My second marathon..

There are several things that your 2nd marathon teaches you. Point is, after the first one, you are too busy feeling arrogant, conceited and full of bullshit like "I felt like giving up, but kept saying to myself, just 21km left", "It's all about mind over body" to really sit and think about the whole thing.

Even otherwise, the pain is so..... how shall I put it, painful, yup, painful is the apt word that one begins to hear one's body parts swearing aloud. The soles scream and thighs weep, your feet will be kicking at you, your calves and arms will be writhing in pain and the poor knees will be hollering like a teenage girl who has just lost her phone, or a teenage guy whose girlfriend has just lost her phone. And in all this chaos, you forget that it's the poor ankles that have done most of the work, and nobody seems to have the time to give them a pat on the back.

So anyways, here's my 2 cents, or 3 or 4, whatever makes you feel good. You know what; a penny sounds better, yes, here's my penny or rather 2 of.... ahem, the plural of penny :P

1. Age does not matter, I mean, there were guys clearly in their 50 and 60s, doing 100km runs while I was feeling like teenage Bill Gates landing his IBM deal doing 50.

2. The importance of self start in your bike (:) ) I always considered it lowly and non-masculine not to kick start your bike. After the run, the joy that I felt starting my bike with my thumb was like ahhhhh......

3. It is easiest to converse with strangers when both parties involved are getting their guts spilt on the ground for the same reason. You tend to relate very easily. Other examples of this would be prisoners, fresh MBA grads joining a big bank, your wingies in college, married men etc.

4. Winning doesn't matter, as long as you feel god and enjoy it(that's for my young, hopeful and full of enthusiastic readers, the rest know how it feels when an old man beats you all colours of the rainbow and actually encourages you at the end... the patronizing senile sexagenerian!)

5. There is no dearth of lunatics in this world, if you though 50k is stupid, there were about half a dozen or more doing 100 and one lost soul who ran for 24 hours straight! Crazy right?

6. Men will be men & like wise for women. The female runners were made-up and the men were still doing what they do in malls.

7. You can just not forgive yourself if you give up midway. Though I didn't exactly experience this, the sheer anticipation of this feeling of loserness, kept me going.

8. Some dangerous things can be tried at home :)

9. Beer tastes awesome! especially after a long run on an empty stomach.

10. Never eat aloo-chat, or chowmein or dosas on chat street the night before you plan to run the longest distance in your life.

11. Contrary to what everyone might say, it is REALLY difficult to run long distances! Trust me on this. But you will enjoy the pain during the run and the great feeling after the run. Its the pain after the run that inconveniences you. But by then you really can't really do anything can you.

12. Never listen to bloggers, they tend to exaggerate and self-glorify, but then who doesn't :)

13. People who've run one marathon are good, those who've run more than one are awesome but those who blog about it, are legen- wait for it, till you realise that this post is getting a wee bit patronizing/condescending and don't want to read this anymore, but can't really help as you've come to the end-dary!

NOTE: BITSAA is organising a world 5/10k run in the first week of December, open to all alumni. Guess who's volunteered in Bangalore :) So if you're interested, do join bits2marathon yahoo group, and if you're not, go get a dip in Koramangala ki nalli!