Running for fun

I am 30-year-old, been born and bought up in Bangalore (India). I work for Yahoo and I have a 21 month old daughter.

I started running at around Jan 08. Prior to that I had been working out at gym and I kind of figured out its quite boring to run on treadmill. I happen to come across RFL and RGI, I started running with them, but then I wanted to run a marathon to see what I can push myself to. I attempted Auroville marathon in the month of Feb 08. I was terrible for 2 reasons I didn't give much to the training and I had to have stamina to go thru it. But I still managed to complete it in 3hrs 19mins. Felt really good knowing what I can do and how mind pushes over body. During the race I wanted to give up dozen times but kept pushing myself and finally made it. That's when I kind of took running seriously, doing the training programs available online.

Then something made me sign up for The Great Tibetan Marathon, I read this is one of the adventure marathons in the world. Totally thrilled about it, I went ahead and signed for it. I did manage to put a fair training program but definitely there is nothing which can simulate the conditions running at that marathon. Purely because Leh is 11300 ft above sea level, oxygen % is way low and its difficult to run. I still don't know what made me sign up. But I think I had made up my mind that I will do it. No matter what I shall complete it.

Then came the big day 19^th July 2008, I had to run GTM (great Tibetan marathon) in Leh. We went there as a group from RFL, we did get acclimatized and did little bit of running. I managed to run half (21.2kms) in less than 3hrs. That was an amazing experience to run there and to have completed it with such extreme weather condition.

Here, I am planning to run the Kaveri trail marathon and Ultra this year.

All I can say is running is great way of keeping fit, fitness was never so much fun. Some of my favorite quotes have been:

"We run, not because we think it is doing us good, but because we enjoy it and cannot help ourselves...The more restricted our society and work become, the more necessary it will be to find some outlet for this craving for freedom. No one can say, 'You must not run faster than this, or jump higher than that.' The human spirit is indomitable."
-Sir Roger Bannister, first runner to run a sub-4 minute mile

"The miracle isn't that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start."
-John Bingham, running speaker and writer