2019 Backstory | How I got off the blocks to finish half-marathon

Editor's note: Backstory is Onmanorama's special year-ender video series. Here, our reporters recall their memorable experiences in 2019. Watch all videos here.

It was a very impulsive decision. To register for a marathon. I think it was born out of a desire to just shake things up, to get myself out of the zombie, auto-pilot zone state that had become so comfortable of late. And I was very certain that it needed something as monumental as a marathon to have that desired effect. And so I did it.

I ran the Spice Coast half marathon in Kochi in the last week of November.

I began preparations for it five months ago.

Then, I spent the entire September trying to find the perfect apps for my phone that would monitor the data when I do run.

I think it was mid October when I seriously began my practice. It wasn't much – roughly about 5 kms a day. Short sprints of maybe half a kilometre and walking twice that on repeat. All medium pace. Nothing too fancy.

The one thing that I learned doing this is that the more people you tell, the more likely it is that it ends. Here, people laugh when you tell them you are running 5 kilometres a day.

Was I sure if I could do it? Absolutely. I had absolute conviction that I could do it. I ran 21 kilometres in 3 hours and some minutes. It's not the best of times. Not at all. A friend of mine ran 42 in that short time. But it's a start, something to build on.

Life is still very much the get-back-from-work-netflix-and-game routine, but there's this belief now that if I could run a marathon, I can storm through anything.

(This story was first published on December 23, 2019.)