It began with the Earth Day Run…

Back in 2018 a friend of mine who has been running in organised running events, asked me if I would be interested to join her and a group of her friends for a Run. The upcoming Run at that time was the National Geographic (NatGeo) – Earth Day Run. The minute I heard NatGeo, I was excited… lol. I thought to myself “Wow, this is going to be something exciting and glamorous”… lol.

Having not participated in any event that involved running or marathons, I was excited and had agreed to give it a go, just because, it’s…NatGeo! Hmmm…the things some of us do…! They had a few categories like the 10 km, 15 km and so on. The category for the 10km distance was already closed, and the organizers were no longer accepting participants, as it was already full for that category. The next category available was the 15km distance that my friend and her group had already registered for. So at that point I thought I will give a go at it, whilst having no clue, what it would be like to participate in a 15km distance category.

The day finally arrived on 22 April 2018. The night before i.e. on 21 April, I had set my alarm on, on my phone, to wake up at a specific time that morning. I had however found myself waking up every few hours before the alarm on the phone had went off. It must have been the nervousness, excitement or I may have just been afraid that I may oversleep, and that may have resulted in me waking up so frequently that morning.

So, that morning we arrived in Kota Kemuning, Shah Alam, and then headed to the designated venue, where the event was scheduled to begin. On arriving there, that was the first time ever that I had realized that there were so many people participating that morning. That scene was mind blowing for me at that time. I thought to myself…wow…people actually do not mind waking up at unearthly hours, to prep themselves, and then to arrive at a designated venue to…just…run!

While we were there, we decided we ought to take a pic with the banner 🙂

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What are the thoughts that go through the mind of a runner, while they run in organised running events or marathons?

During the run, I had noticed so many of the runners passing me by, and going ahead of me… and I had thought to myself… goodness, will I ever make it to the end?, will I complete the run within the qualifying time, in order to get that medal? During that Run my thoughts “travelled” everywhere… lol… after awhile my thoughts returned to “that” present moment, focused. I was running and even walking, at times. We also caught a glimpse of the sunrise that morning and it was spectacular. Some runners took photos of the sunrise and some even, at some signages that indicated distance remaining, to complete the run. Being the first time for me, I was like, “if I’m going to stop and take photos, that’s going to delay me”. So, I did not take any photos 😉 I was thankful however, that I had completed it within the qualifying time.

This is us, our group, thankful that we all completed the Run.

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I had not realised then, that this was going to be another journey of mine. That, participating in the NatGeo Run had set my pathway to participate in many more other Runs, to come, and, that like many other thousands of runners, I too was going to be waking up at some unearthly hour, and also eating something light, at some unearthly hour of the morning, on the day of a Run. Majority of the Runs take place in the mornings. Very few take place in the evenings.

I found my self participating in other organised Runs and Marathons. I have however not run a marathon, i.e. 21 km or 42 km distance. However, some of my friends in our group have participated in these two categories. After the NatGeo Run, I had participated in 10km Runs and a 21 km Asics Relay Run.

Here are some pics from some of the events that we had participated in.

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I have not posted all the photos from all of our Runs/Marathons that we had participated in, but have just shared a few here. I decided to write this, as today being Earth Day had reminded me of my first Run, and it was the Earth Day Run.

Have a great day, and thank you for reading. Cheers!