WHY I RUN?
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| In the trails of Palani hills. |
I am a runner. I have pushed myself across thousands of miles looking for answers that only make sense to me. From one race to another, from the roads in the Berlin Marathon to the heights of the Khardungla Challenge approx 5000m above sea level, I discovered the secrets of self-respect and personal ability On the Khardungla Challenge high altitude route, all the while uncovering secrets of my own abyss. Long-distance running is a great way to retrospect. On my last run in the Tata Mumbai Marathon 2024, I needed to discover some more answers. Whatever answers I found, one question remained uncertain - WHY? Why do I RUN? Nature is perfect in every single way and it is amazing to be able to be out here and be a part of this ecosystem that's just absolutely uninterrupted at all. Earth, our home.The place of our history. A tiny point in time, which ticks towards one’s own demise yet is slow enough to allow for the birth of the most beautiful thing in the universe, life! That life is nature. We have grown estranged from it, both collectively and individually. That chasm we created through convenience is now the missing link. The cog that disappeared from the mechanism of fulfilment and serenity. “I’m the kind of person who likes to be by himself. To put a finer point on it, I’m the type of person who doesn’t find it painful to be alone. I find spending an hour or two every day running alone, not speaking to anyone, as well as four or five hours alone at my desk, to be neither difficult nor boring. For me, running is both exercise and a metaphor. Running day after day, piling up the races, bit by bit I raise the bar, and by clearing each level I elevate myself. At least that’s why I’ve put in the effort day after day: to raise my own level. I’m no great runner, by any means. I’m at an ordinary level. But that’s not the point. The point is whether or not I improved over yesterday. In long-distance running the only opponent you have to beat is yourself, the way you used to be
The last few years, especially after the Khardungla Challenge and running many marathons, shook my life they changed my values. I am really happy. This is one of the most beautiful parts of my life. It's the closest you'll get to heaven, as you will, or God or Spirit that you can on Earth With every new time I venture to run I feel as if I am returning to the place I belong. It is fundamental not just for my own good, but for the good of my environment that I discover myself, that I see myself as “Nature”. I am nature and I can only find myself as part of it. I find here a place to think without stressing out because you have so much time here. Time is a blessing or curse. It marches on relentlessly and continuously reminds us that we are not forever, that we are not eternal. Like a pendulum, it swings above our heads. Life nowadays seems to take away the blessings of time leaving only its dark side. On voyages like this, time slows down A day does not just last 24 hours. It lasts longer, so much longer. Life should be slow. It should be giving us.
Time is something precious. Running for me provides exactly that, slowness, focus on what matters, transcendence! Here, time is a partner whispering not to be afraid of impermanence. You have time to think about life. Time that you really don't have at home because you have so many things on your mind but out here you have a whole day - just fuse and silence, nature, animals, everything but nothing else that clutters the mind. Seize the day… because a day can last a second, blow by like a whirlwind, or it can become a whole eternity! My time, my choice. I choose eternity! Man is not a man without other people. Warmth, togetherness, wonderful lives and stories. When I run with folks, we respect each other more, we listen more, and we love each other more. We achieve purity, we are the most sincere self. With people like that, I feel purpose and kinship again. I belong to a community and finally do not feel the need to escape it. As Murakami aptly mentioned in his book "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running", "People sometimes sneer at those who run every day, claiming they’ll go to any length to live longer. But I don’t think that’s the reason most people run. Most runners run not because they want to live longer, but because they want to live life to the fullest. If you’re going to while away the years, it’s far better to live them with clear goals and fully alive than in a fog, and I believe running helps you do that. Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that’s the essence of running, and a metaphor for life" I believe many runners would agree with it.
That is big! Everyone out here is kinda making the same sacrifices to be out here and around the same wavelength and yeah, I guess the people out here really restore my faith in humanity. Nice people, great people. It's been an incredible experience as far as the kindness that people have shown to me. That's a big surprise I mean people have been unbelievable. You meet some of the best people out here in your runs. I love meeting people in my runs and I feel like they are more my people than most of the other people I know. It's the best community I've ever been involved in. I bump into like-minded people. Individuals who share the same passions, same goals as myself. One small thing that is truly irreplaceable.
We are saturated with consumer goods, and we live in excess, yet we choke on dissatisfaction at the same time. We have everything and subsequently do not see the essence. The running gave me satisfaction over a sip of water… the smell and taste of food the joy of a warm shower or a place to rest my weary legs and to know when my limits and embrace them efficiently like in the book 'Once A Runner' John L Parker mentions that “A runner is a miser, spending the pennies of his energy with great stinginess, constantly wanting to know how much he has spent and how much longer he will be expected to pay. He wants to be broke at precisely the moment he no longer needs his coin.”
We have forgotten about the little BIG things! For me, running is always been super therapeutic. You have hours upon hours of just uninterrupted thinking processes as you are running. And just in the silence... Like others, I also deal with anxiety and depression and trying to figure out how to handle some depression I feel a lot more myself out here than I do pretty much everywhere else. And I come back out to get re-centered. To cope with my struggle with anxiety a little bit and every day that I am out here to run I really feel alive. Even a bad day running is probably one of the best days of your life. That type of well-being we can also call gratitude. From this, we have been inoculated by the overindulgences of modern living. Gratitude changes me, heals me, and makes my mind healthier. The gloom/melancholy, weight, depression and oversaturation of everything implanted into my mind, the wilderness heals with its austerity. That is why I need it and why I bring with me the bare minimum. I crave an experience that will connect me to a piece of inhabitable matter in the lifeless vacuum of eternal blackness. Cosmically negligible and practically unbelievable, life is a gift in which I need to inject enhancers: the flavours, colours, and smells of my origins Because I am the universe in the atom of humanity, an assemblage of molecules uniting the chaos of the Big Bang and the order of life. Conscious, weak and powerful at the same time, completely split but perfectly unique – I am the author of a piece of eternity. That eternity is my life and I will make every effort to carve out of it the best possible monument.
The way I look at running as a sport has been changing over the years as I pursue it. In each phase of my life, I have observed this from a different vantage point and learned something new. Runners are rhythm people, and I imagine train drivers are as well. both relying on distance, speed and time and how the moving parts travel over terrain. When your rhythm stops all of a sudden to navigate an unrunnable track, it accentuates just how attached we are to a certain kind of pace. I suppose my heartbeat is like the chug of an engine and the repeat of the wheels.... but you know what? I don't care much for distance over time now like a train driver pushing to make stations on time. I want to be engaged with what's around me, not my watch or distance markers. I want to be distracted by the trail, or the lack of one, and I want to work hard to get where I'm going. This is my new kind of running, which in some ways isn't running at all, it is exploring. And I bloody love it.
I tried to cover the below points with regards to my running, which are:
NATURE
TIME
COMMUNITY
MENTAL HEALTH
GRATITUDE
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| The Tata Mumbai Marathon finisher Medal. |
