Writing this story as a "Half Marathoner" still feels surreal. At the start of the year 2026 I had never thought that in the same year I would be calling myself a "Half Marathoner".
My running journey as of now I would say is still in very nascent phase. Infact Indian Army Historic Run 2026, Season 5 has been my first ever running event in which I have participated. After the recent Tata Mumbai Marathon my instagram got flooded with posts, stories and reels about this race. How Kartik Karkera, Doctor by profession has won the race. I would say that was the tipping point of me getting motivated and start running. I bought myself Asics Nimbus Gel-27 and without any immediate goal in mind or training schedule I just started running. Initially, I did not know what is zone-2 run, what is pace, what is Tempo run, what is interval run etc. I was just running. As happens with most of the initial runners, I was also not being able to run 3km or 4km continously without stopping or walking.
Then as my interest in running grew and I started consuming more and more running content on instagram, I got to know about zone 2 runs,
Tempo run etc. With the help of AI tools I made myself a weekly plan of running that had zone-2, tempo run and long runs including days off and days of strength training. That helped me a bit but still i was not satisfied with my performance or results. So, right now I stay in Ahilyanagar only. Here, somedays I use to come near Ladaki pool area, near black elephant for running. That is here I came in contact of members of Ahilyanagar Runners Club in March 2026. And after joining the club, my running graph has gone only up. There is no fees or anything to join the club, they just demand your presence and consistency.
After joining the club, my weekly training for running became more organised, more consistent, more goal oriented. As you are always training with multiple marathon finishers, ultra marathoners week in week out, there is sense of belief in you that yes I can also do that. Club members are always inspiring each other, there is no stat comparison among each other, there is just one goal- To improve and get better with each passing day.
And this is how after weeks of training, I completed my first ever official Half Marathon in 2hrs 14min. Still, I think there is so much to learn and improve upon and definitely I am going to do that.
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