Who is Sawan Barwal? The man who killed the marathon misconception to silver at the Asian Games

There was a misconception Sawan Barwal heard before he started running marathons.

“Running 2:12 or 2:13 was very difficult for the Indians.

For someone who spent most of his career on the track, that might have been an observation worth ignoring. Instead, Barwal took it as a challenge.

On Saturday morning in Nagoya, in just his second competitive marathon, the 28-year-old fighter showed how quickly that perception can change. Barwal won the silver medal at the Asian Games in 2:11:37, breaking the national record he set in Rotterdam earlier this year. Japan’s Ichitaka Yamashita won gold in 2:10:49, while China’s Peiyou Feng took bronze in 2:12:13.

Asian Games Live: Update 26 September

Sawan Barwal reacts to finishing second in the men’s marathon at the Asian Games. (AP photo)

“This is for India. The medal was important. Finally the Japanese took the opportunity and ran away. I tried,” he said after the race.

It was more than a silver medal. India had been waiting 44 years for a men’s marathon medal at the Asian Games since Hosur Kukkappa Seetharan won bronze at the 1982 Delhi Games.

And Barwal has now broken the national record twice in the same year. He beat Shivnath Singh’s 48-year-old mark of 2:12:00 for the first time in Rotterdam in 2:11:58. In Nagoya, he took another 21 seconds off his own record.

Notably, Barwal doesn’t see 2:11:37 as a cutoff.

His coach Surender Singh believes he can break 2:09. Barwal himself has already set his next target at 2:07 or 2:08.

“I think I can aim for 2:07 or 2:08 after the Asian Games,” he told IndiaToday.in ahead of the Asian Games. Sawan Barwal runs in the men’s marathon in Nagoya. (Photo by Reuters)

For now, however, the medal mattered more than the clock. The race, it turned out, required exactly the kind of patience and mental fortitude Barwal warned against.

His seniors told him that the marathon really starts after 35 kilometers.

Barwal spent much of the race in front, leading from around 10km to 35km before Yamashita moved on. Feng, who arrived in Nagoya this season as the Asian leader in 2:05:58, was unable to replicate that form and eventually settled for bronze.

Meanwhile, Barwal remained in the fight.

He covered the final 7.145 km in 22 minutes and 13 seconds, holding onto the silver behind Yamashita. It was a fitting response to the advice he had heard so many times: the marathon starts after 35km.

“I heard from seniors that marathon is not easy. You realize it after 35 km,” Barwal told IndiaToday.in. “After 35km, it’s more mentally demanding. You have to stay on track and figure out how to finish.”

HOW SAWAN BARWAL STARTED A MARATHON?

That was hardly the language of someone who spent his childhood dreaming of becoming a marathon runner.

Barwal is an army runner from Mandi in Himachal Pradesh who has spent most of his career on the track. Running was almost an accident at first. He took it up in school, continued as medals came at the district and state levels, and joined the army in 2019. Only later did he begin to understand what professional sports could offer him.

It wasn’t until much later that the marathon entered the conversation.

After the 2022 Asian Games, which he missed due to a combination of injuries and other reasons, he and his coach discussed trying the distance before next year. He started training alongside marathon runners and seniors at Reliance, spending much of his training at high altitude camps in Kannur and Bengaluru.

The switch was not sudden. It took shape over time and his first attempt was postponed after he was injured 10 days before the scheduled race. He finally returned in January and began four months of preparation for Rotterdam.

He left for the Netherlands in April with little marathon experience and a national record that had stood for 48 years.

Shivnath Singh ran 2:12:00 in 1978. Barwal clocked 2:11:58 on his debut.

Even then he felt that he could have gone faster.

The national record was already on his mind before Rotterdam, but he had a bigger goal. He believed he could eventually run around 2:10 – maybe even 2:09. The fact that he managed to break one of India’s longest athletics records did not make him think that the ceiling had suddenly disappeared.

If anything, it reduced it.

“When I ran my first marathon, I had little experience,” he said. “The fatigue of 5km and 10km is different. A marathon is 42km. It was completely new to me.”

HOW SAWAN BARWAL TRAINED FOR THE HARDEST PART?

He was left with one more piece of advice from the seniors: prepare for the last five or six kilometers.

So Barwal did.

His training often included 40km or 42km runs on different weeks. He ran 40-41km roughly 10-20 seconds slower than his intended marathon pace and taught his body what it felt like to be in motion when fatigue set in. Sawan Barwal started and finished strong in the men’s marathon. (Photo by Reuters)

His typical week might include three hard workouts – speed, long run and tempo – with lighter 20-25km runs on other days. His weekly run was around 200km, with a long run at the center of the program.

But the hardest part, he knew, wasn’t necessarily the legs.

“In my first marathon, in the last four or five kilometers, I didn’t think much,” he said. “I just thought my legs should keep moving.

In the last three or four kilometers he felt his mind almost stop.

I was thinking of only one thing: I have to go to the finish line and how to keep the pace.

The same mindset accompanied him through Nagoya.

There were 19 runners in the field and Barwal was the only one to check in with a personal best. Several of his rivals had faster times on paper. Feng, in particular, had a season-leading 2:05:58. Still, Barwal calculated the conditions, stayed in the pace-setting group and rode his own race.

A marathon was something he wanted to try. Two races later it’s starting to look like something it could have been built for.

– The end