Monday that Changed my Life.....

The Monday That Changed My Life….

Hi Friends,

I would like to share something very important with all of you my runner friends.

I had recently gone to attend The South Asian convention of our company at Pattaya, Thailand. I was there from 30^th April till 6^th May.  Since I could not run the whole week, my colleague Nick from China and I decided to go for a long run on 5^th May which was a Monday. A Monday I will never forget and which has impacted my life and guided me to the path I want to take going forward.

Nick is a good runner and runs 42 in under 4 hours and fit by any fitness standard.  Nick had already finished his breakfast and was waiting for me at the lobby when I arrived. We met at 5.45 am.  After a little bit of stretching we both hit the road. It was more of a chit chat run, we both were enjoying our pace and were sharing our experiences while running.  My Garmin showed 9.3 km and I told nick that we will make a U turn when we reach 10km. Nick told me that he wanted to take a break and have water and urged me to go ahead and complete my 10 km mark . I came running back after the 10k turn and saw Nick walking so I joined him, I asked him if he was ok and he told me he was fine. We were walking and talking for some distance and I told him that we would start running again whenever he was ready. We had another 4 to 5 km to return back to our hotel.

After walking for 5 min or so we started running again. While we were running Nick was telling me about his work in China, how he is used to work late hours, sometime he doesn't get much time for running etc. We had almost reached the 12 km mark when he suddenly said “wait!” and FELL DOWN , before I could realise what was happening and tried to get a hold of him he fell flat on the ground. I was shocked by what had happened and tried to do whatever came to my mind first. I made him sit and splashed water on his face and kept saying “NICK?..NICKK??..open your eyes, please talk to me..NICK?..NICK??..  are you Ok??, can you hear me?? NICK..NICKK!!”.  This sounded far even to my own ears and was not aware if any of my words were reaching him at all.

His eyes were closed and he was breathing very hard. He started making some noise with his mouth wide open, his hands and legs became stiff, people who gathered around were trying to help me as much as possible to revive him. Somebody put a spoon in his mouth assuming he was having fits. Some of them were applying balm on his neck and making him sniff it. I could see people around were very concerned and very helpful. When I checked his pulse, it was beating frantically, his hands and legs were getting stiffer and yellowish in colour and he was gasping for breath.

After a while the people around and me took turns and tried CPR and mouth to mouth respiration to revive him, simultaneously when I was doing this I was asking people to call for transport or Ambulance to take him to the hospital.

People around were doing the best they could, after all it was a life in front of us which was trying to stay alive. I could see some people on the road who were controlling the traffic and with their wireless were calling out for help in Thai language. The Ambulance eventually arrived and we were on our way to the hospital. He was taken straight to the ICU and was given CPR.

I heaved a sigh of relief when he was finally in the hands of the medics because even though all of us did our best they were the professionals who would keep him alive. The shock was slowly leaving me and realisation of what happened and could have happened hit me. I realised my Garmin was still on so I switched it off. It seemed like a lifetime from the time Nick fell on the road to the time I handed him over but my Garmin reading said 21 minutes.  He started breathing partially after 30 minutes or so and they shifted him to another hospital to check his Cardio. The results showed that he had one blockage in his chest and out of three tumours one burst in his stomach and there was internal bleeding too.

I have been keeping in touch with his folks up on his progress and alas last week I have got to know that he has had multiple organ failure and they have given him a few days to live. 

I did my best, I gave it my 100% but it was beyond my hands to save him.

This incident really shook me at the same time I become a strong person. These are the following things I assessed must have gone wrong with Nick even though he was a fit runner.

1.       I think he did not do his whole body check-up regularly, if he would have done his body check-up he would have known about blockage and tumors and also he would have taken care about his blood pressure too.

2.       Too much of work in the previous week stressed him out maybe he didn't have proper sleep too. His blood pressure was high, but he used to think that if he runs he feels nice.

3.       When he stopped at 9.3 km he must have got the indication but never disclosed it to me. That’s the blunder all runners do, because of many reasons runners hesitation to disclose to the other runner that they are feeling tired or they are feeling uneasiness.

If one don’t feel comfortable to keep up with the runner who run along with you or if one feel any kind of uneasiness, please reduce the speed or walk for some time, if not that movement might be your last movement of your life. I am sorry to be very blunt. If you have done routine medical check-up then fine carry on.

I have learned the following things from this incident:

1.       In case of an emergency like this immediately look for some transport to move the person to the nearest hospital, and on the way to hospital keep doing the CPR till you reach the hospital. Please consult the doctor for details. Http: //depts.washington.edu/learncpr/index. html

2.       Always carry Emergency contact number and blood group details when you are running.

3.       Please learn personally how to do CPR, you can save somebodies life because of this.

4.       Its normal tendency, if you are doing any sort of exercise or if you are a runner, people say that you run so much you can eat anything, you will easily burn it out. I feel it’s a wrong perception.  I was suffering with high cholesterol problem till last 6 months, I have been running since almost 10 years now. Doctor told me that running or any physical exercise won’t reduce cholesterol. Now my cholesterol is normal because of my diet.

