright red T-shirts and black track pants. They seemed to represent a sports team. I kept staring at their jersey logo to figure out which team they represented. For the longest time I thought they were a smaller county Rugby team. However, I felt that I have seen one of them many times on television. It took me a long time to recognize him as Ben Stokes. Had to make some google searches to confirm the same. He was banned from the England Cricket team playing in Australia and was momentarily playing for Canterbury in New Zealand. I walked up to him and asked him if he was Ben. He indeed was and I got a selfie with him. I was overjoyed and instantly posted that picture on facebook and got a lot of likes too ! However when I came back home and looked at the selfie on a bigger screen, realized how fat and ugly I had become. There was Ben Stokes, fit and charming and then there was me, fat and aweful.
It was this moment that I decided to change myself. I started web searches on how to stay fit. In the process of realization, the facebook feeds from a couple of my friends on their running and triathlon adventures seemed very appreciative. This couple inspired me to do something more outdoors than in the gym. A quick phone call to my friend lead me to a path to Team Asha. Team Asha is a sports program organized by Asha for Education (Asha) that gives the chance to individuals of all ages to discover the magical benefits of physical activities like running and biking including but not limited to an active and healthy lifestyle. All that while helping raise funds for projects supported by Asha in India.
I enrolled in the couch to 10K program in Feb 2018. Prior to that I was a running for a couple of months after the trip on my own. Followed no real method. Just get out of the home, run and back. Injured my knee several times. It was odd on the first day. About 40 people met with a few Asha volunteers and coaches. Our first effort was a 2 min warm up run followed by extensive stretching exercises and then a 5 min run followed by extensive stretching and strengthening exercise. Believe it or not, it was a very tiring experience. It showed how bad my state was. We would run on our own on Tuesday's and Thursday's and meet again as a group on Saturday. Slowly the mileage ramped up. 5 mins became 10 became 20 and soon 45. The pre and post stretching exercises and rigorous strength training felt like army preparation. While the body picked up more strength, there were lots of down days when the knee would hurt, sometimes it would be the ankle and sometimes the frame of the foot. But exercises took care of most of these pains. As a part of this couch to 10K program, I had signed up for the Asha Holi Run. Every week the mileage went up and soon we hit the 5 mile mark. It was a huge milestone and a very satisfying feeling. Soon it was time for the actual 10K run on March 25th. I was nervous. Almost felt like the good old days of appearing in a school exam and the nervousness that goes with it.
I ran my first ever 10K in 1 hr 3 mins and received my first running medal. Running a 10K is totally insignificant but yet, it has a special memory for me and a sense of accomplishment. This experience taught me a lot.
Now that I had successfully transitioned from couch to 10K, I felt very motivated to continue the program. I extended the training for a half marathon. More runners joined the party. Some more experienced than the others. I was one of the few newbies attempting the half marathon. Never thought of a day when I would be attempting to run a half marathon. I signed up for San Francisco Half Marathon, which was in July 2018. The training for half marathon continued from April. New faces, new places, new training program. It was all out of the comfort zone. The training program was laid out for us. Saturday would be a long run, Monday would be a recovery run, Thursday would be a tempo run. After a few weeks of training, Tuesday was added for a track run. On Saturday's we would meetup as a huge Asha group to run. Monday's and Thursday's they split us all up into smaller groups and assigned mentors. Mainly because people have a difference in their preference to run in the morning vs evening and the logistics around it. I ran in the evening group post work. Emphasize on intense stretching and strengthening was annoying most of the time but helped a lot in the long run. Soon came a time when I would be itching to run. Wednesday's started to become boring. I would look forward to the runs. Saturday morning became really special. Waking up at 5:30 am, get an almond butter toast and head to the run by 6:30 am was a pleasure experience. We explored several trails in the bay area. Los Gatos Creek Trail and the Oracle Trail in Redwood City were two of my favorite trails. This time around mileage increased rapidly. My body was not cut out for 4 days of intense runs. I would really get tired. Tuesday track workouts were really good but very intense and tiresome. We would go full throttle on tracks such that the heart rate would peak to the maximum. About 16 laps of the 400m track was a normal Tuesday thing. Thursday's were upgraded for Hill training. The location was far off from my workplace but I would yet leave my work early and drive to Rancho for some hill training. Strenuous. Super Strenuous. We would do 40 mins laps of an intense slop at Rancho. Back and forth continuously. This was in preparation of the SF half marathon where there were several hills to be encountered. Soon we reach 8 mile mark and then it was 9 and 10 and 11 !. I felt a significant level shift from mile 7 onwards. Had to put in lot more effort. While training for mile 7 and 8, a half marathon seemed un-imaginable, un-achievable. We kept going and the coaches kept motivating. These were hard hard day. Self resolve, self belief and self motivation was truly tested. There were several times when I felt like giving up and call it not my cup of tea. However, running with group helps. Running group, coaches, mentors, experienced runners kept the tempo going and really motivated us.
