Spoorthi Seethamma Muruvanda suffered from what she calls ‘subconscious depression’. Something which was perennially within her, though she socialised and continued with the day’s activities like everybody else, she says. But what many did not know is that it rendered her sleepless most nights (“sometimes just 15 minutes”) and made her eat tubs-full of junk food. “I was clearly stress-eating,” recalls Spoorthi. When she was 26, Spoorthi went through a rough patch that included a broken marriage. Spoorthi, who is five feet tall, started losing confidence in herself, and her body image did not help. “I was close to 71 kilos, when my ideal weight was supposed to be between 50 and 53.”
Mustering all her will, Spoorthi joined the gym at her office in January 2014, got onto the treadmill, and got off, two minutes into running on it. “I couldn’t run beyond 500 metres. I cried looking at my image in the mirror, the first day,” she recalls. Three years hence, Spoorthi has an enviable 28-inch waist and a weight that’s within the ideal bracket; she has completed three full marathons and four ultra runs, and more importantly, is positive and happy.
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“It was tough, it took me at least four to five months to see any results. I kept upping my target by 50 metres every week.” And in May 2014, she participated in her first 10km event. “I saw so many people—young and old—participating, and that’s when I fell in love with running.” Her routine soon fell into a pattern that included about two hours of running five days a week, and strength training.
Spoorthi would wake up at 6 am, have a glass of sugarless black coffee, and then head to the office, where she would work till 9 am, before “sneaking out” to the gym.By noon, she would be eating her lunch, a big bowl of fruit, usually accompanied with some chicken or egg. “I eat every two hours, so by 3 pm, I am having a bowl of oats with milk, salt and pepper. And by 5.30 pm, I am done with my dinner that is usually dosa or idli, and at 11 pm, I am off to bed.” To curb the urge to eat junk food (“I used to eat a large pizza all by myself”), Spoorthi keeps a bowl of boiled pulses ready to munch on, and also drinks around four glasses of green tea with cinnamon powder, through the day.
As her stamina grew, Spoorthi took running to another level. “In December 2015, I did a 150-km run from Bengaluru to Mysuru in two days, and in February 2016, another 600-km run from Bengaluru to Hyderabad in 11 days. Most warned me, saying that it was too soon to do ultra runs, but I realised that long distance is what I liked the most.” She has also done a Bengaluru to Chennai run in six days, Jaipur to Delhi (66-hour non-stop run), and was the winner of the 24-hour non-stop Bengaluru Stadium Run last year. “More than stamina, running long distance is about mental strength.” And that’s when Spoorthi pushes herself, metre by metre. Just like how she did within the walls of her office gym.
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