Rest assured, I am not writing this blog to promote veganism. In fact, I don’t want any one of you to experiment with a vegan diet. If you do, I will feel restless, as I’ll need to find something even harder to keep me away from the crowd. I think I suffer from enochlophobia—fear of crowds—a common disorder among KREC graduates—my alma mater.
My kids expected me to write a blog on my first marathon; my wife wants me to write one too. No one explicitly asked, but I am developing this art of reading them. Kids say I talk too much, wife says I hardly talk, friends say I only talk nonsense! Writing is much easier. I can be more fluent and descriptive when talking to myself. It feels like no one is listening—and I don’t need to listen to anyone either.
The Diet of Defiance
This was my third dietary experiment. The first one was two years ago, when I challenged my vegetarian-convert son. He was feeling too proud of his achievement. I beat him badly and destroyed his vegetarianism for three months. I don’t bias people based on age or gender!
The second year was a vegetarian experiment. But it didn’t excite me; it felt less than ordinary, because 90% of my friends are already vegetarian. Following a heavy dose of New Year drinks, I was in a good mood to rejuvenate myself. So, I told myself I would become vegan for six months. I thought it would be easy, until people started asking “Why?” That was undoubtedly the most difficult part of being vegan.
Apparently, “I just felt like experiencing being vegan” isn’t the right answer. Diet, apparently, is a religious topic—with formulas. My wife and friends don’t trust me on doing it right. I showed them my CET marks to prove my intelligence. They challenged it, saying engineering and biology are completely different disciplines. I was outnumbered. I ended up conceding defeat by admitting honestly that I wanted to stay “above” all my Brahmin friends.
Despite that, I felt people were still conspiring against me. A friend in London welcomed me with mouth-watering prawn fry and biryani. My lactose intolerant friend in the US somehow had no plant-based milk. Even the airlines didn’t provide vegan food despite being in business class. But I also saw my friends being emotional and sad rejecting their best dishes and sticking to simple ones.
I realised one thing: veganism is also hard on others.
So, I have decided to relax the rules a bit, still staying above my vegetarian friends. My next vegan stint will come with exclusions in tiny print that only I can read.
The Sandwich Solution
I reiterate, this blog isn’t about promoting my vegan diet. I saw a few people running with big “Vegan Runner” t-shirts, and I maintained a safe distance from them. I do feel a vegan diet is beneficial to running as it helps with weight reduction. But if you ask more technical questions, I’ll be out of my depth here.
In reality, the biggest contributor to my weight loss was a week-long ski trip with my friend. He has a “sandwich solution” for all his problems (financial or otherwise), and I think we were heavily influenced by that. I lost four kilos after the vacation—a blessing in disguise, as I get to criticise his food habits while maintaining my ideal shape before my major runs!
Philosophy of Pain
This year, I was determined to push more people to run and make them feel the pain. Seven people who never dreamed of long runs registered for the Reading Half-Marathon. My logic was simple: if they can run a half-marathon from nothing, I should be able to do a full marathon.
I even promised one of them a money-back guarantee—if she didn’t finish, her registration fee is on me. They all did wonderfully well. I didn’t lose any money, managed to take credit for inspiring them, without giving any back.
I was dead against full marathon two years ago. Articles suggested they cause permanent physiological changes. Now that my circle has convinced me my engineering skills don’t apply to biology, I simply stopped reading them. I read philosophy instead.
I was watching One Piece with my kids. There, Dr. Hiriluk answers the question: “When does a person die? A person doesn’t die of disease or bullets—they die when they are forgotten!”
This feels apt for people like me in a mid-life crisis; who think they have achieved everything, but something still feels empty.
The answer is simple—just run. Run away from all equations you can’t control. Run like there is no tomorrow.
Earlier, I talked about a beautiful book called The Rise of the Ultra Runners. It’s an inspiring attempt to answer why people run. Sometimes it is just the Strava likes, sometimes the sense of pushing yourself beyond your limit, sometimes just the smile from a random stranger in the street showing you as an example to their 6-year-old child.
But beyond all, it’s a sense of losing yourself in a mundane activity—which seems so dull, yet so profound.
As someone said: the God of Small Things!
Negotiating with Coach
When I registered for the Brighton Marathon, my goal was sub-5 hours. I asked CoachGPT for a structured plan. After some negotiation, we settled on 40km per week. I followed it diligently throughout the cold winter months—weighted runs on Mondays, tempo runs midweek, and 20k+ runs on weekends.
Practice and discipline triumph over talent.
In three months, I grew overconfident enough to target a sub-4 marathon. My coach truly made me believe in that dream! I am sure I would have been better off if I had listened to my wife and kids that much.
That dream stayed until my last 35km trial run, which completely bruised my toes. I had the toe guards, but no one reminded me to use them.
Two weeks before the big day, I did the Reading Half as preparation. My coach warned me against pushing too hard. But I couldn’t resist that proud feeling of AI apologising—admitting my gut feeling was better than its advice backed by that insane amount of stolen data.
I hit my personal best of 1:45, with a more bruised toe. Who cares when there are still two weeks of tapering to heal.
