Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon 2011

I was not as prepared for this marathon as the 2010 edition as most of December had gone indisposed due to cough and cold. Nevertheless, more than a year off drinks and a more scheduled and disciplined lifestyle meant I had increased stamina. In fact I was doing 10km in just about 65 minutes. I did the 21km trial run on the Sunday prior to the marathon in 2 hours 25 minutes or so. On the earlier Saturday, I tried matching my younger daughters’ folk dance steps and matched to tweak the muscle tissue on my left knee. The older you become the younger your mind thinks it is, but in actuality the body does age and if you listen to the mind and do something stupid the body says, “boy, are you stupid!” and promptly gets damaged. I called the physiotherapist and she told me to rest for a week, and when I told her that I cannot rest as the event just a week ahead, she said ok, apply ice packs and take Combiflam, if required. So that’s what I did for the entire week and just ran 7 to 10 km every alternate day and rested on Saturday, a day before the run. I was on a complete protein and banana diet on Saturday.

The morning of the Marathon was also the day PP Gurudev was entering the first of forty five days of deep meditation and we had been told to meditate both morning and evening. I woke up at 4.30am and was in meditation for half an hour, after which I got fresh and started my stretching exercises. This time I had decided to carry a camera in a waist belt pouch. Because of the waist belt I also had two oranges peeled and had kept the same in the pouch as refreshment for the latter half of the run. My wife dropped me off at the Mahim causeway-SV Road signal from where I walked down to the holding area. The holding area had been changed at the last moment from the MHADA ground to the area below the flyover near the Bandra East fire brigade location. It was already around 5.50am and the run was to start at 6.15am. I did some more stretches and then walked towards the start line. There was a huge crowd as there was no separate area for veterans and the non veterans, so we had to wait in the crowd. Some youngsters started pushing their way through to get to the front of the crowd, I let them pass and enjoyed myself by taking some pictures. There were a couple of young ladies who were running for the first time and one of them said that she could not sleep the whole night in anticipation of the run. This definitely reminded me off my first marathon eight years ago, when I too could not sleep the night before!

At 6.15am the run started with the VIP and elite athletes being sent off first after which us junta was told to go. There was a huge roar along with cat whistles from the runners and off we went. I hit the timing chip mat at around 6.20am. The start was very slow as the road was narrow before it got onto the flyover with a lot of bunching up and some pushing. I just let the eager beavers go ahead and kept slowing down and giving myself room, as I definitely did not want to be stamped on nor tripped! This year there was a sight which one would probably only get to see in India! As the run started and progressed onto the flyover to a section which did not have street lights, a whole lot of runners suddenly had weak bladders and you could see an entire line of maybe a couple of hundred males standing to water the shrubs planted on the road divider! This was a first, and I was tempted to take a photo but let it pass as it would not have been in good taste! The going was slow till about one and a half kilometers as the crowd was too heavy on the narrow road, with youngsters darting in and out and cutting across your running path! This actually is dangerous as if anyone had to trip it could have caused injuries to a lot of people with the oncoming runners stamping or stumbling over those who could have gone down. But nothing of the sort happened, and as we got onto the road leading to the sea link, the broader road actually helped in easing the crowd, with the runners also now spread over a larger area.

I continued to run at the speed I had trained for, and after around five and a half kilometers on the closing stretch of the sea link, my left knee kind of buckled as the surface was much harder with less buoyancy than the earlier stretch. I slowed down a bit and continued by favoring my left knee a bit while running. Once off the sea link, it became easier and the pain eased a bit and I continued running along at a decent clip and ran non-stop for around 12 kilometers when my left knee told me to take it easy. This is the first time I did not see any of my office colleagues even on the turn around after Century bazaar! I walked and then ran alternately and was well within striking distance of my best time which I clocked last year of 2 hours 30minutes and 53 seconds. I ran up more than half the Peddar Road hill and then downhill. I kept eating the oranges I had carried took some photos on Marine Drive, drank water which was being handed over by volunteers and generally enjoyed my run in peace and tranquility with my Guru for company. On the way I passed an HDFC Bank runner whose T-shirt said they were running for Project Crayons the same NGO we were supporting, and I tapped him on the back and said we are running for the same cause. He smiled and we kind of bonded for a moment before moving on!

About 4km from the finish I heard someone call my name and I was surprised to see a resident of our housing society, Amit who was running for Striders, a running club. We jogged together for some time and he told me run Girish run, so I ran and pushed off at a clip, I lost him after that. The last two hundred meters or so, I sprinted and finished the race strongly, I was a couple of minutes slow than last years’ time, a better start could have probably helped in beating last years, time. I collected my refreshments and finishers’ medal and went off to the corporate challenge enclosure, which had a huge crowd waiting for the dream run to start at around 8.55am. I got into the enclosure and was alone for quite some time, after which a couple of young office colleagues came and took photos with me before pushing off for their dream run. I then took my refreshments, and a couple of known faces from United Way of Mumbai came and asked me why I was limping, I mentioned my knee being under stress, upon which they guided me to the Asian Heart enclosure. There I was treated by a nurse who applied a muscle spray and ice pack which kind of helped relieving the pain. I went back to the enclosure and waited for our office colleagues who started trickling in from 10.30 onwards. Once a majority of our colleagues joined us we had a photo session and then left for home.

Raising money for Project Crayons and running for them was a pleasure and I thank all those supporters who have helped Project Crayons by contributing to their cause. Thanks everyone and God Bless. See you all next year.