It was time for the SF Half marathon. Team Asha had hired a bus which picked us all up at 4am and dropped us all in SF at the start location near bay bridge at 5am. It was close to freezing cold that morning for some reasons. Light showers to welcome us as well. Cold and still dark we got off the bus. I ate my almond butter toast an hour before the race, dropped off the bag. Soon it was time for us to line up. The kick off was at 6:30. I was truly nervous. Cannot describe the feeling. Its the test time for all the hard work that was done for months. I was told to not time myself and the goal is to finish. While the goal was to finish, I knew deep down I wanted to hit 2 hour 10 min mark. With all the nervous energy the race began and we were off. Running on the beautiful San Francisco streets through the pier 39, fisherman's wharf area and soon came the fort mason incline. It was funny to see the reaction from other runners as the incline was significant. All the Rancho hill training and the track workouts helped me and I crossed the first hill easily. After a couple of miles, things settled down, and I started to enjoy the run. Soon there was a good glimpse of Golden Gate bridge covered in clouds with a ray of sun passing through it. Phenomenal sight. It was a state of zen. I was running but no thoughts were going through. Soon there were more intense hills upto the Golden Gate bridge and Presidio to Golden Gate Park. I kept running and running and running. No stops, no water, no stretching. I just ran through the entire half marathon with a water bottle in my hand and a few Gu Gels. Felt the hit and lapse in energy around mile 11. Wondered why am I doing this to myself, Why am I running so much. All possible negative running thoughts crossed by. However it would be cowardly to quit at that point. So I continued to run. No clue what speed I ran, what form I ran, who I brushed by and who I did not give room to run. Along the way there was a blind man running. While he could not see he ran faster than me ! There is enough motivation in this world. It kept me going and I finished the half marathon in 2hr 8 mins. Well within my desire.
Its decision time now whether to continue with the season and for another half or a full. I was honestly running well. A lot of fellow runners motivated me to carry on for a full. It was a matter of 8 to 9 more weeks and I would be able to run the full. Have no idea what I was thinking but was seriously motivated and signed up for the Morgan Hill Marathon which was in Oct. Now its game on and its a different ball game all together. Its running half marathon twice ! Seemed impossible. I got injured after the SF marathon because I did not take a break and tried to do a 14 mile running the very next weekend. It took me down 2 weeks. Should have taken a break instead. Anyways, the training continued. 4 days were still on. Thursday's went back from hill training to normal. Every week was a half marathon now as we build up the mileage to the full marathon. Rocky movie songs were an inspiration. The video kept flashing in front of me. Training for a full marathon was extremely challenging not only physically but more so mentally. Your mind needs to keep up with your body and at times your mind helps you finish while your body gave up long ago. Had a lot of bad / challenging runs but after every run the high that I got was at another level. It motivated me to continue and go to that next level. By this time I was also comfortable with running long distance.
