Overcoming your La Ultra
On 7th July (7/7) 17 years ago today, the day I remember so clearly, as if it was only yesterday, I missed this bus, bus number 30. Others weren’t so lucky. Receptionist of our residential complex (Goodenough College), a wonderful ever smiling lady, died in the tube bombing an hour earlier. I didn’t know till later that I missed the bus because I decided to walk to work. I sat at work totally numb.
Yes, what you see is the top of that double decker bus. I normally would sit in the front of the upper deck. There were coordinated suicide bombings an hour before on three London Underground trains. From 8:49 to 9:47 am, in less than an hour, 56 people were dead (including 4 bombers) and 784 injured, all people like you and me, who were headed to work.
Ambulances at Russell Square, London after the 7th July 2005 bombings. By Francis Tyers - User:FrancisTyers, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikipedia)
Russell Square was a 2 minute walk from our home, the underground station we would take the tube from.
London was brought to stand still but also this incident brought London together unlike I had seen in my short time there. People staying in and around London let strangers stay overnight because all modes of transport were cancelled. We did as well.
To me it’ll always be an important date, I got a second chance, a second life. London started to pick its pieces, trying to make sense what had happened. Few days later, for the first time in 4 years we experienced racial abuse while I was out on a bus with my young family. It was amazing to see how others stood up for us inspite of what happened on 7/7.
Even though the above pic is not from Covid, but it connects the two for me massively. Covid shook up not only a city or a country, but the whole of humanity, affecting anyone and everyone. We all know of someone close who succumbed to it. Most of us have had the infection. I had my share in June of 2020 when getting up from the bed was a challenge enough and realised that we all have our own La Ultra to overcome, it has nothing to do with what others are doing. It’s our own battle. And that changed my perspetive.
At 2022 edition of La Ultra our focus was no longer to get elite athletes to run the longest distances under most insane conditions, but to get folks out there who possibly had only picked up running during the pandemic. Instead of having 222, 333 and 555 we had 11, 22, 33 and 55 km categories. Yes, there was 111 k too, but that was an outlier.
My dean from medical college, Dr. J. S. Nagra, 78 years of age, ran 22 kms, and he only started running 6 months before La Ultra. His son Amit flew down from US to give him company. Christine Pemberton (68) had knee arthroscopic surgery for both her knees in her 50s, was advised knee replacement at 60, which she didn’t get done, instead picked up running then. She ran 33 km. 15 year old Sanchit came first in 111 km category and 6 year old Meer decided to walk 11 km with his mom. Then there were this lady who used to smoke 30-40 cigarettes a day, promised to quit if she ran 33 kms, and it was mission successful. There was a 55 year old Navy officer who ran 55 km along with his son. Then there is Anurag, a workaholic, who participated in his first organised event. His wife had come along. They admitted that this was the most peaceful time for them in a long time.
As is evident, La Ultra is not even about running any more. It is about attempting what society had told us is impossible, that we couldn’t do this or that, and then we had spent a lifetime trying to prove that prophecy correct. Getting started is a lot more difficult than doing more, and that’s what we made people do. And that’s exactly what I have been doing for over two decades in different ways, whether through my running initiatives or with the clinical work dealing with pain, making them believe in themselves, and making Impossible yell I’m Possible. It is now about connecting with your deeper self.
I had moved back to India in 2006 on the request of the then CEO of Manipal Hospital, Bangalore, to set up a state of the art Sports-Exercise Medicine department, and then moved out in 2008 to start my own outfit called back 2 Fitness. I started writing columns for Mint around the same time and then followed by for Hindustan Times, a stint at Adidas and Ashoka University too, and having authored three books, with the intent to reach out to the masses and make a lot bigger impact.
On this special day for me, 7th July, for whatever it’s worth, the brand Back 2 Fitness officially retires (clinic continues) and all my initiates will be under La Ultra, whether it be education (bullying; sports-exercise medicine; MoveMint Medicine), clinic (back and knee pains; metabolic diseases; other chronic diseases), fitness or running.
Why should it matter to you? Because you need to start taking yourself more like an athlete wanting to perform at your optimal level, not only thinking yourself with aches and pain. Once you decide to be the one in the driver’s seat, no matter what your condition, it’s game on. Hence, let us overcome our La Ultra.
