Period shamers begone! Indian-origin Kiran Gandhi completes marathon without tampon

Kiran Gandhi had been training for almost year and was ready to take on the 42.2 kms London marathon. Only, there was one glitch. She got her period the night before she was supposed to run. She contemplated dropping out of the marathon, but then eventually decided to run — free-bleeding. [caption id=“attachment_2383334” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Courtesy: kirangandhi.com[/caption] The 26-year-old finished the marathon with a final time of  4:49:11. She is a drummer who recently wrapped up a concert tour with singer M.I.A. and has an MBA from Harvard Business School. Kiran wrote about her experience on her personal blogging site and on Medium . On her blog she details every stigma and stereotype that is usually associated with menstruation, and describes how happy she was with her decision to run without a tampon. She told Cosmopolitan that usually her periods get very painful. So the thought of running the marathon seemed like a terrible idea. But she decided to do it anyway flanked throughout the race by two of her very good friends. Even during the marathon, she encountered a period shamer who came up behind her, making a disgusted face, and reminded her, in a subdued voice, that she was on her period. Kiran had the perfect reply, of course: “I was like…wow, I had NO idea!” Read her full blog post here. Here are some of positive Tweets on her story.