What would Forrest Gump do?

At the end of it...

• Your legs are too weak to even make their way into the warmth indoors
  
• Your fingers hurt so bad that you worry they might fall off because of frostbite
  
• Your shirt is soaked in sweat that has forced its way out of you despite the 5 degree Celsius temperature outside.
  
• Your whole body trembles due to the exertion.
  
• People never get tired of ridiculing you.
  

Yet...at the end of it, the “runners ecstasy” that comes with completely a 4km run non-stop makes everything worth it!!

I have lost count of the number of people who have asked me the question, “What’s the big deal about long distance running?”
I always reply saying that it is something that has to be experienced and once u get a whiff of it you are never going to ask yourself that question.
But occasionally I act snooty and say stuff like Runners, we are different. :)
On a different level, I think it has got to with the sole fact that unlike other sports there is nothing to distract you in long distance running (never mind the walkmans!). It is just a test of pure will power. And that’s what makes ‘everything else just a sport’!

And just cuz I’m feeling all good-old-times-where-are-they types, this is big hey to Subbu, Rabbi, Vidya and Paki. These were the guys with whom I trained for and ran the Mumbai half-marathon in Feb’04. (Actually there was one more guy who had flown in from B’lore the day before just to run. Talk abt enthusiasm . I don’t remember his name though!) And we kept ourselves inspired with a really cool paragraph that one of us found somewhere,

Every morning in Africa, a Gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.
Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.

It does not matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle. When the sun comes up you would better be running!

Some adrenalin rush it was!
Who is up for some more? :)

BTW...Happy New Year!