The Race That Became a Family Affair

A race outside Delhi

By December 2024, running had already become a regular part of my life.

I had run a few half marathons in Delhi, learned a few lessons, made a few mistakes, and slowly started understanding what it actually meant to be a runner.

Then came the SBI Green Marathon in Lucknow.

For me, this race was special for a simple reason.

It was my first marathon outside Delhi.

But that wasn’t even the most memorable part of this race.

This time, running wasn’t going to be just about me and my brother.

Somehow, we were going to turn it into a family event.

“10 km kar lo, maze-maze mein”

The plan was originally just mine and my brother’s.

The day before the race, we all went together to collect our bibs.

While my brother and I were collecting ours, we started convincing the others — my sister, my sister-in-law and Bimu bhaiya — to run the 10K too.

Our pitch was very simple:

“10 km hi toh hai. Kar lo, maze-maze mein. Aaram se ho jayega.”

We pushed them a little.

They finally agreed.

And that’s how three more people from the family became part of the race.

There was just one small problem.

They didn’t even know that you had to pay a registration fee to run.

When they found out, the reaction was basically:

“Run bhi karo aur paise bhi do?”

At that point, I think they were already wondering why they had listened to us.

But the decision was made.

The race was happening.

Race morning

On race morning, my brother and I started our run before the others.

We were focused on our own race, our own pace and our own distance.

The funny thing was that somewhere in the back of my mind, I was also thinking about the three people we had convinced to run.

They were there simply because we had told them:

“Maje ke liye kar lo.”

And they actually did it.

The family results

Later, when the results came out, we discovered something hilarious.

My sister, my sister-in-law and Bimu bhaiya had somehow managed to finish right at the bottom of the rankings.

We couldn’t stop laughing.

We had told them to run for fun.

But later we had to remind them:

“Bhai, maze karne ko bola tha… itna bhi nahi ki race mein last aa jao!”

Of course, the truth was that none of us really cared about their ranking.

The important thing was that they had actually run.

Three people who probably had no intention of participating when the day started had now completed a 10K race.

And that made the whole event much more memorable.

And then there was my race

While all of this was happening, something else had changed in my own running.

My timing was:

2:11:01

At first, I simply felt happy about finishing another half marathon.

But when I compared the numbers later, I realized that I was continuing to improve.

My previous half marathon at Apollo had been 2:14:40.

This time:

2:11:01.

Almost five minutes faster.

And compared with my first half marathon, which had taken 2:47:17, I had now taken more than 36 minutes off my time.

That was a strange feeling.

I wasn’t the person who had once been afraid of whether he could even finish 21.1 km.

I was slowly becoming someone who could actually think about how fast he could finish it.

The distance hadn’t changed. I had.

More than a race

Looking back, the SBI Green Marathon wasn’t memorable only because of the timing.

It was my first half marathon outside Delhi.

But more importantly, it was one of the first races where running started feeling like something I could share with the people around me.

My brother had been the person who brought me into running in the first place.

And now, somehow, we had convinced the rest of the family to join us too.

They may not have been very interested in the rankings.

They may have finished near the bottom.

And they may still have questioned why they had to pay money to run.

But they ran.

And we all had a story to take home.

Looking back

When I think about my running journey now, I can see how quickly things had changed.

My first unofficial 10K in Nainital happened almost by accident.

My first official half marathon was 2:47:17.

Then came 2:14:40.

Then 2:15:56 — which taught me about overconfidence.

And now:

2:11:01.

The numbers were getting better.

But more importantly, I was learning something with every race.

Sometimes the lesson was about training.

Sometimes it was about confidence.

And sometimes, like in Lucknow, the best part had nothing to do with the timing at all.

It was simply about running together.

This was my first race outside Delhi. And somehow, it became a family memory too.

Apollo: 2:14:40
Vedanta 2024: 2:15:56
SBI Green Marathon: 2:11:01