Slightly under a month to Berlin Marathon and I've finally gotten this page set up. I ran this race last year in just under 3h 47mins. The course was glorious, fast, flat, amazing support and the motivation to run towards the Brandenburg Gate. I wanted to run under 3h 35min to qualify for Boston but at the last 10km of the race, the temperature dropped sharply, I felt a familiar, sickening pain on my right knee and struggled through the last stretch almost with tears in my eyes from the pain. Every warning and reminder from my coaches and phyisos flashed through my head as I wanted to kick myself for not stretching, for being too arrogant, for not listening. I did cross the finish line in 3h 47min, and it was the fastest marathon I'd ever done but I was sorely disappointed because I felt I hadn't run as quick as I can.

This year to motivate myself to train, I'm running for the Rescue a Family Project for United Sikhs. Farmers in India are increasingly committing suicides, succumbing to huge debts. Usually, they are the only breadwinners of their family and their suicide leaves the family in pieces. This sometimes pushes the widows to withdraw their children from school and send them to work. This needs to stop. As a product of someone who has been fortunate enough to benefit from an elite education, no questions asked, I think its time to balance playing field and provide support for these children and families to complete their education and have a chance to prove themselves.

I've trained my heart out for this race. Gotten up at 4am to get speedwork in before work, spent weekends doing my first ultra marathon (50km) where I twisted my ankle, run a half marathon in the searing heat, run a 24h endurance event where I had to CAMP and completed 48km on trail, brought my running shoes to every city I've been to.. running loops around a tiny European city just to hit 14miles is definitely not fun. I'm committed to fighting till the very end for this marathon and am really grateful for any support :)