It was a festive atmosphere with music, dance, and a stadium full of super-excited, fit people ready to race. We reached about an hour before the start, at 0505h IST, warmed up, danced, ran around the beautiful artificial track, stretched, and mentally prepared to run. There was Kym, her mum, Tasha, her Masi, Rashmi, her Aji, her Mama Ajoba, her Mami Aji, and of course, I, her father. As usual, our family believes in turning up. The 2021 Pimpri-Chinchwad Half Marathon was buzzing with electric energy.
The 70-minutes bus pacer was a wonderful man by the name of Shekhar. The only problem was that he refused to believe that my daughter could keep up with him. He asked her personal best and I told him (80 minutes). He told me that he has to keep the 70-minutes pace and cannot wait for anyone and so, I should temper my expectations. I said, ‘Please please see if she can be on your bus.’ He said, ‘Up to her.’ I felt like Mahavir Singh Phogat in Dangal. Pushing my little daughter on someone who said it wasn’t meant for her.
When the race started, I followed her, cheering her at 2.5km and shouting at her to keep up with the pacer. She crossed her Mama Ajoba at the 5km U-turn mark and as she was on her return leg, at 7.5km, I kept searching the horizon for her when I saw her and the 70-minutes pacer flag. Suddenly, I realised that she was ahead of him, and keeping up quite easily, eventually finishing a good minute ahead of the bus at 1h:08m:59s, a good 11m:39s faster than last Sunday, which was our personal best till then.
At that time, in my mind there was only one song playing as I visualised Kym running in slow motion outpacing the pacer, ‘Aisi dhaakad hai dhaakad hai, aisi dhaakad hai…’
P.S: Shekhar is a thorough gentleman and a kind person. He very graciously agreed to pose with her. This post is in good humour.