It was time to run a full marathon ! The same nervousness was back again. Felt like a kid going for a school exam. Started at 4:45 am for the 6:30am run. Ate the customary almond butter toast and light stretching. Ready to go in the wee hours of morning, we kicked off the race. It was dark and cold, running through the streets of Morgan Hill. Felt real strong and positive. My friend Sarthak Grover and I ran pretty much the whole race together so that made it much easier. It took us 2 hrs and 21 mins to complete the first half of the marathon. We felt really good and strong and the motivation and positivity was sky high. I felt that I could complete the full marathon in 4 hrs and 45 mins. However, we hit our first challenge. The race had messed up the water station location. For full marathon runner, they missed a water stop so there was nothing to offer from mile 11 to mile 15. This made it very challenging. The second challenge was that the terrain changed and we found ourselves running on the side of the main road where the cars were passing by. It made it very difficult and we were scared that some car would run us over. The third challenge was that sun came out by then and it started beating hard. Fourth challenge was that now the terrain got hilly from mile 16 onwards. These hurdles cumulatively took a bad toll on me. The hills were strenuous. Had to slow down and get to a run walk method. I ran partly and walked the hills. I was still doing great on time. Completed 21 miles in 4 hours and 5 mins. However by this time, my body started to give up. Back started hurting. The biggest challenge I face was my glutes gave up. I had a lot of pain in my glutes. Never got one in training but in the actual run it came down hard. Started to face some kind of a wall. All the negative thoughts I got while running half marathon repeated themselves. It was time for the mind to take over the body. Body had given up by mile 21. I ran a few mins, walked a few, stopped in the middle of the road to sit down and stretch out the glute. Get up, run few, walk few, sit and stretch. This cycle repeated over and over untill mile 24. The water stations were like an oasis in the dessert. Small little milestones made a lot of sense and we would try to hit those small milestones. Sometime in terms of distance, sometimes time, sometimes some marker that we see far out. Finally, it was mile 24 and just 2 more miles to go !. I was back. While not running fast but I know I was running strong ! We ran the whole 2 miles. Ran in to a last min challenge as we took the wrong route to the finish line.
A lady guided us back to the race route. This added 0.4 more miles. Running even a step extra at that point is challenge but never the less, we did go back to the race route and finished the race strong with smiling faces.
I give a lot of credit to Sarthak for all the hard training we did together and most importantly the support and motivation he gave me through my struggles running the marathon. It took us 5hrs and 30 mins. Big thanks to Sarthak, coaches and Team Asha and most importantly my wife who supported me for all the time I spent training.
I am now a marathoner. A fitter, better, more confident than ever before, happier person now. Its feels even more special to see my wife and family take more pride in my achievement.
Running marathon teaches a lot. These lessons are not new and one can find them in several books and many other means. However, when you learn these teaching in practice or action, the means lot more and bring in a different level of understanding and acceptance of these teachings. Here are some of them that I can list. I am sure there are more that I dont even know that I have learnt in the process.
- Discipline of time management and following a training plan.
- Hard Work to success.
- Art of preparation.
- Self Belief to go beyond your capacity.
- Self Confidence to overcome any challenge.
- Breaking down complex problems to smaller milestones.
- Helps learn your own health and body.
- Healthy eating.
- Positive impact of stretching, strengthening and exercise in general.
- Anything can be achieved with proper plan and training.
- Knowledge can be acquired.
- Take the first step to the impossible.
- How to place mind over body.
- Compassion and care towards others.
- Nature appreciation
(Believe it or not, while running through scorching heat, it were the trees that helped, the gentle breeze from the bay that helped and many many more instances to appreciate the beauty of this nature)
A selfie with BenStokes Changed my life.
