2019 Running Round-up

4 min readFeb 16, 2020

The alarm on my mobile phone jolts me out of sleep. 4:00 am.

I switch it off. It has taken a lot of willpower and time to build the habit of not pressing snooze, and oversleeping.

4:45 am and I’m slowly climbing down the stairs. The streets are lit, empty, with sound of vehicles in the distant. I start with my stretches. Today is a mid-week medium long run. After the two hour run in solitude, I have a strength session at the gym before heading to work. All in the next four hours.

That’s more or less how days became, ever since falling in love with running.

I started regular long distance running in December 2018. I had just moved to Mumbai, and through my then employer signed up for the Dream Run (5.99 km) category at Tata Mumbai Marathon (TMM) 2019. Little did I know that running would become an addiction for me in the coming months.

At that time, I had no knowledge about running. I did not know anything about running terminologies, shoes, events, gels, or clubs. I was using a pair of walking shoes for running; that’s how little I knew. After TMM 2019, I signed up for my first 10K race. It was probably in that race that I got the first taste of addiction. Running by myself, speeding through gave me a kind of peace. I could connect to myself, and in that moment it was only me.

Running became transcendental. It was the me-time allowing me to find and be myself. It also brought along discipline and balance — between life, training, work. I wasn’t having the best time at work, and in running I began to find meaning. This activity was in isolation, but it gave me a sense of purpose. I was beginning to understand myself, and my body better. Steadily, everything started to revolve around running.

I signed up for a few more 10km races, and finally did a half marathon as well. While I found going from a 5km to 10km to 21.1km relatively easy, the training for my first marathon was different altogether. During the middle of marathon training, I changed my job and moved cities. This caused a change in daily routine, leading to frustration and obsession. But, I did get my marathon debut. And that too in the city of dreams — Mumbai. It was in this city that the journey started, and it felt right that the biggest milestone should happen there.

The last one year’s journey has been incredible. It has been a privilege to have been able to run, and I’m grateful for it. It also brought with it a massive learning.

The biggest learnings for me have been:

· Practice — work for it, there’s no shortcut

· Patience — it takes time and you have to be in it for the long haul

· Perseverance — put in the hard work and effort

· Discipline — across all facets of life

· Dedication — give it your all

· Embrace the uncomfortable

· Trust the process

· And, enjoy the journey

All these learnings can easily be termed as life lessons. Indeed, running has been a teacher, a guide, a mentor, a savior, family.

I had read this quote somewhere, and running has made each day worth remembering.

“You pile up enough tomorrows, and you’ll find you are left with nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to make today worth remembering.”

I’m grateful for this journey and the experiences.

Thank you.