Your Friendly Philosopher & Guide

Edmunds was the most favourite. All knew he would win. He had been winning the marathon for a couple of years continuously now. He was warming up in his professional tracksuit, and we were already wearing the free T-shirts that were distributed. There was a short cut to reach the hostel, but then that was already blocked. And a rule was put – if someone tries to take the T-shirt and stop midway – he has to return the T-shirt with a fine! We thought - might as well we run.

I spoke to many about how to complete the race. And they said – “you will feel you are running only till you complete 5 kms or so, later your legs will roll automatically, and there won’t be any pain.” Those words were very motivating. And we thought although not 1st at least we will end up being in the first 10 out of the 52 who ran.

The whistle went on, and all ran like crazy - as if they wanted to catch a bus. We were clear about our strategy - slow and steady wins the race. There was another good news. In the very first kilometer Edmunds had a hamstring pull, and he could not run any further. That gave us another boost. Now we could see our chances of winning the race brighter.

After 10-15 mns of running, we saw none in front of us, nor we could spot anyone behind us. We had a smile on our face – we had the confidence of catching them all when we return. The race was 9 kms to and 9 kms fro.

5 kms were up, and my legs were not rolling automatically. The pain was the same right from the very first step - there was no difference. I wanted to find that bugger and bang him - whoever told me that it is easy after few initial kms. Every step was like choosing death. We lost the smile on our faces, and were already becoming to look like refugees running for their lives.

After 30 mns of continuous running we spotted a guy running in the opposite direction. My friend innocently asked me – is there any other marathon going on simultaneously. I said, “no. That guy is my NCC colleague. He has also participated in this particular race.” Seeing him run back, we were happy. We thought we are close to the first half of the marathon. The sad part was after spotting that guy – we ran another 20 mns to complete the 9 kms mark!

The number of people running in the opposite direction kept increasing. And we could not increase our speed. Legs, chest, stomach, and every inch of our body were already aching like hell.

We four had decided from the beginning that, we would complete the race together. But I don’t know what happened to us, when we were just 100 mtrs away from the finish line. We could hear the claps, and that made all of us forget our friendships, and also the promise we made. The last 100 mtrs was a sprint. And I came the last among the four!

Out of the 42 who completed the race we came 31st, 32nd, 33rd and 34th. The experience was indeed good, but not good enough to be repeated. After that experience I am paranoid about running marathons, and find it really funny whoever runs for global peace!