Last weekend, I did my 5th marathon - Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon 2011. Of all the marathons in India, SCMM is beyond doubt the most renowned and the biggest of them all. And to add to that, this probably is one of the very few marathons in India where the whole city comes out in vociferous support for the runners. Needless then to say, this is one marthon in the "to-run" list of most runners in India.
The run up to the race itself was muddled with a lot of confusions and uncertainties. First the train ticket did not get confirmed till the last day (in spite of having been booked almost three months in advance). Then there was the nagging cold and cough which I contracted exactly four days before the race and one that threatened to only get worse by the day. The third was the unexpected hospitalization of my aunt, with whom I was planning to stay. Luckily, I was able to work around these and for my cold, I just took a chance hoping that the cold will not cause too many problems during the run.
I had my uncle's driver drop me close to VT on the race day, around 5:30 AM and in the morning and as I walked towards Azad maidan, the starting place for the race, I met Shantanu, Prateek and Anjana, fellow Bangalore runners. The place, as like the previous year, was buzzing with activity and enthusiasm and that atmosphere alone is worth experiencing.
The race started at 6:15AM and I ran the first KM or so a little slower, primarily because of the traffic. I gradually picked speed and maintained a steady pace thereafter. I am not by any yard stick, a veteran runner, but having run a few marathons before, I have always felt a similar pattern to my thinking during long runs. The first few K's, the mind jumps around, all doubts creep in, all question marks raised. Once this period is overcome, then comes the next stretch where you do a steady run, the mind sort of goes blank and you just enjoy the running to the maximum. Then at around the 25K or so, when the tiredness start creeping in, the mind comes to party again. It keeps playing games with body, often forcing the body to walk at stretches where it could have easily run and the frequency of such games between the mind and the body keeps increasing till the end of the race. I had pretty much the same experience this time as well. I was worried that I might feel totally tired and exhausted because of the cold in the first few kilometers and once the mind was convinced that this was not the case, I entered the steady phase. This continued till the sea link where the third phase started. I started to do little walks and the frequency of such walks kept increasing as the race progressed. I had set myself a personal target of 4:30 hours for the run and had thoroughly convinced myself that I will be happy with that timing, given the cold, cough etc. In the end, I think that hampered my final timing more than it helped me. Towards the end of the race, it was pretty apparent that I was going to do well inside 4:30 and so my mind convinced me to do a lot more walks than needed. In retrospect, I should easily done 5 - 10 minutes faster if I had pressed a little more harder. Nevertheless, when I completed the race, it was below 4:30 and I really felt good.
I wanted to dedicate this race to two of my aunts, coincidentally both of them reside in Mumbai. One is my mother's sister and the other is my father's sister. The former has been a tremendous source of inspiration for me for her toughness and the way she faced and overcame the various kind of hardships that was thrown to her incessantly all through her life. The second aunt could have easily passed of Aunt Dahlia, of Bertie Wooster fame, not in the "scariness context", but more from the "I know what is good for my nephew much more than he does and I will get him to do it" context. She is a very close to me and the kind of care she showed, right to how I should get rid of my cold to what I should eat before the race, was amazing. She in fact took a hour and a half long train ride from her home to VT to see me complete the race, though unfortunately, she missed her train and came in after I completed the race. Nevertheless, she was affection personified.
The run up to the race itself was muddled with a lot of confusions and uncertainties. First the train ticket did not get confirmed till the last day (in spite of having been booked almost three months in advance). Then there was the nagging cold and cough which I contracted exactly four days before the race and one that threatened to only get worse by the day. The third was the unexpected hospitalization of my aunt, with whom I was planning to stay. Luckily, I was able to work around these and for my cold, I just took a chance hoping that the cold will not cause too many problems during the run.
I had my uncle's driver drop me close to VT on the race day, around 5:30 AM and in the morning and as I walked towards Azad maidan, the starting place for the race, I met Shantanu, Prateek and Anjana, fellow Bangalore runners. The place, as like the previous year, was buzzing with activity and enthusiasm and that atmosphere alone is worth experiencing.
The race started at 6:15AM and I ran the first KM or so a little slower, primarily because of the traffic. I gradually picked speed and maintained a steady pace thereafter. I am not by any yard stick, a veteran runner, but having run a few marathons before, I have always felt a similar pattern to my thinking during long runs. The first few K's, the mind jumps around, all doubts creep in, all question marks raised. Once this period is overcome, then comes the next stretch where you do a steady run, the mind sort of goes blank and you just enjoy the running to the maximum. Then at around the 25K or so, when the tiredness start creeping in, the mind comes to party again. It keeps playing games with body, often forcing the body to walk at stretches where it could have easily run and the frequency of such games between the mind and the body keeps increasing till the end of the race. I had pretty much the same experience this time as well. I was worried that I might feel totally tired and exhausted because of the cold in the first few kilometers and once the mind was convinced that this was not the case, I entered the steady phase. This continued till the sea link where the third phase started. I started to do little walks and the frequency of such walks kept increasing as the race progressed. I had set myself a personal target of 4:30 hours for the run and had thoroughly convinced myself that I will be happy with that timing, given the cold, cough etc. In the end, I think that hampered my final timing more than it helped me. Towards the end of the race, it was pretty apparent that I was going to do well inside 4:30 and so my mind convinced me to do a lot more walks than needed. In retrospect, I should easily done 5 - 10 minutes faster if I had pressed a little more harder. Nevertheless, when I completed the race, it was below 4:30 and I really felt good.
I wanted to dedicate this race to two of my aunts, coincidentally both of them reside in Mumbai. One is my mother's sister and the other is my father's sister. The former has been a tremendous source of inspiration for me for her toughness and the way she faced and overcame the various kind of hardships that was thrown to her incessantly all through her life. The second aunt could have easily passed of Aunt Dahlia, of Bertie Wooster fame, not in the "scariness context", but more from the "I know what is good for my nephew much more than he does and I will get him to do it" context. She is a very close to me and the kind of care she showed, right to how I should get rid of my cold to what I should eat before the race, was amazing. She in fact took a hour and a half long train ride from her home to VT to see me complete the race, though unfortunately, she missed her train and came in after I completed the race. Nevertheless, she was affection personified.
2 comments:
Jothi ,Well done!! very thoughtful of you to dedicate to your Aunts.
planning to be there next year for the SCMM. Lets hit the road together :) .. I trust things are back now to focus on the next 26.2. Keep rocking brother...
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