My first Marathon Journey

A short summary of how my hobby runs ended up in running London Marathon!

I have always been more inclined towards spirituality. Yoga, meditation & going for hill walk has been my way of spending time with myself. It has been more than 6 yrs, I started running to join my wife. She moved on to another hobby and I kept stuck with running. Running with office collegue at lunch time was great way to relax. Then came My brother in law’s desire to run half marathon for his 40th birthday. I wasn’t looking for something big, however to encourage him, I committed to join him. Eventually I ended up running alone the half marathon. It was running along the canal near my home. The sight was picturesque and quiet. Since then I kept hitting the track for run every so often. It was added to my way of spending time with me. As part of spirituality, I kept pushing my limits in different directions. Be it food via fasting or diet, be it strenuous hardship on body by hiking or running. It was venting out my abundance of energy. But I realised, it was giving back energy too. Yes, all my runs were tiring and leaving legs with achy feeling. But there was never a drop in energy levels. The alertness was, if anything, only going upwards. I was acutely becoming aware of my breath and body. There was rhythm in breath. The lungs were becoming visibly aware for me. If you want to get the real feel of the breath, you need to take the weight of emotions, life & aspirations away from it. When the emotions and life weigh on the breath, breath loses its natural rhythm. We live most of our life with such dysfunctional rhythm and breath. There were runs when I was absolutely in deep troubles of life. But running gave the clarity to thoughts. When the anger, frustration, worry or sadness gets out via sweat, the process leaves you as an observer to your emotional sufferings in a triumphant way. 

As part of Yoga, to some extent I have  achieved matching frequency to create resonance in every action I perform. Matching frequency or resonance in colloquial terms is equivalent to unifying yourself with the act or purpose. Such Resonance generates or multiplies energy. Your body, mind, breath and acts have their own frequency, rhythms. If you get them all synchronous to each other, the act instead of draining energy will give you back the energy. That resonance allows you to outperform beyond your bodily and mental limits. I think that is what must have allowed me to finish marathon as well as recover next day quickly.

I always felt I am self starter and self motivated. But carrying that motivation over longer period while attending your daily responsibilities is tough. But possible. sometimes during training for Marathon, I struggled to get myself out of the couch and hit running especially for long runs. Yes, some other passions did take backseat for the last month.

I never had timing in my mind for finishing the Marathon. I just wanted to be the finisher. I paced myself at ease. It was the cheering crowd that gave me life when I was losing it. Most of the runners experience excruciating pain for the last 10k. I was no exception. When your organs realise the energy depletion, they work towards conserving by shutting down unnecessary functions. The time moves slow for you and awareness becomes acute. I kept taking deep breaths while responding every shout or cheer on my name. There is indeed a sense of achievement in timing marathon. But then there is also sense of living through those moments. I still remember many kid’s faces who kept their hand straight holding a bowl of sweets for runners. Many waiting hands to get hi-fi. I don’t know if timing will come to my mind for my second marathon. May be yes. But I will definitely want to live through it everytime I run like first time. 

One of the most important thing for newbie like me to leap into Marathon distance is purpose. The purpose was to raise money for Maternity Shelter for tribal pregnant women at Hemalkasa, central India. I was moved by the pain of walking distances, a pregnant woman has to bare who is already in labour. It helped me keep the fire on. There were occasions during the actual final run which overwhelmed me. Especially when it hit on me that I am helping unknown tribal pregnant women in their pain. And here many unknown people in the crowd are cheering for me. Helping me in all possible way to complete the race. Many unexpected people kindly donated money to my fundraiser. The circle of helping unknown and being helped/cheered by unknown for the cause is complete for me. 

Lastly you continue to be hero for your daughter by bringing home the medal of London Marathon. Especially, when it times well with her school homework on Marathon. 

Thanks

Rahul Karurkar