Toilet Calculations
There was no excitement until the morning of race day. My recharge holidays started, but the “heat” was missing. But I was well prepared: a litre of electrolyte water, 5 gels to be taken precisely every 45 minutes, and the well-tested oat-banana breakfast.
I even bought carbon shoes a week earlier, thanks to my student runner. Where I grew up, color didn’t matter—pink or blue, all came from god. For a difference of £40, I don’t mind a few eyebrows going up; it ticks my box of staying high in the crowd. For the record, I explicitly verified with my coach that it was indeed not a “girly” shoe.
My plan was solid. I unloaded part of my bio-waste before leaving home and planned to use the toilet once again an hour before the race. As per my precise calculations, I needed to use the toilet at least twice for optimal run efficiency.
Once I reached the Preston Park starting point, I was awestruck by the massive crowd. The toilet queues were never-ending. After 25 minutes of waiting, I got my turn and spent five minutes trying to find the toilet paper. They weren’t there.
I was oddly satisfied—because I had already verified this earlier and wasn’t waiting for my wife to get them. I’ve told her many times I can function efficiently without her, but she still doesn’t trust me!
Realising I went to the wrong toilet, I tried another. Then another. No toilet paper anywhere—but I observed that wait time decreases exponentially as you try more toilets.
At some point, reality settled in. My body decided everything was fine, and the earlier calculations weren’t exactly data-driven. I rushed to the starting point and joined the tail of Wave 7.
Unexpected Variables
Wave 7 was for those aiming for 5 hours. I religiously maintained a 5:40 pace as suggested by my coach. Since I was at the tail, I was constantly overtaking people. Soon, I crossed the 5-hour and then 4:45 pace keepers.
I carried a rain jacket against a slight rain forecast—which turned out to be a poor choice. I could hear my coach laughing at me.
The run felt easy, but I could feel the need for a “wee” stop. However, the queues would cost me 5–7 minutes, which meant losing my razor-thin sub-4 margin. I balanced it by drinking less water.
No water in also means guaranteed cramps.
The Brighton track was flatter than my usual routes, but the beach wind compensated for that. By the time I crossed the halfway mark, it was 2:01 hours. My Strava recorded 22km, which broke my math. The route markings were in miles, and conversion to km was challenging.
I caught up with the 4:30 pace keepers and thought I had gained 30 minutes since the start. But math clearly doesn’t work like that. I knew I couldn’t solve it even if I was resting.
The supporters were creative. One lady had a placard: “Run fast if you think I am sexy.” I instinctively looked at increasing my speed. Before reacting, I sensed my wife would see that—she doesn’t need GPS to track me.
By the time I confirmed it was safe, I forgot who was holding the placard.
Then I wished my family would see me and cheer—it seemed to help others. I spotted them finally at 27km. That also helped me get rid of the annoying rain jacket, which increased my speed slightly.
I have no idea how I was measuring these gains—but I am always right.
I started noticing the pain but kept the pace. The roads were slightly slanted, misaligning my feet. To avoid this, I started running in the middle of the road, which felt much better.
Why I Run
As the pain increased, I remembered why I wanted to run. I wished to dedicate my first marathon to Manu, whom we lost during Covid.
I remember him every time I go for a long run—when the legs give up, I think of the struggles he went through.
I lived with them in a tiny one-bedroom house when I came to Bangalore in search of a job. I saw him grow from a small boy into a fine human being I really admired.
He was just married when Covid struck him. The initial hospital wasn’t great, and recovery wasn’t happening. After a month, they shifted him to a better hospital near home. It was dangerous—they got stuck in traffic with the oxygen cylinder running out.
Luckily, his dad sourced one nearby. It was as if he got a new life.
Hearing that, I was convinced he would make it. Some people are born to fight.
Yet, nothing mattered. He lived a short life—but ensured his family was financially supported.
People die when they are forgotten.Manu is not forgotten.
The Final 29 Seconds
At mile 23, my legs gave up. I knew why—I only finished 500ml of water instead of a litre. No water in also means guaranteed cramps. It was all over my legs.
Pushing the pace would have stopped me completely, so I reduced speed. The official sub-4 chance was slim, but I still had a chance at a “Strava sub-4.”
The math wasn’t too hard—3 miles in 29 minutes… then 2 miles in 18 minutes.
The cramps increased, and I gave up on the official time.
Then I saw it—Strava still showed a sub-4 possibility.
A stranger in his fifties ran past, encouraging everyone to finish fast. I started pushing. The cramps took a break.
That last kilometre was the fastest I ran—with cramped legs.
Yet, when I saw the time after crossing the finish line, I had missed it by 29 seconds.
I was still proud though. Strava recorded 43.15km, meaning I ran more than a marathon.
Analysing the data, I understood what happened. My first half recorded nearly 0.9km extra—I was constantly overtaking people, making my own path. The second half had fewer people and less overtaking, so only about 0.25km extra.
In hindsight, I should have been overconfident the moment I decided to register, running with the 4:00 pace keepers.
This marathon hasn’t killed me. So it has made me stronger. Which is slightly dangerous—because now I have more theories to prove right. Or wrong.
And just to be clear: this is still not a promotion for veganism.
