A boisterous gang got together for a Sunday lunch party over the weekend and if you had walked into the restaurant, you would have mistaken this group for any other group of friends you would see in Bangalore or anywhere else. Except for their conversation. Case in point: Zero gossip. No talk about who's getting married or divorced or breaking up. Only alphabets floated - TCS...SCMM...DRHM...BQ... This group while clearly having fun would not have made any sense to anyone coming off the street...
That's because this group were filled with runners...celebrating another runner for achieving something all runners wish they could do. Confused? On Sunday, I was part of a group that came together to hug and celebrate our friend TimTim Sharma. She has been running for 1.5 years now and in that time she has quietly (ok not so quietly) gone and won nearly all the big marathons and races in the country. And in culmination to all that was her running her best during the Standard Charted Mumbai Marathon (SCMM), winning it and qualifying for Boston Marathon (BQ). To the rest of the world this means this girl ran 42.2kms really fast and that's that. To us runners, this means a dream essentially coming true.
One of the most common questions I have gotten from friends and family this past year hasn't been whether I was getting married (although I get a million of those!), whether or not I had a boyfriend or even whether or not I was happy at my job. They want to know why I run. They look at my blisters. They see my lifestyle (which they deem insane) and they ask me what in the world possessed me to run as much as I do. I bite my lips, mumble a reply and change the subject. Because I know they won't understand. And because I know I can't quite put it into words why I love waking up at 4am in the morning to run circles till I finish 10, 15...20kms. But being a runner is as much part of my identity now as my own name.
And that's true for everyone who gathered on Sunday. They were all runners. Some joined to become part of a community. Some joined to get away from people. Some joined to lose weight. And some like me perhaps began running because they were a little lost. When you run your fears are stripped from you and your worst problems feel manageable. The finish line is a place where there is ecstasy and relief, pain and despair. And on January 2014, one of us managed to achieve something amazing in that finish line...TimTim managed to make us all proud by running the hardest, pushing the hardest and doing her best. It's her achievement. Her moment in the sun and she will get to join the best runners from across the world when she runs Boston.
So, why were the rest of gathered for this moment? Because while the the average person will know that this was no mean feat, they still can't comprehend the effort that goes into running this well. We understand it. We may not all be as good (I know I am not!) but we know what it feels like to run so hard that you can only stumble when you cross the finish line.
Tim for her part is the best representation of what a runner can do and can be. We know that she has sacrificed so much to get here and continues to push herself to go further. We know that when girls her age are pub hopping, she's running intervals. She's doing fartleks (go ahead Rahul, now is your turn to make a fartlet joke and make me giggle). She's cycling. She's gymming. She's pushing beyond what normal human beings think themselves capable of. And because of that we are proud of her. Because of that, we came together to toast her success.
But that isn't all there is to it. She's inspired us all. When she smiles and tells me that I can run faster than I know I can run...I believe her. She genuinely cares when she pushes my friends (people she does not even know well) to do their bests after having met them for 10 minutes. She's that way with everyone she meets in her life. As long as they want to run and as long as they show up to run, she will be your biggest cheerleader. And people respond immediately. And that's why we showed up on Sunday. Not because we were runners but because we were friends too. And I don't make friends easily and I don't trust easily either. But I like this gang. A lot. We show up for the bad times and we celebrate the good ones. We may not all be alike (in fact most of us are as different as can be) but we understand why we wake up at 4am to run circles. So...this is a love letter to everyone in the room. Thanks for running with me and by my side.... And Tim...I know there is a lot more in store for you than this BQ. And we're all looking up to you to keep charging ahead. And we know you can do it all... So keep running. We're all rooting for you <3
That's because this group were filled with runners...celebrating another runner for achieving something all runners wish they could do. Confused? On Sunday, I was part of a group that came together to hug and celebrate our friend TimTim Sharma. She has been running for 1.5 years now and in that time she has quietly (ok not so quietly) gone and won nearly all the big marathons and races in the country. And in culmination to all that was her running her best during the Standard Charted Mumbai Marathon (SCMM), winning it and qualifying for Boston Marathon (BQ). To the rest of the world this means this girl ran 42.2kms really fast and that's that. To us runners, this means a dream essentially coming true.
One of the most common questions I have gotten from friends and family this past year hasn't been whether I was getting married (although I get a million of those!), whether or not I had a boyfriend or even whether or not I was happy at my job. They want to know why I run. They look at my blisters. They see my lifestyle (which they deem insane) and they ask me what in the world possessed me to run as much as I do. I bite my lips, mumble a reply and change the subject. Because I know they won't understand. And because I know I can't quite put it into words why I love waking up at 4am in the morning to run circles till I finish 10, 15...20kms. But being a runner is as much part of my identity now as my own name.
And that's true for everyone who gathered on Sunday. They were all runners. Some joined to become part of a community. Some joined to get away from people. Some joined to lose weight. And some like me perhaps began running because they were a little lost. When you run your fears are stripped from you and your worst problems feel manageable. The finish line is a place where there is ecstasy and relief, pain and despair. And on January 2014, one of us managed to achieve something amazing in that finish line...TimTim managed to make us all proud by running the hardest, pushing the hardest and doing her best. It's her achievement. Her moment in the sun and she will get to join the best runners from across the world when she runs Boston.
So, why were the rest of gathered for this moment? Because while the the average person will know that this was no mean feat, they still can't comprehend the effort that goes into running this well. We understand it. We may not all be as good (I know I am not!) but we know what it feels like to run so hard that you can only stumble when you cross the finish line.
Tim for her part is the best representation of what a runner can do and can be. We know that she has sacrificed so much to get here and continues to push herself to go further. We know that when girls her age are pub hopping, she's running intervals. She's doing fartleks (go ahead Rahul, now is your turn to make a fartlet joke and make me giggle). She's cycling. She's gymming. She's pushing beyond what normal human beings think themselves capable of. And because of that we are proud of her. Because of that, we came together to toast her success.
But that isn't all there is to it. She's inspired us all. When she smiles and tells me that I can run faster than I know I can run...I believe her. She genuinely cares when she pushes my friends (people she does not even know well) to do their bests after having met them for 10 minutes. She's that way with everyone she meets in her life. As long as they want to run and as long as they show up to run, she will be your biggest cheerleader. And people respond immediately. And that's why we showed up on Sunday. Not because we were runners but because we were friends too. And I don't make friends easily and I don't trust easily either. But I like this gang. A lot. We show up for the bad times and we celebrate the good ones. We may not all be alike (in fact most of us are as different as can be) but we understand why we wake up at 4am to run circles. So...this is a love letter to everyone in the room. Thanks for running with me and by my side.... And Tim...I know there is a lot more in store for you than this BQ. And we're all looking up to you to keep charging ahead. And we know you can do it all... So keep running. We're all rooting for you <3
