I like my life at Fort Collins. People in my department are friendly. My advisor Dr Cotton is a great guy. He is very inspiring. He is 72 and does all his chores on his own which include cooking, cleaning and even chopping the woods for making his own deck up on the mountains, just to please his dear wife. I have never seen a person making so much use of all the 24 hours. We go running at mid day. I had never imagined back in India that I would be so brave one day that I can go running at around noon with the sun right at my head and the atmosphere so dry that my throat would be parched for water. Every time I am running I am warning myself that 'you are doing it for the last time'. Enough of this crazy madness, why on earth would one want to torture her own self? But the feeling that comes later is very rewarding. I feel proud of my self. I used to be a shy book worm in school. I never participated actively in sports. I would consider it as wasting my valuable time which was solely needed for delving into those textbooks. I was so naive back then. Who has learnt life solely from books? Its kind of incomplete until you have experiences good or bad.
I finished a half marathon last month on May 5th. It was a big day of my life. I have been running more often since I became friends with Ekaterina. She would take me with her for the runs in the UNR tracks and later in the Rancho San Rafael park. Those days were lovely. We would do all the girl talks and try to solve all the problems in each others love life in those runs. I would only take alternate laps with her. It was more therapeutic mentally than physically for me at that point. I even got bitten by a dog while running on the side walks last year in July. She confronted the drunk chow chow owner with all her vigor. I had no idea before that event that my sweet, soft- spoken Russian friend can raise her voice too if required.
Coming back to this year's marathon, I never practiced 13.5 miles full length, before the race day. I had come close to 8 miles, 2 weeks before the race. But the race day was a great experience. I was feeling happy from the time I woke up and went to catch the bus. I was doing good in the first 30 minutes. I was actually going with the pacers for 1.50 hours. But then I started wearing out. I so wished I had practiced more regularly. Not having trained myself led me to being very sore after the race. I finished the race in 2 hours 37 minutes, which is longer than required. I could barely walk for about a week. I would like to take part in more races in future and beat my own record and pace forward gradually. It was a very humbling experience as runners of all age would run past you in the last 30 minutes of the race. I was questioning my own abilities. At one point, there was a runner whose shirt said, 'Don't be LAST'. I was very exhausted at that time but it made me smile. I even paced up and managed to click a picture of her back with my iPhone. There was another 55 year old man who had been to the Himalayas for backpacking tours. The gentleman who waited with me in the line while boarding the bus was doing it for the third time. He was a very positive guy. He went ahead and warned me that since its my first race it should be mostly for fun and the goal should be to finish it. He said he has been doing better with each attempt. This race was just 2 weeks after the Boston marathon bombings. Some runners were displaying support for the Boston on their shirts. Its scary what we can do as human beings. Those two brothers were sports person, the deceased elder brother being a boxer. How did they not had empathy for fellow people in sports? Life is weird when it comes to real acts. I am dreaded to think of runners left with amputations for the rest of their life. But I am overwhelmed at the spirit these people have shown. It is very full of life and positive energy. Of course you can't kill someones soul. I remember Dr John Lewis's advice in our last conversation at DRI. He said grad school and PhD are capable of killing you with load and stress. The best way to survive PhD is to take up some hobby. It would give you a breather from the humdrum and let you keep the PhD at the back burner at least 3 times a week. I was not sure what hobby would be suitable for me. But Fort Collins trails and the foothills campus and my advisor helped me in making running a default hobby. I think the hiking trips with Ted in the first semester also helped me in building stamina and I had a chance to push my limits first time in my entire life. The first time I scrambled Gray rock with him and friends would be always memorable. I felt at several spots that day that it was the last day of my life and I would fall off that cliff and die before even attending the first day of class in the PhD. I had never tried rock climbing in any form and here I was trying to climb a real mountain. I had fever as an aftermath for the next several days. I never really had high temperature after high school. But it let me believe that I can try adventures which I had never done earlier. I want to finish the race in 2 hours next time. I know it would need more miles on my running shoes. Something inside me says I can accomplish it. I need to keep running and forget about everyone, everything; good or bad that ever happened until I am so exhausted that I can only hear my own heart pounding relentlessly and when I come back from the hills my face and nose are red hot, burning with the heat of my own body. Needless to say that I love that look of mine in the mirror.
Grey Rock
The rocky mountains
Running on snow
Gem Lake hiking
Right before the race
The Rocky Mountains
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