Now that I had successfully transitioned from couch to 10K, I felt very motivated to continue the program. I extended the training for a half marathon. More runners joined the party. Some more experienced than the others. I was one of the few newbies attempting the half marathon. Never thought of a day when I would be attempting to run a half marathon. I signed up for San Francisco Half Marathon, which was in July 2018. The training for half marathon continued from April. New faces, new places, new training program. It was all out of the comfort zone. The training program was laid out for us. Saturday would be a long run, Monday would be a recovery run, Thursday would be a tempo run. After a few weeks of training, Tuesday was added for a track run. On Saturday's we would meetup as a huge Asha group to run. Monday's and Thursday's they split us all up into smaller groups and assigned mentors. Mainly because people have a difference in their preference to run in the morning vs evening and the logistics around it. I ran in the evening group post work. Emphasize on intense stretching and strengthening was annoying most of the time but helped a lot in the long run. Soon came a time when I would be itching to run. Wednesday's started to become boring. I would look forward to the runs. Saturday morning became really special. Waking up at 5:30 am, get an almond butter toast and head to the run by 6:30 am was a pleasure experience. We explored several trails in the bay area. Los Gatos Creek Trail and the Oracle Trail in Redwood City were two of my favorite trails. This time around mileage increased rapidly. My body was not cut out for 4 days of intense runs. I would really get tired. Tuesday track workouts were really good but very intense and tiresome. We would go full throttle on tracks such that the heart rate would peak to the maximum. About 16 laps of the 400m track was a normal Tuesday thing. Thursday's were upgraded for Hill training. The location was far off from my workplace but I would yet leave my work early and drive to Rancho for some hill training. Strenuous. Super Strenuous. We would do 40 mins laps of an intense slop at Rancho. Back and forth continuously. This was in preparation of the SF half marathon where there were several hills to be encountered. Soon we reach 8 mile mark and then it was 9 and 10 and 11 !. I felt a significant level shift from mile 7 onwards. Had to put in lot more effort. While training for mile 7 and 8, a half marathon seemed un-imaginable, un-achievable. We kept going and the coaches kept motivating. These were hard hard day. Self resolve, self belief and self motivation was truly tested. There were several times when I felt like giving up and call it not my cup of tea. However, running with group helps. Running group, coaches, mentors, experienced runners kept the tempo going and really motivated us.
It was time for the SF Half marathon. Team Asha had hired a bus which picked us all up at 4am and dropped us all in SF at the start location near bay bridge at 5am. It was close to freezing cold that morning for some reasons. Light showers to welcome us as well. Cold and still dark we got off the bus. I ate my almond butter toast an hour before the race, dropped off the bag. Soon it was time for us to line up. The kick off was at 6:30. I was truly nervous. Cannot describe the feeling. Its the test time for all the hard work that was done for months. I was told to not time myself and the goal is to finish. While the goal was to finish, I knew deep down I wanted to hit 2 hour 10 min mark. With all the nervous energy the race began and we were off. Running on the beautiful San Francisco streets through the pier 39, fisherman's wharf area and soon came the fort mason incline. It was funny to see the reaction from other runners as the incline was significant. All the Rancho hill training and the track workouts helped me and I crossed the first hill easily. After a couple of miles, things settled down, and I started to enjoy the run. Soon there was a good glimpse of Golden Gate bridge covered in clouds with a ray of sun passing through it. Phenomenal sight. It was a state of zen. I was running but no thoughts were going through. Soon there were more intense hills upto the Golden Gate bridge and Presidio to Golden Gate Park. I kept running and running and running. No stops, no water, no stretching. I just ran through the entire half marathon with a water bottle in my hand and a few Gu Gels. Felt the hit and lapse in energy around mile 11. Wondered why am I doing this to myself, Why am I running so much. All possible negative running thoughts crossed by. However it would be cowardly to quit at that point. So I continued to run. No clue what speed I ran, what form I ran, who I brushed by and who I did not give room to run. Along the way there was a blind man running. While he could not see he ran faster than me ! There is enough motivation in this world. It kept me going and I finished the half marathon in 2hr 8 mins. Well within my desire.
What a feeling ! What a feeling ! . Could not stop smiling. I had actually finished a half marathon ! The medal is always precious and has a special place being the first half Marathon medal. This experience taught me a lot.
Its decision time now whether to continue with the season and for another half or a full. I was honestly running well. A lot of fellow runners motivated me to carry on for a full. It was a matter of 8 to 9 more weeks and I would be able to run the full. Have no idea what I was thinking but was seriously motivated and signed up for the Morgan Hill Marathon which was in Oct. Now its game on and its a different ball game all together. Its running half marathon twice ! Seemed impossible. I got injured after the SF marathon because I did not take a break and tried to do a 14 mile running the very next weekend. It took me down 2 weeks. Should have taken a break instead. Anyways, the training continued. 4 days were still on. Thursday's went back from hill training to normal. Every week was a half marathon now as we build up the mileage to the full marathon. Rocky movie songs were an inspiration. The video kept flashing in front of me. Training for a full marathon was extremely challenging not only physically but more so mentally. Your mind needs to keep up with your body and at times your mind helps you finish while your body gave up long ago. Had a lot of bad / challenging runs but after every run the high that I got was at another level. It motivated me to continue and go to that next level. By this time I was also comfortable with running long distance.
