He is being called India’s Faith Runner and the Indian Forrest Gump as well. He is Samir Singh, an ultra marathoner who set himself the seemingly impossible task of running ten thousand km in just one hundred days. Here is why the story unfortunately ended in disappointment but why Samir Singh’s is still such an inspiring story.
He set himself a truly herculean task – running ten thousand km in just one hundred days. Yes, that means running one hundred km every day!
He is a marathon runner but at 44 years of age, he is far from spring chicken. He would rise at 4 everyday to start his daily one hundred km quest.
It was a personal quest that started on 29 April, when Samir Singh and his friend Ramesh started to run on morning. They ran 20 km till the tip of Mumbai and while Ramesh stopped, Samir went on. Samir has a lot of faith in the holy scriptures; something that helped keep him going. He believes that this task was ordained for him. Film-makers Vandana Bhatti and Vikram Bhatti documented his amazing journey for social media, calling it The Faith Runner.
He has earned himself tiles such as the 100K man, haddi (bones) and madman but along the way he has inspired countless others.
His is a simple vegetarian diet and managed to survive on just about Rs 190 a day. Using donated equipment and clothes, he had no financial assistance or sponsorships to smooth his path. There was no dietician guiding him, it was his brother Pralhad who cooked for him.
As he traversed the business districts and the slums of Mumbai each day, he earned himself the moniker Forrest Gump; an allusion to the Hollywood film about the simple man with a big quest who was propelled into the limelight.
As he ran along the streets of Mumbai he would be joined by many others from time to time; drawing admiration, amazement and offering inspiration.
He had 150 km to go on the final day Sunday, 6 August 2017. His GPS tracker showed just over 9964 km run over 100 days. He fell short by just 36 km, in the process losing 16 kilos and weighing just 40 kg at the end of it all. Through blisters, fractures, cracked heels, gastro and viral fever – he kept going. He now plans to regain some of that lost weight before meeting his mother; not wanting his emaciated self to upset her!
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