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That one hour changed my life: Preeja

Principal Correspondent

— FILE PHOTO

Preeja Sreedharan.

KOCHI: Every time she circles the track, images of the long hard life keep popping up in her mind. For, Preeja Sreedharan seems to run faster with every lap. She is very focused even during training.

“My dad died when I was very young and it was a big struggle for all of us,” said Preeja, the 10,000m National record holder and Asian Championship silver medallist, looking back. “My elder brother Pradeep had to stop his studies after the eighth standard and go to work. He is a carpenter. And my mom had to work for daily wages.”

Even now, there is no power connection at her home at Rajakkad, a few hilly miles from Munnar. “And we have to walk some distance to fetch drinking water every day.”

But despite life’s big hurdles, her mother and brother encouraged little Preeja when she showed promise as a distance runner. Her coaches, Renandran in school and Thankachan Mathew in college, went out of their way to help her.

All these are paying dividends now, for Preeja is now slowly watching some of her dreams come true, one by one.

She went to the Olympics — the first Indian woman long distance runner to do so — and unlike many of her teammates who were shockingly way below their best in Beijing, Preeja came up with one of her fastest runs in the 10,000 and was very close to her personal best. She was very impressive even on the road to Beijing, shaving off more than a minute from her personal best within a year.

A few days ago, she won the Chennai Marathon and along with it Rs. 10 lakh as the first prize.

“That one hour in Chennai changed my life in a big way. I got Rs. 7 lakh after paying tax. It’s the most precious one hour in my life,” said the 26-year-old senior Railway clerk in Palakkad who got the bounty for winning the women’s half-marathon in Chennai in a little more than an hour.

“And I’ve stopped my mom from going to work now.”

Words of praise

Her teammates are very generous in praising Preeja. “She has made history and her progress is stunning. I don’t think we’ll see a runner like her in a long, long time,” said middle-distance runner Sinimole Paulose, the indoor and outdoor Asian champion.

And as Preeja runs around the track at the Maharaja’s Stadium and gets ready for Monday’s National Open Athletics Championship here, fellow athletes stretch out a hand to congratulate her.

The sun has just begun to shine in her life.

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