Run for the High of Running

I could hear my thumping heart as I stretched all my limbs at 4:45am that day. I was taking extra care to ensure that all my muscles were alive and awake. My head was buzzing with the thoughts of what potentially could be in store for me over the next few hours in the lovely, tree filled trails of Auroville, for I was poised to take part in my first ever marathon.

My training over the last few months hadn’t gone according to plan. 25km was the longest that I’d ever run, and that was over half a year ago. In the previous month, I’d run only on Sundays and I couldn’t do the 30km run that I’d planned on one of the days as it coincided with Pinkathon (due to which Cubbon park was closed to the public and that’s where I run). My total mileage over the previous month was around 80km and I wasn’t consistently doing my stretches or workouts. Despite the insufficient training, I found myself starting the marathon with a time target of 5 hours.

I suppose it was my enthusiasm which made me believe that 5 hours was a realistic target. It was an enthusiasm that grew through the previous day. The sight of the trees and happy memories of the trail as we entered Auroville on our bikes only added more fuel to my zeal. I like to believe that my enthusiasm was contagious; if not contagious, at least it was evident to the nine others in the group that had made the journey from Bengaluru. On the day of the run, I woke up promptly to my alarm at 3:30 and was so restless that I felt it fit to start running right then. And a little over an hour later, close to the start line, my excitement had reached a zenith.

Just after 5am, the run was flagged off. We were all given small torches to help us navigate through the trail. And in the fading darkness of that starry dawn, among the trees, with the cool air standing still, on a slow trot, I had started a unique journey that would take me to a never before run distance, testing my physical and mental resilience; I had started my first marathon.

As soon as I started running, there was something in me that kept me at a slow pace, despite my enthusiasm and urge to run. I wanted to maintain a pace of 7:00 minutes per kilometer for the first half of the run, but my body suggested that I continue at the 7:30 pace that I’d settled into after a kilometer. Vishwa and I, running next to each other, couldn’t help but remark how this slow trot through these trees awaiting the day’s first light was truly a joy.

Vishwa and I discovered that we had an incredibly good rhythm going as we maintained the same pace without feeling tired. After an hour and twenty minutes, we’d covered a fourth of the distance. As the full marathon is run as two loops of 21km, this quarter distance point was when we started seeing distance markers reading 30km and above. Everyone who’d run a marathon had told me that it’s at 30km mark you start wondering why you’re even running. I found that baffling as we’d be so close to the finish then and I couldn’t wait to experience it for myself. As the day grew, we continued running together, exchanging words of motivation at every distance marker and revelling in our steady advance. However, we slowly drifted apart as we approached the end of the first loop. And as I saw the distance marker read 21km after a few minutes over 2.5 hours, I let myself have a moment of small triumph. I felt adrenaline coursing through me and I increased my resolve to run the same distance again.

I found that my pace was gradually dropping and from the 26^thkm, my slide started. I hadn’t run a step beyond 25km previously and now every step seemed to be take a lot more effort than before. Not knowing what to expect, I thought I would be able to run the rest of the distance at this reduced pace of over 8 minutes per kilometer. My mind started recalculating the time I’d need to finish the run at this pace and I figured that 5.5hours would be the realistic target. To give myself a little boost, after 27km, I decided to turn to my music for help.

As soon as I plugged in my earphones and heard Dan Tomkins shout “let me burn” (Evolution by Skyharbor), I felt aggression in my veins as I vehemently agreed with him on the burning part with a considerable amount of headbanging. The music player next turned to Riverside’s Time Travellers and Mariusz Duda’s voice made me think wistfully of the times when I was a kid and innocence was untouched, moving me close to tears. Next when Patrick Watson sang “ain’t it feel right? Ain’t it feel nice?” I was sure he was talking about my run. And I thought John Mayer was an unheralded genius when his song proclaimed fear as a misunderstood friend. Although the songs I listened to made phenomenally more emotional impact than usual, they didn’t improve my pace.

I noticed that I was taking over 10 minutes for every kilometer. Wearing a Garmin then seemed to be a terrible idea as I was tempted to look often at it to see if my pace got any better and given that that didn’t happen, it caused me much consternation. Around the 33km mark, I couldn’t see any runner ahead of me and loneliness seemed to be adding to my woes. At another point, I wondered if one of the distance markers were missing coz I’d run for a long duration and hadn’t seen that distance marked yet. But after running a little longer, when I saw that distance on the next board, I too, like others, wondered why I was running still. My legs wouldn’t respond as usual, I felt a faint pain at the top of my foot, and my mind wouldn’t stay focused as usual, as the gruelling nature of running over 30km was revealed to me.

Going through all this, I realized that there was only one way to approach this: that was to think about nothing else and run at whatever pace I could. That way it would be mind over matter. And I’d still enjoy the run. I then listened completely to my body. I ran as much as I could, walked where I couldn’t. Every cheer at the aid stations brought smiles to my face, invigorated my patience. The new found mental resilience carried me through, at a slow and unsteady pace, to the board that read 40km. Then I seemed to find a new physical resilience too.

My pace picked up, my excitement grew again. I was nearly there, at the end of a marathon. My body seemed to cooperate despite the faint pain, tight muscles, and exhaustion. The board that read 41km released some more energy in me. I couldn’t understand how, but I could run like I did at the beginning. I left the road and entered among the trees for one last time, as the trail turned left. I ran through the trees and emerged on to a clearing. The finish line was in sight, just 200m away. I sped. As I saw my friends standing beyond the finish line cheering me on, I sprinted with everything I had, arms out wide embracing the occasion. The moment I crossed the finish line, I was drowned in ecstasy and in relief. I had run a marathon.

I stretched my sore limbs again for a while as I let the feeling sink in. The high I was on right then was incomparable. All my struggles in finishing a marathon left me thinking about how we have descended into a state where utter competition drives everything, leaving us no time for the proverbial smelling of flowers by the roadside. While there are people who thrive on that, and I thought that I was one of those, I’ve come to realize that the smelling of the flowers, for me, gives me more satisfaction. I had timing expectations at the start of the run. But as the run wore on, I realized that I was running for many reasons, and timing wasn’t on the list. I ran under starry skies allowing fascination about our place in the universe envelop me, I ran under the shade of the trees breathing in their exhale only, I ran trampling the fallen leaves, I ran on muddy roads with the dust rising on every step, I ran becoming aware of my limitations, I ran realizing I can push my limitations, but most of all, I ran because it moved me like no other experience. I ran for the joy of running, for the high of running.