In lieu of running the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon 2016

My last post described my experiences with the Airtel Delhi Half Marathon (ADHM) in 2015. Bereft of a timing certificate, in order to participate in the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon (SCMM) in 2016, the only option available to me was to  share an inspirational write-up to try to get a spot in this coveted event. In about August/September, 2015, I was running strong and consistently. Buoyed by this confidence, I penned down the following piece. Alas, injury struck soon after and I didn't end up travelling to Bombay to participate. And it didn't seem right to go there to try to wing it the way I had ADHM, considering my entry ticket to the event was based on a post on overcoming injury. But in lieu of running the event, here I am sharing "My Story", an absurdly truncated version of which appears on the SCMM website.

Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon 2016: My Story

“You can never run again. Accept it.”

I could scarcely believe those words, which effectively ended any dreams I had of seriously pursuing my relatively new hobby: running. These words came from a doctor practicing in a renowned knee clinic in Delhi, at the end of my most expensive medical consultation till date, in April 2014.

To rewind a bit, for about 6 months preceding this verdict, I had been struggling with some pains in my right knee, which had come to plague me predominantly due to a “TMTS” (Too Much Too Soon) approach to running. In these months, I had got differing diagnoses from two other doctors, though none that had really managed to pinpoint the cause of my pain. I must also admit that in this period I was guilty of some seriously idiotic acts, dictated by my endorphin-charged brain such as not resting my knee, not seriously pursuing strength training for my legs (the one thing that all doctors had advised me to do unanimously!), repeatedly running through the pain and for distances that my body was not ready for. This included running/walking the Airtel Delhi Half Marathon in December, 2013 with misguided enthusiasm and without proper training.

Finally fed up of the constant pain in my knee, I decided to visit this fancy knee clinic, thinking it would have all the solutions. Instead, I had a doctor sounding a death knell on the very activity I had hoped to resume. I was told this was on account of three factors: having an “over-stretched anterior cruciate ligament” in my right knee, being overweight and being loose jointed.

“No running, no jumping, no dancing,” said Doctor Doomsday.

“Surely there must be something I can do?” I said, utterly distraught, and in denial about this pronouncement.

“Let me put it this way – your body has certain manufacturing defects,” he said, referring to the causes pinpointed by him earlier.

I was still in a state of disbelief. “What if I lost weight? Would that help?”, I asked, clutching at straws.

This was dismissed too, because clearly, weight loss was a long and seemingly unattainable prospect for a haplessly “defective” human being such as myself.

Ironically, Doctor Doomsday didn’t give me much advise on how to relieve myself of the pain in my knee. I went home with my ill-fated knee, and remember crying a lot over the next few days. It was suggested by friends and family that I get a second opinion. The next doctor I visited diagnosed the pain in my knee in one shot as a condition known as “semimembranosus tendinopathy”. To translate, I had an inflamed tendon running down my knee which was the cause of the pain.  My ligament being over-stretched was neither here nor there since I was not experiencing any instability (or “knee locking”) sensation.  It was emphasized once again though that I needed to strengthen my quadriceps to help my knees. The remedies prescribed for healing the tendon were rest from running, heat therapy and compression.

While I knew I was overweight, I had never been motivated to try to shed some weight for reasons such as vanity. But I now had a more compelling reason. I proceeded to embark on a concerted strategy to be able to run again. I completely stopped running (one area in which I had hitherto been unable to exercise any self-control till now), began religiously wearing a compression sleeve on my knee and treated the inflamed tendon with copious amounts of heat. While I didn’t go on one of those restrictive diets that call for minimal carbohydrate intake (and in my opinion, nobody should), I did start eating better, mainly by incorporating more protein in my diet. I ate a lot of eggs, vegetables and fruits, and drank a lot of milk. (To clarify, I also ate generous amounts of dessert and never felt the need to deny myself of anything tasty.)

I finally knew better than to subject an inflamed tendon to impact-based activities so instead I turned to activities that were non-load bearing and did not adversely impact the joints. I started swimming 3 to 5 times a week, never less than a kilometer at a time, and usually more. I once even swam 4 kilometres by doing 80 laps of an Olympic-sized pool! I tried to make sure that I was cycling almost every Sunday – usually 40 kilometers at a time, and sometimes more.

The results were immediate and left me surprised.

By the end of July 2015, I had lost about 15 kilograms. There was less pressure on my knees, and the healing process was bearing fruit – I no longer had an inflamed tendon. Rather than jumping right into running with the distances I was used to running earlier, I started from scratch with a basic run/walk program.  Over a period of 9 slow weeks, I went from running 1 minute at a time to running 30 minutes non-stop. By this time, I had lost a total of approximately 20 kilograms.

Even after this point, I was over-cautious and very slow in building mileage. With my weight now in the healthy BMI range, I started on a more intense programme of strength training involving squats and lunges (which would have been inadvisable earlier, due to all the extra weight I was carrying). During this period, I stayed away from organized running events, though with many of my friends running these events, there was always a temptation to throw caution to the winds and just participate, even though I was not prepared. As most runners will testify, there is a lot of excitement surrounding organized running events and it’s often difficult to say no, even though you may not physically be ready.

Airtel Delhi Half Marathon – Delhi’s biggest running event, which every runner eagerly looks forward to participating in, year after year – took place in November, 2014. While a year ago, I had jumped into completing the event with scant training, this time I came to terms with the fact that I most certainly could not participate. I had restricted myself to much smaller distances at this stage, owing to a deliberately conservative approach to running. To cheer myself up, I did a self-supported triathlon on the same day as the half marathon. I ran 5km, cycled 41km and followed it up with a 1500 metre swim.

Cut to September, 2015. I am now about 25 kilos lighter than I was in April 2015, stronger than ever before, running much faster than I used to, less susceptible to injury, managing better running form, and finally in a place where I can think of going back to aiming for long distance running events such as half marathons, or even 10 kilometre runs which eluded me till some time ago. My knee still has an over-stretched ligament and I am still loose-jointed – but it really doesn’t matter, because I have managed to overcome these so-called manufacturing defects and keep the pain away through patience, hard work and discipline.

Sometimes hitting rock bottom is what it takes to give you the push to try to reinvent yourself, to snatch back something close to your heart. I have managed to defy a life ban on running. Unfortunately, I don’t have an officially recognized timing certificate to show for my efforts from the past year, and so I am ineligible to register for the Standard Chartered Half Marathon 2016.

Which is why I chose to write this instead.