A TALE OF TWO MARATHONS – ROHIT PRASAD RECOUNTS HIS EXPERIENCE
During my time in Singapore, I wanted to take part in the marathon there. Unfortunately, I couldn’t because we had an exam scheduled the day after the marathon. I happened to once tell one of our professors, Dr. William Thomson, about my interest in running and how I was thinking of running a marathon. He told me how I should consider running the Sydney marathon since it was scheduled to take place while I was in Sydney and there were no exams scheduled close to the date of the marathon.
Cut to the day of the marathon in Sydney. You would think that a full marathon could be tiring but it wasn’t so for me at all. In fact, I even felt a little cold while running since it was September and the peak of the winter season in Australia. I’d say the weather was perfect for me to run. It was my first full marathon and what an experience it was – definitely one of my best experiences in Australia!
Running a marathon is an addictive experience and as soon as I completed the Sydney marathon, I wanted to take part in another one. Since my next stop was going to be Dubai, I found out details about the Standard Chartered Dubai marathon, immediately registered myself, and began preparing for it. Regular preparation helped me increase my speed and run faster. I was, therefore, looking forward to improving my completion time as compared to my last marathon.
D-day arrived and I started off on in great form. I covered 28 km in the first three hours but then my speed started decreasing gradually. I started taking a break after every 2 km until the 36 km mark. I felt a drop in my energy levels and consumed a lot of energy drinks to keep me going. There came a point where I believed it would be better for me to stop since I was finding it hard to even move my legs. But, the thought of the finishing line and the medal kept me moving forward slowly but steadily. Since I was unable to run any further, I walked the last 2 km and managed to complete the marathon in 5 hours and 33 minutes.
Running my first two marathons within four months of each other has been an exhilarating experience. I am now determined to practice more, practice harder and improve my timing in my next marathon.
I would also like to thank SP Jain School of Global Management for sponsoring these two marathons I participated in.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Rohit Kumar Prasad
Rohit Kumar Prasad is a Global Masters of Business Administration (GMBA May 2018 intake) student of SP Jain School of Global Management.
