In 2003, while reading the newspaper at his mother’s house, Milind noticed an announcement about India’s first major city marathon in Mumbai. The idea of running 21 kilometers appealed to him for a simple reason. In an interview with the New Indian Express, Milind has said as a child he had heard the story about Pheidippides, the Greek messenger who ran from Marathon to Athens to announce the victory that the Greeks had over Persians, at the Battle of Marathon.
That old tale had stayed in the back of his mind. At 37, with a steady but unexciting phase in his career, he decided the time felt right for a new challenge. Friends and others warned him that the heat, the distance and his age would make it difficult. He trained for a few months and went ahead anyway.
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