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What's your reason?

Limitless (2017)
(Netflix, Documentary)


My parents never ran. I do not remember them running over or running away from anything. They practically expected others to run around doing things for them. In fact, nobody in their generation ran. It seemed running, and activities that required exertion is for the young. Older adults simply do not do those things which broke too much sweat. Things surely have changed over the years.

Members of the fairer sex also never had it so good. From a time not too long ago, 1967 actually, runners like Bobbi Gibb and Katherine Switzer had to run disguised, now, in most international marathons, the male to female ratio of participants of the full marathon is almost one to one.

Why do people run?

This made-in-India documentary looks at the lives of eight ladies and why they took up running. Despite the constant staring, cat-calling and security concerns, these lady runners seem to be empowered. Every extra half-hour that they manage to run without stopping, they get a renewed zest in life. The running events that they complete equip them with a higher level of confidence. 

Some run to numb the pains of their personal lives. It may be a broken marriage or even exodus from homeland like the runner from Kashmir who calls herself a Delhi-ite these days after being chased out from her ancestral home in Srinagar by religious zealots.

When the worldly duties are done, your offspring do not want you meddling with their affairs, but you are still teeming with energy, what do you do? Like Fauja Singh or Forrest Gump, you run, of course. Once you are locked into the routine, nothing can stop you - rain, shine, snow or fracture!

Runners make friends quickly, are more grounded and are a kind lot, looking out for each other and showing a high level of camaraderie. You hardly find a grumpy runner, do you? 

There is no good enough reason not to run. Run before you are prescribed running to save your life. If you do not have a quality sleep, run; feeling down, run; hit a wall at work, run; you got bad genes that make you susceptible to lifestyle diseases, run. 

If you cannot run, walk. Then alternate the walk with a run, and before you know it, you would be running for your life. What further motivation do you need? When you run, you are fighting the same inner demons that bog you down, dragging you with all the failures of life. Unchain the shackles.

In this documentary, a lady, hit by childhood paralysis, poverty and hard knocks of life runs for the money. The lure of the prize money brings her places. Her misery is no longer an excuse not to train.

Done with finesse, this 1-hour documentary is told seamless infusing many elements that are quintessentially Indian, the decorations, outdoors, and a peek into their places where they hangout. Humanity component is not forgotten as well. Exercise and running also help physically challenged individuals.

Katherine Switzer Bib 261 was the first registered female runner
to complete the Boston Marathon at 4:21 in 1967. A year earlier
Roberta 'Bobbi' Gibb, ran without a number.


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