Marathon is unpredictable: Nitendra Singh Rawat

There is something about distance running that is deeply introspective. Long stretches with little distractions to rescue one from their own train of thoughts. Perhaps, this is what makes the sport, much like golf, different.

You are competing against yourself for an awful lot of the time.

This reflects in Nitendra Singh Rawat’s preparation as he heads into the Olympics in Rio next month carrying the country’s flag in the marathon event.

“Preparations are going well. My target is to achieve a time less than 2:10.00 seconds. If I can — last time the medal was around 2:09.00 seconds, the chances of a medal also increases. So let’s see how it goes,” said Rawat ahead of the Games. For me if the medal comes in after me running below 2:10.00 then great, if not at least I will have the satisfaction that I achieved my target. I don’t want to go there thinking about medal times because the marathon is a long race and anything can happen. It’s unpredictable. So I am working towards my target,” added the hawaldar.

“The first time I did a trial I wanted to run 2:20.00 but ended up running about 2:21.00. In Mumbai, the target was to bring it below 2:16.00. That happened. The new target is 2:10.00 and for that I will give my best.”

Rawat booked his ticket for Rio back in October when he clocked 2:18.06 seconds, 54 seconds below the Olympic qualification time, in the World Military Games in Myngyeong in South Korea in his first competitive marathon ever.

Since then he has clocked 2:15.18 seconds during the South Asian Games which was also his last competitive race.

What can be described, perhaps loosely, as an experiment has become a life-changing experience.

“I qualified in my first marathon for Olympics. I was the first man under my coach to practice for marathon. Even he was a 10,000m athlete so he too didn’t know that much about marathon preparations. So you can say I was kind of an experiment,” remarked the 29-year-old.

“But now he has good knowledge and there are three of us (who) have qualified for the marathon. So everything is going well now. The training depends a lot on the coach.

“Long distance is a thing that we can’t do much by ourselves. The coach will decide,” he added adding that he has taken up yoga and strengthening work.