Some Running For The Soul: “My Mom Runs Faster ThanYour Dad”

Vaishali Kasture hails from a family where academic excellence is given prime importance. Till the age of 30, she was only involved in corporate progress and academics. It was in 2003, when she was working with Citibank, that she quit her job and took an eighteen month sabbatical to become a stay-at-home mom. It was at this time that she realised that she wants something more in life. She started running to break the monotony.

Vaishali, a consultant partner with Deloitte, was not very athletic. She was the MD of Goldman Sachs earlier and has worked with other big names such as Citibank, MphasiS, and Infosys. She has also established the global hedge fund, Fulcrum’s, office in India.  

Initially, she used to run with a friend and was not very regular. A fe years ago, she hit 40 and she realised she needed to pay attention to her fitness; that’s when her first race happened. Vaishali got addicted to running. She managed to create a perfect balance between work and life and a strong liking for well-being and fitness at par with her career.

The 44-year-old is the first Indian woman to run for the Boston Marathon, in 2014. Besides, she has two full marathons, two ultra marathons, over 30 half-marathons to her credit. She is also India’s first woman to run Comrades (ultra marathons). She is also known for breaking her own record, she set a new running time of 47.55 minutes.

Vaishali’s list of achievements is never-ending. To her credit, she also has the honour of being the first woman to compete and finish the Oxfam’s 100 km Trailwalker. This run happened five days after her Mumbai marathon. At the time, she had many questions: would she be able to walk because, it had been a long time since she trained for the marathon. Her team broke the record.

Her first win was in Hyderabad at the half marathon when she was 40. When she participates in a run, she does it with the goal of breaking the record among women her age. She say, “When you meet success, you always want to save a couple of minutes more, each time; and then you go that extra mile, you run well, you lose weight and lead a disciplined life.”

For Vaishali, running is some me-time, along with food for her soul. She runs four days a week and is very happy with what she has achieved. She feels that when her soul is fed she is calmer. Her greatest admirer is her five-year-old son, who has a t-shirt which says, “My mom runs faster than your dad.”

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