Obituary of the Marathon Gremlin

With a heavy heart we would like to announce the demise of Harry's Marathon Gremlin. It took its last breath at 2:40 PM October 9th, 2005 in Chicago. The death was rather sudden, it was alive and kicking till about 2:39 PM. Post mortem shows that it died of a heart attack due to being kicked violently in its gut. It seemed it had a premonition of its death especially in the last few hours. Though, we must say, it did live its life to the fullest in the last couple of days.

About 3 weeks before it died, it made a new friend. The friend was called "Tendonitis". Tendonitis lived between inner side of Harry's left foot and ankle and it gained tremendous strength due to the fact that Harry seemed to have changed shoes to get rid of Gremlin's best friend the ITB. Harry seemed to have no idea of how to deal with Tendonitis. Knowing this, made the gremlin much stronger. Harry had to take 3 weeks off his training. Two doctors independently gave the Gremlin a shot in the arm when the told him to try running - if Tendonitis "pops", they will fix it by surgery.

Harry, thus arrived as an underdog in Chicago. He seemed intent on garnering sympathy support and encouragement by repeatedly showing a hideous ankle brace to people. Harry's family, coaches and mentor did seem to have worried looks on their faces. If we were betting people, we would never have bet on the Gremlin's demise. Ah...but the vagaries of nature.

The day of the marathon arrived. Cold, but not too cold. Asha tent was a boon for Harry - if we had paid careful attention, we may have detected that the Gremlin was showing slight discomfort... but alas we did not do so.
Coach Rajeev Patel (aka the talker) gave a last minute pep talk. We know Harry did not remember anything of the talk except he knew that it was supposed to be motivating and he got motivated. His motivation took an upward swing when he reached the start area and he saw the sea of people (44 thousand people!!) - he seemed to forget that he lost track of his mentor, who he was depending to run with. We were quite worried for the Gremlin and alerted Tendonitis about this.

Harry shot off from the start area and was going strong, he detected his mentor and started tracking her. But Tendonitis came to the rescue at mile 1.5 ~ 2. The plan seemed to be that Tendonitis would come in and the Gremlin would take over. Though Harry seemed to be made of tougher mettle, he kept going ... mile 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. He was doing his best times ever!! He missed seeing his family at mile 7.5 who seemed to be travelling in Chicago trains to get to various mile markers along the way. Even missing his family did not stop him. The Gremlin was clearly distressed and he sent an SOS to Tendonitis. And boy did Tendonitis come in like a knight in shining armour. Boom by mile 10, Harry was clearly distressed, everyone seemed to be overtaking him and the Gremlin fought back.

Mile 13 was clearly difficult, till Harry got a phone call from his family saying that they are at mile 17 with one of his best friends (Sudeepto who came in from Detroit). He picked up, though Tendonitis just totally stopped him on mile 16 - he could not walk, he got the ankle brace out and now he could not stand. Brace back on, he made it to mile 17. Aaahhhh family and that meant muffin. This is where we believe the Gremlin was in clear danger and we were worried for its survival. (We would have spent more time with it, if we knew this was the last time we would see it).

The Tendonitis kept fighting on. He knew that if it had to save the Marathon Gremlin, he was the Gremlins big hope. Mile 17, 18, 19 were good for Tendonitis, but the cell phone brought in the Gremlin's death knell. Harry's family called him up and showed up at mile 21. His wife walked with Harry as Harry attempted to run. Gremlin and Tendonitis could not call up on their other friends (typically nauseau and dizziness) as Harry's wife gave him stuff to eat on the run.
The Gremlin knew its end was near when Harry saw his parents and friend at mile 24. All of them walked with him. Knowing that his wife and mom were walking behind him, Harry took off with renewed vigor. Though Tendonitis gave a new meaning to taking off - there were people over taking him with brisk walking.

Finally @ 2:40, 6 hours and 40 minutes after the start, Harry finished the marathon. Gremlin breathed its last, completely broken and shattered. A good thing was it did not live to see the medal around Harry's neck.



Harry's behaviour has been shocking ever since. He was at the Asha party that night and did not even spend a few days in mourning. All we can say that our friend the Marathon Gremlin is in a much better place.



Where does Harry go from here? We do not know, he has been toying with doing a couple more marathons, now that the Marathon Gremlin is dead, he should not have a problem with that. He is even toying with idea of triathlons. What worries us that he no longer seems to be worried of Gremlins. Seems like we Gremlins now have our own Gremlin.

- Report prepared in memory of the Marathon Gremlin by the Association of Gremlins

PS: Harry would like to thank the following people: Ramya - the teacher, Rajeev Patel - the talker, Rajeev Char - the Iron Man, Tony Fong - the Mr. Lee, Deepak, Arun, Mala, Swati, Aruna the Captain, Anil Rao, Anu, Pavan, Ram Babu for their constant words of encouragement week after week, run after run. Harry would also like to thank everyone who showed up in the Chicago Marathon namely Shekhar, Charu, Lily, Selvi, Kalyan, Uma, Sreeni, Dhananjay and lots other who we are missing naming here due to short memory :-). Harry would also like to thank people who show up run after run waving and shouting words of encouragement, people like Niyati, Neeraj, Nandini, Deepa, Purnima Jandi and lots other again missed out due to short memory. Harry would like to thank Sudeepto, Sebonti who came in from Detroit to cheer him. Harry really loved it when his parents flew around the world from Kuala Lumpur to cheer him and support him!! Harry wants to thank Liza and Amit for being one of the first few people to believe in him :-). Harry would love to thank his wife - Natasha without whose support along the way through the run and through out the training program, this would not be certainly possible.
Harry also wants to put in the last signing off words "Asha Rocks"