Full marathon now became more of a challenge to myself. Can I really do this. I sure can. Train. Train. Train. Soon it was mile 18 and 20 and 21 !!. Believe it or not it was 21 already. Nilesh our mentor and a good friend Sarthak were instrumental in making these training sessions easy. It helps when you have god run buddy's who run a similar pace as you do.
It was time to run a full marathon ! The same nervousness was back again. Felt like a kid going for a school exam. Started at 4:45 am for the 6:30am run. Ate the customary almond butter toast and light stretching. Ready to go in the wee hours of morning, we kicked off the race. It was dark and cold, running through the streets of Morgan Hill. Felt real strong and positive. My friend Sarthak Grover and I ran pretty much the whole race together so that made it much easier. It took us 2 hrs and 21 mins to complete the first half of the marathon. We felt really good and strong and the motivation and positivity was sky high. I felt that I could complete the full marathon in 4 hrs and 45 mins. However, we hit our first challenge. The race had messed up the water station location. For full marathon runner, they missed a water stop so there was nothing to offer from mile 11 to mile 15. This made it very challenging. The second challenge was that the terrain changed and we found ourselves running on the side of the main road where the cars were passing by. It made it very difficult and we were scared that some car would run us over. The third challenge was that sun came out by then and it started beating hard. Fourth challenge was that now the terrain got hilly from mile 16 onwards. These hurdles cumulatively took a bad toll on me. The hills were strenuous. Had to slow down and get to a run walk method. I ran partly and walked the hills. I was still doing great on time. Completed 21 miles in 4 hours and 5 mins. However by this time, my body started to give up. Back started hurting. The biggest challenge I face was my glutes gave up. I had a lot of pain in my glutes. Never got one in training but in the actual run it came down hard. Started to face some kind of a wall. All the negative thoughts I got while running half marathon repeated themselves. It was time for the mind to take over the body. Body had given up by mile 21. I ran a few mins, walked a few, stopped in the middle of the road to sit down and stretch out the glute. Get up, run few, walk few, sit and stretch. This cycle repeated over and over untill mile 24. The water stations were like an oasis in the dessert. Small little milestones made a lot of sense and we would try to hit those small milestones. Sometime in terms of distance, sometimes time, sometimes some marker that we see far out. Finally, it was mile 24 and just 2 more miles to go !. I was back. While not running fast but I know I was running strong ! We ran the whole 2 miles. Ran in to a last min challenge as we took the wrong route to the finish line.
A lady guided us back to the race route. This added 0.4 more miles. Running even a step extra at that point is challenge but never the less, we did go back to the race route and finished the race strong with smiling faces.
I am now a marathoner. A fitter, better, more confident than ever before, happier person now. Its feels even more special to see my wife and family take more pride in my achievement.
Running marathon teaches a lot. These lessons are not new and one can find them in several books and many other means. However, when you learn these teaching in practice or action, the means lot more and bring in a different level of understanding and acceptance of these teachings. Here are some of them that I can list. I am sure there are more that I dont even know that I have learnt in the process.
- Discipline of time management and following a training plan.
- Hard Work to success.
- Art of preparation.
- Self Belief to go beyond your capacity.
- Self Confidence to overcome any challenge.
- Breaking down complex problems to smaller milestones.
- Helps learn your own health and body.
- Healthy eating.
- Positive impact of stretching, strengthening and exercise in general.
- Anything can be achieved with proper plan and training.
- Knowledge can be acquired.
- Take the first step to the impossible.
- How to place mind over body.
- Compassion and care towards others.
- Nature appreciation
(Believe it or not, while running through scorching heat, it were the trees that helped, the gentle breeze from the bay that helped and many many more instances to appreciate the beauty of this nature)
A selfie with BenStokes Changed my life.
