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89,000 km of running!
AIR MARSHAL (RETD.) P.V. IYER
It was interesting to read the article “Reasons to run” (The Hindu, April 27). Mr. Rahul Verghese has run 15,000 kilometres. It occurred to me that perhaps I also should share with the readers my experience of running.
Yes, there is no printing mistake in the title; I have indeed run more than 89,000 kilometres during the last 32 years. I am 78 years old now, and I started running at the age of 47. I have maintained a running log all these years and that is why I can total up my running mileage.
I did not do much running in my youth, and started it to satisfy the Air Force requirement of physical fitness. One of the tests was to be able to run a mile under seven minutes. But the fun of it made me increase my daily mileage steadily, until I was running 15 km every day for many years.
Now I run about 12 km every day. During all these years of running, in any particular year, I would have hardly missed about 10 days of running, perhaps travelling, perhaps injured, or perhaps sick for a day or two.
I have run about 12 full marathons of about 42 km, several cross country runs and one ultra long distance run of about 200 km. This happened in 1985, when I was 56 years old. The event was to celebrate Air Force Day, which falls on October 8 each year. We were a group of about 300 people, mostly young volunteers drawn from the three services, a few civilians and one girl, Asha Aggarwal, a marathon runner. Ranjit Bhatia, who had taken part in the 10,000 metres race in the Rome Olympics, was one of them, as also Dev Lahiri, a teacher in Doon School at that time.
About 140 people finished the full distance and the rest were picked up by Air Force trucks. It was one of the proud moments of my life when my photograph was published on the front page of The Hindu, dated October 9, 1985, handing over the Air Force flag to the then Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Lafontaine, at the Palam parade ground in Delhi.
Running is fun; it looks after all bodily systems. Daily running is a proof that your body is functioning fine. It only takes a few miles of running to discover your own strength.
Advantages
One of the great advantages of running is that you can eat what you like and yet not put on weight. At a height of 173 centimetres, I weigh a mere 56 kilos and really enjoy all my meals. If you get serious about running, add half an hour of weight training three or four times a week. Stretch all your limbs after every run. Older persons would benefit by doing strengthening exercises for their back and stomach muscles. Make sure you run on soft surfaces like grass or gravel and not on metalled roads, to avoid damaging your knees.
Age doesn’t seem to affect my running. In fact, it is only on one of those rare days when I don’t run that I seem to feel lethargic. So I run every day of the week. I have run on ships, railway trains and indeed on railway platforms when there is a halt of 20 minutes. No wonder I was known as the “Running Air Marshal” in the Air Force.
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