Come January, and the resolution to blog regularly tops the list again. And what better start than to write about the experiences on what has become an annual January ritual -- The Mumbai Marathon.
The experience started with joining two of my running mates, Satsang and Sampath, on the way to the airport. Satsang had already blocked three seats together for us, so it worked out well and we generally chit-chatted our way to the airport. Since this was Sampath's first ever air journey, it was nice to sense his excitement, however hard he tried to conceal it.
Satsang's friends, Abhinav and Suraj, were waiting for us at the Mumbai airport and drove us from the airport to WTC, where we had to collect our running bibs. Abhinav chose a route that touched the Marathon running route, but unfortunately for us, it turned out to be a long ride as traffic was just inching along. We finally managed to reach WTC and pick our bibs about an hour and a half later. Since the Expo was at the MMRDA grounds, WTC was just a bib collection centre unlike the previous years. Here we met Sunita Godara, who has run 71 marathons till date. Could we have asked for a better inspiration?
The marathon day started pretty early and I got dropped at Azad Maidan at about 4:40AM. I had the running bib for my friend, Vishy and so was waiting for him to hand it over. During this wait, I met a few other runners from Bangalore. As luck would have it, Vishy had some confusion with the fast/slow local trains that Mumbai so proudly boasts of and arrived pretty close to the start time. To add to the excitement, the security guards at the gate refused him entry to the ground without the bib. After a few frantic calls and runs, we finally managed to meet each other and I handed over the bib to him. By that time, the race had already started and the official announcers were asking full marathon runners to head to the start line as they were planning to close it. Added to that, another volunteer just prodded me to rush to the start line and I grudgingly ran towards the start line, hoping Vishy would join me soon. And for the first time ever, by the time I touched the start line, I was already panting. I started the race almost 10 minutes after the gun start time.
As I was running, I was really hoping that Vishy got in too and when I did spot him at about the 2K mark or so (there was a U turn in that stretch), I felt totally relieved. It would have been a real tragedy if he was denied a run.
The rest of the race was pretty uneventful, thankfully. I was chipping along at a steady pace of 6min/K (give and take a few seconds). Since I started late and most of my other running mates were flying (going by the number of sub-4 finishes in my running group), I did not get to meet many known faces the entire run. I did meet a couple -- Ravi just after the sea-link and Augustus at about the 38K.
In all my previous marathons, the first 30K have always been OK, the fun usually starts after that. And usually, it has not been a gradual degradation, but more of a flip of a switch, with heaviness, cramps and all its associated friends swarming down at one shot. And then the mind starts playing games. My primary aim was to push the onset of this wall to 35K or further. As I kept crossing the KM markers, I was waiting for this switch to get flipped, but for whatever reason, this never happened. I ran the entire race (well almost, I walked for a hundred or so meters in the Peddar road flyover) for the first ever time. While I did not attempt to sprint to the finish, I wanted to at least pick up some speed in the last KM or so. But unfortunately for me, there was quite a bit of crowd pile up with several half marathoners just walking towards the finish line and I had to navigate myself between them. By the time I finished, my Garmin showed a time of 4:13, but it had clocked 42.195 about 250m or so before the actual finish line. The official time was 4:14:55, a full 5 seconds faster than my goal and about 12 minutes off my PB. That was not only sweet, but more importantly, has given the hope of a sub-4 marathon sometime in the future, a big shot in the arm.
The experience started with joining two of my running mates, Satsang and Sampath, on the way to the airport. Satsang had already blocked three seats together for us, so it worked out well and we generally chit-chatted our way to the airport. Since this was Sampath's first ever air journey, it was nice to sense his excitement, however hard he tried to conceal it.
Satsang's friends, Abhinav and Suraj, were waiting for us at the Mumbai airport and drove us from the airport to WTC, where we had to collect our running bibs. Abhinav chose a route that touched the Marathon running route, but unfortunately for us, it turned out to be a long ride as traffic was just inching along. We finally managed to reach WTC and pick our bibs about an hour and a half later. Since the Expo was at the MMRDA grounds, WTC was just a bib collection centre unlike the previous years. Here we met Sunita Godara, who has run 71 marathons till date. Could we have asked for a better inspiration?
The marathon day started pretty early and I got dropped at Azad Maidan at about 4:40AM. I had the running bib for my friend, Vishy and so was waiting for him to hand it over. During this wait, I met a few other runners from Bangalore. As luck would have it, Vishy had some confusion with the fast/slow local trains that Mumbai so proudly boasts of and arrived pretty close to the start time. To add to the excitement, the security guards at the gate refused him entry to the ground without the bib. After a few frantic calls and runs, we finally managed to meet each other and I handed over the bib to him. By that time, the race had already started and the official announcers were asking full marathon runners to head to the start line as they were planning to close it. Added to that, another volunteer just prodded me to rush to the start line and I grudgingly ran towards the start line, hoping Vishy would join me soon. And for the first time ever, by the time I touched the start line, I was already panting. I started the race almost 10 minutes after the gun start time.
As I was running, I was really hoping that Vishy got in too and when I did spot him at about the 2K mark or so (there was a U turn in that stretch), I felt totally relieved. It would have been a real tragedy if he was denied a run.
The rest of the race was pretty uneventful, thankfully. I was chipping along at a steady pace of 6min/K (give and take a few seconds). Since I started late and most of my other running mates were flying (going by the number of sub-4 finishes in my running group), I did not get to meet many known faces the entire run. I did meet a couple -- Ravi just after the sea-link and Augustus at about the 38K.
In all my previous marathons, the first 30K have always been OK, the fun usually starts after that. And usually, it has not been a gradual degradation, but more of a flip of a switch, with heaviness, cramps and all its associated friends swarming down at one shot. And then the mind starts playing games. My primary aim was to push the onset of this wall to 35K or further. As I kept crossing the KM markers, I was waiting for this switch to get flipped, but for whatever reason, this never happened. I ran the entire race (well almost, I walked for a hundred or so meters in the Peddar road flyover) for the first ever time. While I did not attempt to sprint to the finish, I wanted to at least pick up some speed in the last KM or so. But unfortunately for me, there was quite a bit of crowd pile up with several half marathoners just walking towards the finish line and I had to navigate myself between them. By the time I finished, my Garmin showed a time of 4:13, but it had clocked 42.195 about 250m or so before the actual finish line. The official time was 4:14:55, a full 5 seconds faster than my goal and about 12 minutes off my PB. That was not only sweet, but more importantly, has given the hope of a sub-4 marathon sometime in the future, a big shot in the arm.
2 comments:
Congratulations - In spite of the late start u rocked the run jothi ! I'm sure u'd hv crossed me from behind, wondering how we missed each other.
Dude, gunning for Boston eh ? Nice, nice !
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