In the weeks leading up to the marathon, along with yoga, I turned to the Gita and other Hindu works to calm my nerves. I had downloaded the text apps onto my iPhone.

Then comes this tough time I’m having at Miles 8-12 in the Marathon when I’m partially struggling with the heat. I was posting on Facebook and getting tons of encouragement. One of those times, I fumbled with launching the Facebook app and instead launched one of my downloaded text apps.

It was “Aditya Hridayam“, which talks about worshipping the sun to defeat the enemy. I was completely flabbergasted!!

Here I was trying to blame the sun for all my issues; and the universe was telling me to embrace the sun and go with it! That and Coaches Karen and David telling me to focus away from the heat brought me back on track.

Weird are the ways of the Universe!

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When I was running the Chicago Marathon, I drew my strength from a lot of things that I mentioned in the race report – Visualization, Support from friends, Distraction, Singing, Crowd Support, … and … Faith.

I’m not sure if I was comfortable with lots of people reading this, which is why I didn’t mention it in my race report. This post is not likely to get as many readers as my race report, so I feel a little more secluded and safe writing this now.

Although I pray and believe in my God(all hundreds and thousands of them!), I don’t consider myself a conventional religious person. My kind of God is one that speaks to humanity and goodness rather than the principles of a religion. And I’m definitely not a fan of organized religion, which is what almost every religion has now become. But I digress …