Sunday, Feb 19th, NITTE Mangaluru 1/2 Marathon
Morning 5.30 am
I woke up by morning 5am and went to the location
Crowd looked like sea of people,place was surrounded with lot of spirit and enthusiasm
i started observing all the people around,everyone around me looked very cool and few people r busy in taking selfies, few people busy in doing warm ups.
There was a prior announcement of cash prize for 1,2,3 winners in marathon but what i observed is none of their faces looked like they really bothered about it.
And i was busy in thinking about how i can win the cash prize with having so much of leg pain and every thought made me feel so nervous
And there the race started and before revealing about how far i succeeded in marathon, i would like to share my pre preparations for marathon.
I registered two weeks before for marathon and i thought i should go for practise daily but i ended up practising only for two days but daily i thought a lot about how to win the race.
At that point of time for me winning the race is winning cash prize.
Now coming back to my experience during marathon, for the first 2-3 Kms i was among top 10 runners and then slowly many people started crossing me and all of a sudden i realised i cant win it and at the end i completely lost and went back to room by getting very disappointed.
Even though i went back to room my thoughts still around marathon race only and then i started doing post marten of where i went wrong and how i lost it.
I realised the only reason i lost is because of my mindset.
I found few differences between myself and the other runners in the race
1)I participated to win the cash prize whereas others participated because they wanted to experience the marathon
2)I ran for money and others did it out of passion
Even though i didn't win but it had changed my perception towards marathon.
Before participating in marathon i have seen it like a sport and as i'm a bit passionate about sports, as like every sport i participated in this also and tried to win.
Off late i started reading about other peoples experience of marathon just to understand their perception towards it and then i have found this quote by Emil Zatopek
“We are different, in essence, from other men. If you want to win something, run 100 meters. If you want to experience something, run a marathon.” – Emil Zatopek
Yes, Marathon is not a sport to win.It's an experience ,Next time i will make sure that i participate in marathon to have a better experience and to enjoy but not to win cash prize
Veda Appaji
