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Wednesday, August 08, 2007

People I met at Great Tibetan Marathon....

Well if the achievement of having run a full marathon at 3500m altitude was not enough, I also got to meet some very interesting ‘superbeings’.

I met a Danish journalist who had completed about 110-120marathons over the years, a German translator who had done 50+ marathons (including 14 marathons in this calender year, plus two successful Marathon Des sables (MDS), and she is planing to do many more...) and a Spanish aeronautical engineer who has been in India since January this year, having successfully cycled all over Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh and Leh (via Manali), he actually managed to do Manali leh route (across 5 mountain passes) in less than a week, which is an average of about 75km per day over the duration, with altitude reaching over 5000meters. I met a group of four cyclists who had also done the Manali - leh trip on a bicycles over a ten day trip (it was a mix of a commercial pilot, a mountain gear distributor and cycling specialists, after the tough biking trip, they also successfully completed the half marathon). I also made two amazing friends (one was a quality champion from Hyderabad and another was a Tech wiz from Bangalore) whom I had met through my blog. They had joined me to participate in the full marathon event, we were the only three Indians (excluding ladakhi local runners) to participate & successfully complete the full marathon.

4 comments:

ipmallya said...

Wow talk of quality stuff people r made of.It is hard to meet such achievers sitting in the city.You made friends at one place..but that was a culmination of hard labor and persistence as well as fiighting odds now n then.So in a way it was a pot of gold (of friends) which u saw at the end of the rainbow (ze marathon).Got it?
Keep in touch with them and ur life will be the richer for it.I do respect all of u for what u guys have achived in a short while of our lifetime.Bye all the best, ipm.

@GirishMallya said...

Thanks for the kind words IPM. Yes they are special people, crazy people, but that is what makes them special. The best part was all the 80people who participated in the marathon (different distances), successfully completed their respective distances, in the alloted time limit. That is what makes the marathon really special. Will try and be in touch with them.

Anonymous said...

Girish, these people are like minded so you should keep make every effort to stay in touch with them. You have so much in common - as you saw there were just a handful like yourself. Ditto to what Indira says - you all truly deserve a salute from us! :)
-GM

@GirishMallya said...

Thanks GM. Will definitely do that.