gajabhuja funda

Run Run Run

Or rather it was walk/walk/walk ;-) Phew finally i vanquished the marathon beast yet again !
Yes folks. As my friends say, i am still walking and oh yeah i am still alive after trudging through 40+kms of bombay roads and heat and traffic !
It was bombay through my running shoes.
The start was actually not that good. Come on you moronic organizers of mumbai marathon, 8 am is *not* a convenient time for amateurs like me.
Sathish, Jacob and myself started in right earnest. While Jacob was gunning for a sub 3hr timing and sathish for a 4 to 4.5hr timing, i was more intrested in just completing it ! Coz i did hear of horror stories about the heat and humidity !
By the 10km mark, sathish was raring to go and off he went. I was more sedate in my approach, coz i had practised for doing the 20km in 120 minutes and i wanted to stick to it. My gameplan was pretty simple. First 20km in 120 minutes and the remaining 20km in 180 minutes !
By the 20km mark it was around 135 minutes and i was almost there. However i knew that the remaining 20km in 180 minutes was practically not possible, with a huge electronic board gleaming "85%" humidity.
And to digress a bit here i would like to give a resounding kick to that moron from bombay who asked me as to how people live in madras which is so hot ! You duffer, both bombay and madras are on the coast and the humidity will always be the same ! If i ever catch you again, there are going to be just two things. Either i wring your neck, or you run the marathon ;-)
So by the 24km mark, i started trudging ocassionaly giving company to Mr.Vijay, a 45yr old guy who was also hell bent on completing it, and a madam from Dubai who i think dropped out !
By about 36km mark i finally caught up with sathish, who in spite of my repeated warnings not to speed up, did so and finally was derailed by the heat and injuries ;-)
And finally summoning the last bit of whatever was left inside us, we ambled across to the finishing line in 6+ hrs, and collected the medal !
One important thing here was the people support. That madame Ms.Anuradha { or Mrs.Anuradha whatever it is } deserves nothing short of a huge prize. She indulged in a selfless act of encouraging the last pack of runners, by waiting for us at every km mark with choclates and egging us on ! What spirit that was. Thank you Madame. I mean it was a sunday and instead of staying at home and relaxing, here she was waiting for we pack of 10 or so guys at every km mark, giving away choclates !
So after struggling to complete this marathon, am i giving up ? You bet not ;-). There is a small idea that has germinated inside me after reading a news clipping about a lady who has completed 75 marathons. Why can't i do 100 ? Practically speaking if there are people who run at the age of 45 and 60 why cant i do so ? So here goes. Someday i hope to do 100 marathons. If you think about it, every year there are about 5 marathons held in India itself. Assuming i run it for the next 20yrs i am done right ? So someday, someday i shall do it.
K.Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 9:38 AM