Run you run
IT wasn't at the finish line when I felt my heart jump out of my body, but it was somewhere in the middle. Actually, it was in the beginning now that I think about it. Thousands of others around me stood together, running shoes, running shorts, with their best runner's faces on, and I was one of them. It was a marathon, 26.2 miles, or 42.2 kilometers, to conquer, and all I had to depend on were my legs and a mind that said I could do it.
It was an impossible dream when I thought about it earlier in my life while growing up in old Dhaka, where the extent of my athletic activity was climbing up and down the steep stairs of my grandparents' home. Or, at most, running through the fields in my school during a 15-minute lunch break to play tag. I was not an athlete and I was never interested in exploring anything to do with sports because I knew I wasn't gifted in that area like most Bangladeshi women, neither did the environment around me encourage it. I mean I didn't even walk a block alone while growing up, so forget running.
Life took me away from Dhaka for a long while. And there, on the other side of the east, I accidentally bumped into a thing called my body. And once I started understanding my body I realised it could do things that made me feel liberated more than I have ever been in my life. Like jump, walk, run and swim. Hike mountains and climb rocks. Steer a kayak through white-water or scuba dive into the ocean. It was as if I had found a new self, and it took me years to adjust between the old me and this new me. Until I finally realised there was nothing called old and new, it was really about the present.
And in between those realizations, one morning I had woken up knowing I wanted to run a marathon. So the training started, 5 miles to 10 miles, 10 miles to 20. Long runs during the weekends, and anticipation for the big day.
And the day came when a Bangladeshi girl (not the first by any means) ran the Marine Corps marathon all around Washington DC and Virginia, shoulder to shoulder with people of all shades and ages. But it really wasn't about that, which I realised after running about 15 miles, when it only became about me and the road and what I wanted from both. I realised there were tears pouring from my eyes, my body, that felt like a machine, was completely driven by a mind that was screaming cheers.
Running in front of the Pentagon, Washington monument, Jefferson and Lincoln memorials I could only think of my Bangladeshi roots and my identity that relates to it all. Every step I took, I equaled to every step I should have taken but couldn't while I was in Bangladesh. I was making up for missed steps, for missed chances, missing courage.
When I finished I cried, but no one looked at me because most people cry when they cross that finish line. I hugged the marine officer who gave me my medal. And surprising myself I walked home (another 3 miles from the finish line) craving daal, bhaat and alu bharta.
It's not much I know, and this might be a small experience amongst many great ones, but it made me want to tell every Bangladeshi woman to get out on our roads, our fields, our land and run, walk, and feel their legs stretching while their minds grow. I could feel their joints reinventing themselves, their bodies breathing at a new pace, their minds more alert, their smiles more bright, if they could only have the opportunity to freely, without any harassment, run, jog, walk, bike and understand the power of physical liberation. Because all of us deserve it and are capable of finding it, we just need the chance.
So this is a small beginning with a humble request, come out and play with me. It's been so long, leave you fears behind, embrace the road, you won't be alone, I will be waiting.
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