Giant banners and balloons loomed before the legendary 5km race path of the city, which once activated, stopped all other activity in the city. Every child, woman, and man came out of their houses on their houses on the day of the race, paid heavily just to participate (in my case my professor paid for our group :D) in a community race that was beyond anything I had ever imagined. 

It was thrilling when the pistol was shot, and I could hear thousands of feet, young and old, stamping on the ground, in an unsaid harmony, towards the steep hill, and my own choked breath was soon lost in the passionate crowd. I asked myself once again as I finished the 3km mark, "Why I was doing it? Why I was torturing myself?" - the same question I had asked myself 3 weeks ago, when I first began to train for the final day - the day when I broke down at mere 1km and had considered that 5km was impossible for me. But there was something in me that kept me going on, kept me motivated enough to keep training myself for this day, to get the best score. To save those few seconds in my total time. To win. 

And often I had quarreled to myself, why I'm running? Why not stop here now, lay down by the beach, and let it all go...But no, I had to run. I had taken it as a challenge. An impossible challenge. A fantasy. And then I had visions of people who came and told me, "You can't do this, Tanya. It's too hard for you." And maybe that is precisely why I had to do it. What is life without an impossible dream? 

And I did finish the run in the end. I was running 5km every day since past 1 week, steadily improving my runtime by a couple of seconds every day. On the final day, my run time was in the top 25% of 10,000 people who ran with me on the track. Although I killed myself in the process, legs are quite useless now, I was sick in the bed for 2 days, I guess it was worth. 

Do you like to push yourself very hard? Or is it just me?

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Current Book: "Painless Writing" by Jeffrey Strauser (Some light stuff)
Current Music: "Brown Rang" by Honey Singh (;p)