5.       Each person’s body type is different, so one should learn to listen to their body.

Outside you may looking very fit and unless you do your medical you won’t know what is store for you inside your body.

I have decided to make “Healthy Running” my mission, I don’t want any other runner to die because he is unaware of his health issues or neglecting his health. It is my personal agenda to create this awareness and have asked my doctor friends who are runners to join this crusade to spread awareness.  I urge you to do your bit to save a runner friend.  

Nick is no more but for me he lives on.    Happy Running Guys!

This was clicked on that Monday Morning before the run.

Comrades Marathon 2013

The Comrades Marathon is an ultra marathon of approximately 89 km (approx. 56 miles) which is run annually in the Kwazulu – Natal Province, between the cities of Durban and Pietermaritzburg. It is the world's largest and oldest ultra marathon race.

The distance alone makes Comrades intimidating. The infamous climbs make it torturous. The direction of the race alternates each year between the "up" run (87 km) starting from Durban and the "down" run (89 km) starting from Pietermaritzburg. Runners over the age of 20 qualify when they are able to complete an officially recognised marathon (42.2 km) in less than five hours.  During the event an athlete must also reach five cut-off points in specified times to complete the race.

The start of the Up run is at sea level in the centre of the harbor city of Durban, and finishes in Pietermaritzburg at an altitude of 650m. On the way runners encounter 5 major hills, popularly known as the “Big Five” and many small hills.

I have run the Comrades Marathon four times so far.  Each run I faced different type of challenges.  Each Comrades run was a different learning experience.  Since the 2013 Comrades Marathon was a UP Run the distance was marginally reduced from 89 km to 87 km. But they added three more hills towards the end, making it challenging and interesting over previous years.

This year I was feeling fitter than ever, so I was expecting to do better than my previous comrades runs.

I was very excited to be in “ A “ seeding this year and  felt honored to be lined up along with the elite runners in that most of them were silver medalists.  It was only after  30 km that I realized I was running in the wrong category was somewhat carried away and running almost 4.45 to 5.30 pace an average of 5.30 pace in the beginning and I was exhausted . By now the weather and lake of intake of solid food added to my feeling week.  

“Essentially, the ‘up’ run is all about self-control – and this control has to be exercised in the first half,” writes nine-time winner, Bruce Fordyce.  Just take a look at the route profile and see what dramatic physical variations occur on the stretch between the start in Durban and the halfway mark at Drummond. Fordyce continues, “Controlled running in the first half will be rewarded by an exciting second half. The first part of the ‘up’ run is littered with hills, really tough hills. From the gun we have to start climbing them: Tollgate Hill to Cowies Hill is a long steady climb. In the cool dawn, lulled by excitement and strength, there is a danger you may run them too hard.”

This is exactly what happened with me. After the halfway, I was so weak that I could barely keep my eyes open, Yet I could feel my legs were moving and that I was still running. So I entered the medical tent after the halfway, had my blood tested by the Medic who said my sugar level was okay to continue running. Since I was feeling very weak, I was given a dose of glucose with water and advised to rest a while. Since I was tired and sleepy I requested to be awakened in 10 minutes, just in case I slept off.  After 10 minutes, I was on my way again, having refused the Medic’s suggestion to use the ambulance. With instructions to visit the medical tent and ice my legs and Arnica oil massage at every station, I resumed the run.

Although I was feeling weak and tired, I didn’t want to give up the race. I diverted my attention and started visualizing the finish.  I realized that every stride I took further, I was getting closer to the finish line. To preserve energy for the end, I started walking uphill, briskly by swinging my hands. That time my mind went back to all my training days and I even saw Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev face, he was smiling at me. In this manner, I managed to run-and-walk from one water-stop to the next covering around 60 to 65  km. At this stage, I stopped at another medical tent and was given some sachets of Sugar-syrup. This worked like a magic for me, and I picked up pace. By now the wind had also picked up, in fact it was so gusty that we (the runners) were literally being pushed backwards; and could barely see the route ahead, because of the dust being carried by the wind.

The Gel which Alok Shukla gave me, as well as the sugar syrup were my saviors and helped me run the last 15 km almost nonstop. I finished the race very strong.

Running teaches us lot in our life. If you keep your head down and stay focused on the hill or your life you might stumble a bit but you will be able to be in better control and be able to reach your goals. If you look too far in front, you will probably feel like the hill will defeat you or that life will be too challenging for what is in store.