Team Motiv8 athlete Madhuri Nimje did a fighting finish in her maiden Comrades run, crossing the finish line in 11h46m.

Commenting about the training period, she said:

“I dreaded the uphills the most, becuase my pace went down and this mentally affected me. I was always scared of long uphills doubting if I will be able to complete the climb or not.

The travel from Aurangabad to Pune for the long training runs with Team Motiv8 was also difficult. ”

Speaking about a goof-up on race day, he said:

“Me and Kalyani, my running partner, pledged to start and finish the entire race together because we had done each and every run together and our pace was also the same. But on race day, at approximately 20K mark, I lost her at one of the water stations. The crowd was huge, we shouted each others name but still could not locate each other.

I glanced at my watch and realized that I had been running very fast since being alone. So I slowed down and actually ran backwards hoping to find her knowing that Kalyani must be running steadily at our decided pace. After a long anxious few minutes, I eventually heard her shouting my name and located her. We both breathed a sign of relief and thanked God for not ruining our race. But we lost a few minutes in this episode.

Second was cramps at 52K. This was a surprise as I did not suffer cramps during any of the training runs. I was hit my cramps and pains in legs at one point but I decided to ignore everything and just focused on my run. Spectators where shouting “INDIA INDIA” and cheering us on, so that helped and kept us going”

About keeping his motivation during the arduous training cycle, he said:

“I find myself BLESSED as I was going to do the world’s oldest and most prestigious ultra marathon race. Not every runner gets this chance, even if he is a better runner than me. My family was also very cooperative during training, so I could not let their support go in vain. So there was not a single phase where I felt demotivated.”

Immediately after finished, Rajat felt overcome by emotion…

“After crossing the finish line, my mind flashed back to when I started my training. And here I was today. I got very emotional, thinking of all the sacrifices and hard work I made to reach here. I wholeheartedly thanked God that both of us, me and Kalyani, finished, that too standing on our legs, as we saw videos where people were literally crawling to finish the race. I thought: “HUMNE KUCH NAYA KIYA. UPAR WALE NE KARWA LIYA”. My mind was thankful to God, my family and friends, and to my coach for his support and training, by which we achieved this.