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TCS NYC Marathon 2025: A major milestone in my Marathon journey

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The year 2025 started with relocation to Pathankot, on my maiden major administrative appointment which was expected to take my time and effort, away from running. But like all passionate runners, my first days in the city were spent acclimatising to work schedule and the biting winters. As the challenges of work got under control, so did the process of locating running routes around the hospital. Mamun Cantonment roads, with their impeccable surface and fairly challenging inclines and of course a fledgeling group of seasoned runners as company for Sunday long runs were a blessing.  After completing the three months of training remaining for the London marathon in April, which included a FM in Chandigarh Fast Marathon in Feb as a training long run (my first 42k since Tokyo 2023), I was fairly confident of training better for the forthcoming NYC Marathon, scheduled in November, which was known for it’s tough logistic challenges and hilly route especially in the later miles. With las...
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AFMC Marathon – A Labor of Love and Passion

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  AFMC Marathon – A Labor of Love and Passion   As we get into the preparation for this years’ edition of our own, AFMC Marathon, It is time to look back on this amazing journey, one that we all should be so proud of. While some of the cadets did run amazingly long distances, it was in 2015 that the “AFMC Marathoners club” was born when a few runners with a small nudge decided to get together and start running as a team and form a club of men , separating them from the boys who ran shorter versions. Fig – the Club Logo and The first “Club Run” We slowly grew from strength to strength as we infected others with this awesome running bug. Idea of starting our own marathon event came up with ILLUMINATI 2017, when I also happened to be the OIC Student Scientific Society, and we planned to host the first AFMC Marathon labelled innocuously as a “ Health Run ” and had 21k, 10k and 5k, organised by “RunBuddies” a local event organising team. The First AFMC Marathon 201...
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NMDC Hyderabad Marathon 2022 – My Return to the Challenge

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  NMDC Hyderabad Marathon 2022 – My return to the Challenge   Why FM at Hyderabad? When I decided to run the Hyderabad marathon, and registered for the full distance, the most frequent question I was asked was, Why FM? A very obvious question to be asked, for an event that is known for its rolling hills, four never ending long flyovers and a weather that one can’t be sure of, till you are in it on the D-day. After my only two previous experiences in 2012 (returning from a major injury lay-off), and 2015, I had suffered especially during the second half, walk-jogging painstakingly through it, ending up deciding not to ever return to run this torture again. While I knew what I was getting into, I also realized that I hadn’t had a clear injury-free training year since my last major run at Mumbai in 2019, and later the pandemic had taken away most opportunities. So having trained till March’22 with mostly easy long mileage weeks, and run the NDM, where I felt I had underperf...
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My Individual Pacing experiences #HeforShe

  Running space in our country is dominated by men, and for women to make an entry into this area, has taken a lot of time and effort. Over the last few years, women participating in marathons has shown an increasing trend, which is a refreshing change. There has been greater acceptance of women in this space by their fellow male runners and by the general public alike. What is also heartening to see is that more women have felt comfortable with their body image and have stepped out to run, ignoring the stares that often hound them. Despite these refreshing changes, women continue to face challenges while training for and running in such events. Men have a huge responsibility in helping make their running a safer and a pleasant experience. Events like the Pinkathon have brought together large groups of women from all strata to run various distances from 3k to 10k, across many cities in the country. A large number of first-time runners find it comfortable to try their hand at ru...
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Second Wave COVID-19: Licking Wounds as the Dust Settles

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  Second wave of the pandemic struck us sometime towards the end of February’21 and over the next three months, we were engulfed into a tsunami that saw more than 3000 cases coming into the hospital in critical state, with almost a fourth of them succumbing to this dreaded disease despite the efforts of each and everyone in the team. While similar numbers, if not worse were pouring in from few other centers, we felt proud that our team had come out unscathed after braving the odds and saving lives and lungs in one of the busiest of hospitals. While we went about doing this Himalayan task with total disregard to safety of our own and our families, we learnt each moment that the challenges we faced were making us stronger and wiser for the next day. That we were overwhelmed, atleast transiently, by this wave of pandemic that struck us as it did the rest of the world was a foregone conclusion by any assessment. But the courage and fortitude shown by each member of the team in standi...
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COVID-19: The Second Wave, a Tsunami - Part 4

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  My personal battles: Having been part of the team during the previous wave and after returning to the department as its head in the early part of the year, I had to be in control of things while taking the team along during this wave. As the number of cases increased in the last few days of February, from 4 to 40 and then 80 over 3 days, it was time for a physician to be amongst the junior doctors managing the patients till then. Underestimating the direction this surge would take and thinking of it to be a short spike, we decided to keep the juniors in the zone managing the patients, and senior physicians to take rounds twice a day. I volunteered to be there for the task, as all other senior physicians were staying with their families and would have risked taking the infection back home. This arrangement worked well, till the numbers got out of hand to over 140, and in mid-April, a team of doctors was sent to live inside the zone in a 10-day cycle for better management. I cont...
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COVID-19: The Second Wave, a Tsunami - Part 3

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Response on war footing: We were at war for more than a year, and now it had reached unprecedented proportions. The gravity of the situation was soon understood by the military hierarchy and a war ops room like setting was created incorporating all the stake holders. All the non-clinical responsibilities were delegated to the administrative staff in the formation, allowing us to focus on our specialized task. Daily conference calls with the head of the formation ensured speedy rectification of issues at hand especially pertaining to oxygen crisis and manpower shortages. For a change, the medical service had become the “Arms of war” and the infantrymen in the staff were deployed to play the supportive role.   I could see their enthusiasm as they seamlessly got involved in the hospital logistics and in the process, developed a newfound respect for their medical brethren, whom they saw fighting on the frontline, against this ruthless, invisible enemy. Administrative tasks having...
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