{"id":628,"date":"2011-06-03T20:26:00","date_gmt":"2011-06-03T14:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/therunningsoul.com\/2011\/06\/save-the-turtle\/"},"modified":"2014-11-14T18:44:40","modified_gmt":"2014-11-14T13:14:40","slug":"save-the-turtle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/therunningsoul.com\/2011\/06\/save-the-turtle\/","title":{"rendered":"Save the Turtle!"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Mom, there’s a marathon”…..my ever vigilant son, Arnav tells me, and adds,” It\u2019s here, in Phuket!”. <\/p>\n

We see banners for it over the next couple of days as we head out for snorkeling , kayaking and the likes. On Friday…..as we chilled in the hotel I investigated and discovered that it was a \u201cmini- marathon “……only 10. 5 k- starting only 500 m from our hotel, on Sunday! <\/p>\n

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The “Mai Khao Turtle Marathon” is organized to save the turtles. This beach is a nesting ground for the turtles – so the locals organise it to raise awareness. It\u2019s in its 7th year! <\/p>\n

As I registered for it, Savio’s words rang true. A day before I was leaving, he said to me, run a race, they always have something going on. And sure enough …….<\/p>\n

Raceday morning – bright and early- 5.30 I reached the holding area- and was greeted by the aroma of chicken porridge! They had laid out a complete breakfast- fruits, coffee et al, for the 750 odd participants. <\/p>\n

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After the inaugural speech (which I didn’t get a word of as it was in Thai) we were flagged off!500 of us….running to the rhythms of the sea….along a lovely trail following the beach- soft breeze and waving casuarinas.
Kilometers flew past as the shade of the sea changed from varying shades of azure to aqua……the white sand remaining a constant!<\/p>\n

Water stations, volunteers, a simple rubberband at the halfway mark…..all well organised for a small run!<\/p>\n

The run was enjoyable as the distance wasn’t daunting. There were a few tourists like me trying to catch the local flavor. <\/p>\n

I picked up pace as we ran the last 3k around lake Pru Jeh San. It was a picturesque trail which reminded me of Pondicherry. <\/p>\n

I finished comfortably in just a minute over an hour. As I sprinted across the finish line I was handed a tag followed by a medal. As I caught my breath I read the tag to realise I had come fourth in the women! I got ranked! Wow! In a single digit!<\/p>\n

I walked back to the holding area to see an awards ceremony going on. A Thai news reporter saw the tag in my hand and beckoned me to go towards the stage. Up I went and accepted my trophy. My first one ever!<\/p>\n

Yay!<\/p>\n

I returned to my room and found my kids waiting for me. After so many runs they have learnt now NEVER to ask me if I won. So they asked….finished? And I surprised them with the trophy and my rank! Never mind the small number that ran! I still won! Wow Sanjana says, ” we’ll need to make a cabinet for that!”. <\/p>\n

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I believe there’s an inner power that makes winners or losers. And the winners are the ones who really listen to the truth of their hearts.
Sylvester Stallone<\/i><\/p>\n

I won!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Mom, there’s a marathon”…..my ever vigilant son, Arnav tells me, and adds,” It\u2019s here, in Phuket!”. We see banners for it over the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-first-marathon-2012-2013","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5lWKK-a8","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therunningsoul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therunningsoul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therunningsoul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therunningsoul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therunningsoul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/therunningsoul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":814,"href":"https:\/\/therunningsoul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628\/revisions\/814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therunningsoul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therunningsoul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therunningsoul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}