Recently I completed Satara Ultra Hill half Marathon race
where more than five thousand people all across the globe participated and most
of them finished the race in a good manner. Being my first race it was quite
exciting and challenging experience since it was an hill marathon(almost 500
meter ascend and descend), but I will not be sharing much details about my
performance since I would like to share about an important observation about
the overall ambiance during the race.
Generally when I travel into the busy streets of Mumbai I feel
uncomfortable due to crowd, traffic and ceaseless amount of noise all over the
place. All the mentioned three factors were present at the venue and during the
race also. There was not a single moment in the race where I was not surrounded
by ten persons at least but somehow I felt no issues with so much rush, not
with the fact that there was hardly a distance of five feet between me and
others in all directions.
At a distance of every kilometer we were greeted with
different kinds of music bands be it a rock band, DJs or everyone’s favorite
Nashik dhol. If the same set of bands were placed in between, from my home to
the bus stop, I would have got frustrated a lot but somehow I really enjoyed
the music. First time in my life felt a connection with the hard banging loud
music.
The point I am trying to emphasis is there was something
peculiar about those three hours. The entire event was filled with positive
energy, even when some race participant got tired an unknown person behind him
pushed him to go ahead. I myself asked few guys to buck up in last one or two
kilometers. We saw school kids cheering us on Sunday morning at 6 AM (Imagine
getting up on Sunday morning to support people whom you don’t know at all,
sounds weird). People from all age group stood in a disciplined manner on the
road side to boost us with all the energetic words like “Common”, “You can do
it”, “Keep going” etc.
If I think now as to what was their benefit standing on the
road, it is simply nothing, but they were very happy, clapping continuously and
cheering us. As they say real joy is in giving and not taking, they were certainly
giving us what we needed. I could feel the exchange of positive energy both
ways. It was a pure give and take of brotherhood without any kind of
expectations. An aged couple standing on the hill askes us not to give up till
the end, I don’t know them but will always remember the couple rest of my life
because when I wanted someone to help me they did by supplying the capsule of
positive energy.
The beauty of running or any other sport lies in here, as a sportsman many of us
battle with internal negative energy, many a times we feel like giving up
during our training. Sometimes we give up or fight back. But when the race day
comes we are prepared both physically and mentally, rather mentally more. That same
positive energy accumulated by us during our training goes out to the people
cheering us all around and same comes back with more force and conviction. At the
end it forms a kind of a cloud full of positive energy, motivation, euphoria, enthusiasm
and self-belief.
When such kind of peculiar cloud forms around you, all the
minor negative energies fade away and remains an unadulterated, strong and
powerful mindset which results in an enjoyable race. Sports are important in
this aspect, they let us throw out what is not needed and filter only good
things. The power of sports lies in here, in the process of making ourselves
strong, irrespective of our awareness we tend to attract only righteous
entities.
This is something I wanted to share with all of you, running or any sport
is one of the best ways to make you inner self optimistic, cheerful and
peaceful from within.
