Spiels of a Quill

What is gratitude? It is the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation and to return kindness. As simple as it may seem to be thankful, it usually takes a conscious effort to make it a daily occurrence. This thanksgiving, I chose to express gratitude to God - to thank him for giving me some amazing and irreplaceable people in my life.  ************************************************************************ ******************* ******************* ********* To my mom... I am grateful to God for letting me be your daughter So nobody else got to be your fighting partner! I don’t know if I was the best child you could have had But you are the best mom I could have wished for! Nobody could have kept their head high and their heart warm The way you did when you faced life’s tormenting storm You winked, not being one to back off from a challenge You are my fierce lioness, teaching me how to fight! To my grandma… I am grateful to...

This is the first time that I experimented with something that I had been wanting to do for so long - writing a blog series. It just felt like the perfect topic to start with. My first blog series is about my first ever half marathon. It was a long journey, so I thought that it deserved to be told in parts so that I could be as thorough as I wanted to be in my narration. So hop on to the train, and read along while I relive one of the most exciting journeys in my life. Part 1: The easiest part of the job is done - signing up for a half marathon Part 2:  You don't realize your strengths until you face your greatest weaknesses Part 3: Tick-tock, tick-tock... The count down to the race day begins Part 4:  The ups and downs on race day - literally and figuratively Part 5: Ubuntu - a runner's thank you note I was nowhere close to setting a PR, but I know I can never get worse than this. Because you'll always be better at something if you have the cou...

Related posts: Part 1: The easiest part of the job is done - signing up for a half marathon Part 2:  You don't realize your strengths until you face your greatest weaknesses Part 3: Tick-tock, tick-tock... The count down to the race day begins Part 4:  The ups and downs on race day - literally and figuratively I think it wouldn't be a fair narrative if all I do is talk about the negative elements. So to give you a glimpse of the brighter side of things, let me start with introducing you to the two Team Asha SF running coordinators - Jennifer and Kristina. Throughout the season, I was lucky to have these two amazing people in the running group who would motivate me to not be disappointed at my failures. They would slow down to my pace to keep me company, talking to me the whole time - encouraging me to not lose hope, telling me about how everyone started out as beginners before becoming seasonal runners. While I was thankful for the company and the encouragement I re...

Related posts: Part 1: The easiest part of the job is done - signing up for a half marathon Part 2:  You don't realize your strengths until you face your greatest weaknesses Part 3: Tick-tock, tick-tock... The count down to the race day begins I had prepared a Marathon playlist with all the peppy workout songs I could find, and I had gotten accustomed to listening to those during my practice runs. I plugged in my ear-phones and started the playlist, and tried to focus more on the song than on everything that had gone wrong up until that point. It kind of worked like a charm, and before I knew it I had covered about 3 miles of my race, and I had crossed at least two dozen people by then. I felt happy and pumped up about that, and made me more enthusiastic about moving forward. Pretty soon, the hilly terrains started and my muscles started tiring out a bit. But we also had water and electrolyte stops to re-energize our body. It also meant that pretty soon, I was about t...

Related posts: Part 1: The easiest part of the job is done - signing up for a half marathon Part 2:  You don't realize your strengths until you face your greatest weaknesses (It has been a while since I wrote the last part, but I am taking my story forward...) As race day got closer, I started panicking. I was so close to chickening out, but my perception changed when someone told me, "Even if you are the last person to cross the finishing line, you are still better than the thousands of people who didn't even muster the courage to sign up and show up for the race!". I think that during the last few weeks before the race, I was mostly focussed on two things: 1) Seeking donations to support my fundraiser 2) Reading motivational blogs to find anything that can fuel my courage I always believed that fundraising might be the easier out of the two tasks because that is what everyone around me kept saying, but it wasn't that easy. I reached out to th...