Showing posts with label Marathon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marathon. Show all posts
April 5, 2009
January 27, 2009
Mumbai Marathon 2009
Its been so long... its been a year since i ran... the last that I had run was the 2008 marathon at Mumbai... This time it was gonna be tough... I was running for a cause and I had the marathon bug which pulls me every time to Mumbai to run the full-marathon (42.195 kms).
Had been doing some little push-ups, training my legs and doing some stretching, but it was not enough... Luckily my friend Subash had told me that there was this mid-night marathon in whitefield, b'lore on the 10th of jan 09. So without much preparation I went to run the half-marathon along with Subash.
Subash's parents had come along to cheer us up and the event had quite a lot of marathoners' for the odd-time that it was! We finished the tiring and tough track that it was with full of up-hill and down-hill to do... The weather though chilling wasn't good for people who were walking as the only way to keep ourselves warm was by running... while walking, the cold used to get in and make you stiff... Anyways after running 5 kms Subash got a bit tired and he started walking.. I guess he was alternating between long walks and short runs... I continued to run but at one place I made the mistake of taking glucose (powder) and that too without water. It made me very thirsty and kind of broke my run. So I started my walk and the pace of which is quite slow compared to others... I finished the 1st lap of the track in just an hour. But the 2nd track took quite a time and I think I finished the 22 kms in 2.5 hours. Finally got on to my bike and sped back home. It was 3 am and I was getting a head-ache. The body clock had started sending warning signs and so reached home in the chilling cold with my hands frozen as I hadn't got any gloves. Finally reached home near IIM-B in flat 25 mins and crashed into my bed!
Every year I do the half-marathon at b'lore as a practice for my full-marathon that I do at Mumbai. This one really helped as I burned some of the body fat accumilated over the year :) Anyways now it was time for the full-marathon and I was just recuperating from the body-ache that I had earned from the mid-night marathon. Luckily within a couple of days I was feeling better. I had booked a bus ticket for my journey to Mumbai and had booked a return flight back to b'lore.
I left b'luru on friday evening and reached mumbai the next day morning. Went to my aunt's place and had a nice nap! I refrained from the vada pavs' and all the tempting, mouth-watering oily food. Though I quenched my thirst with sugarcane juice that was present in each nook & corner and finally sunday morning arrived. My uncle who is a veteran marathoner, woke me up at 4:50 am and I got ready in a couple of mins.. He had trained himself in Talwarkars' and had a group of friends running the marathon. Uncle was running for the "end polio campaign" and he's my inspiration! I knew I would take around 6.5 hours to finish the marathon, while uncle was aiming at 4 hours.
So we caught the train to Azad Maidan. We were there at 6:15 am and there was a huge crowd and a queue. This time there was lot of security arrangement due to the Mumbai attacks and so it took us some time to enter the starting point of the run. Finally we started the run at 6:45 am along with the half-marathoners as the organizers wanted to give the slow runners extra time to finish the marathon.
I started the run quite slowly along with my uncle. Uncle was doing quite a lot to train for the marathon. He was doing a lot of running and then yoga, medidation and some gym...
Anyways my plan of just running with my uncle failed as my uncle kept a good steady pace even after 4 kms of continuous running. So I decided I would run at my own pace as I didn't want to hurt my legs and I need all my energy to finish the marathon!
So I was all alone but with the 30k runners! It was a very humid and hot weather that day. at around 8 am, came the International Professional runners, running like deers. I was lucky to get off them as unknowingly I came in the way of one of the runners, who pushed me gently to move me to the side. I was quite at the side of the road at chowpatty, but there were too many runners and they were almost taking the entire space of road... Anyways I just was angry with the guy who had pushed me, but then I thought it just happens and told myself to forget about it...
What excites me about Mumbai is the clean and wide roads and the crowds who support the marathoners all the way! The number of people who participate is overwhelming... Its absolutely amazing to run in the mumbai marathon... My heart beats like crazy everytime I approach the start line, I pray to God that things will be alright and he gives everyone the hope and courage to face the toughest of challenges. My eyes are filled with tears at the starting point... Some kind of emotional thoughts come and go and I get really motivated to do the marathon and then on hoping to do much more greater things for the greater good of everyone...
Anyways Haji Ali came up quickly and then I was done with 14 kms, the 1st of the 3 phases that I have divided the marathon into. Usually the first phase is the easiest and 2nd very tiring and the 3rd very painful :)
Mahalakshi temple and Haji Ali are 2 important places there. Then comes, Nehru centre, Worli Diary, Siddhi Vinayak temple and then Hinduja Hospital... Finally the toughest being Bandra Reclamation where the heat and odour is disgusting. This is the tiring part... And then I walked along to not hurt my legs... Then came the volunteers in the bus to pick up people who were finding it tough to finish the race... Then the police asked us (runners) to move to the side and use the foot path and the 4 hours time given for the marthon had ended. Many of us continued our journey to the finish. It was tough and agonizing. The mind tells you that it is enough. Don't trouble your limbs any more. The limbs I am alright, but I am not sure how far can I take you... After having a fight with my mind, I was at Haji Ali. Now it was an up-hill and very painful. The heat was unbearable. Very humid weather, it was taking a toll on all the marathoners. Thankfully finished Haji Ali by alternating my walks with some short runs... Finally I was at Chowpatty and the end was nearing. Slowly pulled myself and just a few kms before the finish I turned to a wrong road, which lead me right into Azad Maidan instead of the finish line. I had asked a pedestrian for the road to the marathon finish line and he directed me through another route. Anyways I reached Azad Maidan. That was the end of my 3rd Mumbai Marathon. Vowing to do it in less than 5 hours next year, I went back home to give my body a much needed break! I was not able to sleep as my body was kind of overheated though I was alright.
That evening spent some time with cousins and finally had a light dinner and went to sleep. Got up at 4:50 am for the second time to catch my flight back to b'lore. Unfortunately I hadn't thought about the goodies bag that I had been given by the organizers which had a lot of gel/oil tubes/bottles. The security didn't let me take one of the moisturiser inside the goodie bag :(
I don't understand the kind of security system we have these days... Anyways finally I was greeted by bengaluru international airport to a pleasant weather. It lasted for a few mins after which i was greeted by the bad b'luru traffic :)
I was limping for a couple of days of the run. But now I feel much stronger and ready to run! I ran with 2 things on my mind. Educating the poor kids and helping the wild life. Finishing off with the donations I am now looking to do some volunteering work.
Thats it from me. Hope to be back again with a bang!
Had been doing some little push-ups, training my legs and doing some stretching, but it was not enough... Luckily my friend Subash had told me that there was this mid-night marathon in whitefield, b'lore on the 10th of jan 09. So without much preparation I went to run the half-marathon along with Subash.
Subash's parents had come along to cheer us up and the event had quite a lot of marathoners' for the odd-time that it was! We finished the tiring and tough track that it was with full of up-hill and down-hill to do... The weather though chilling wasn't good for people who were walking as the only way to keep ourselves warm was by running... while walking, the cold used to get in and make you stiff... Anyways after running 5 kms Subash got a bit tired and he started walking.. I guess he was alternating between long walks and short runs... I continued to run but at one place I made the mistake of taking glucose (powder) and that too without water. It made me very thirsty and kind of broke my run. So I started my walk and the pace of which is quite slow compared to others... I finished the 1st lap of the track in just an hour. But the 2nd track took quite a time and I think I finished the 22 kms in 2.5 hours. Finally got on to my bike and sped back home. It was 3 am and I was getting a head-ache. The body clock had started sending warning signs and so reached home in the chilling cold with my hands frozen as I hadn't got any gloves. Finally reached home near IIM-B in flat 25 mins and crashed into my bed!
Every year I do the half-marathon at b'lore as a practice for my full-marathon that I do at Mumbai. This one really helped as I burned some of the body fat accumilated over the year :) Anyways now it was time for the full-marathon and I was just recuperating from the body-ache that I had earned from the mid-night marathon. Luckily within a couple of days I was feeling better. I had booked a bus ticket for my journey to Mumbai and had booked a return flight back to b'lore.
I left b'luru on friday evening and reached mumbai the next day morning. Went to my aunt's place and had a nice nap! I refrained from the vada pavs' and all the tempting, mouth-watering oily food. Though I quenched my thirst with sugarcane juice that was present in each nook & corner and finally sunday morning arrived. My uncle who is a veteran marathoner, woke me up at 4:50 am and I got ready in a couple of mins.. He had trained himself in Talwarkars' and had a group of friends running the marathon. Uncle was running for the "end polio campaign" and he's my inspiration! I knew I would take around 6.5 hours to finish the marathon, while uncle was aiming at 4 hours.
So we caught the train to Azad Maidan. We were there at 6:15 am and there was a huge crowd and a queue. This time there was lot of security arrangement due to the Mumbai attacks and so it took us some time to enter the starting point of the run. Finally we started the run at 6:45 am along with the half-marathoners as the organizers wanted to give the slow runners extra time to finish the marathon.
I started the run quite slowly along with my uncle. Uncle was doing quite a lot to train for the marathon. He was doing a lot of running and then yoga, medidation and some gym...
Anyways my plan of just running with my uncle failed as my uncle kept a good steady pace even after 4 kms of continuous running. So I decided I would run at my own pace as I didn't want to hurt my legs and I need all my energy to finish the marathon!
So I was all alone but with the 30k runners! It was a very humid and hot weather that day. at around 8 am, came the International Professional runners, running like deers. I was lucky to get off them as unknowingly I came in the way of one of the runners, who pushed me gently to move me to the side. I was quite at the side of the road at chowpatty, but there were too many runners and they were almost taking the entire space of road... Anyways I just was angry with the guy who had pushed me, but then I thought it just happens and told myself to forget about it...
What excites me about Mumbai is the clean and wide roads and the crowds who support the marathoners all the way! The number of people who participate is overwhelming... Its absolutely amazing to run in the mumbai marathon... My heart beats like crazy everytime I approach the start line, I pray to God that things will be alright and he gives everyone the hope and courage to face the toughest of challenges. My eyes are filled with tears at the starting point... Some kind of emotional thoughts come and go and I get really motivated to do the marathon and then on hoping to do much more greater things for the greater good of everyone...
Anyways Haji Ali came up quickly and then I was done with 14 kms, the 1st of the 3 phases that I have divided the marathon into. Usually the first phase is the easiest and 2nd very tiring and the 3rd very painful :)
Mahalakshi temple and Haji Ali are 2 important places there. Then comes, Nehru centre, Worli Diary, Siddhi Vinayak temple and then Hinduja Hospital... Finally the toughest being Bandra Reclamation where the heat and odour is disgusting. This is the tiring part... And then I walked along to not hurt my legs... Then came the volunteers in the bus to pick up people who were finding it tough to finish the race... Then the police asked us (runners) to move to the side and use the foot path and the 4 hours time given for the marthon had ended. Many of us continued our journey to the finish. It was tough and agonizing. The mind tells you that it is enough. Don't trouble your limbs any more. The limbs I am alright, but I am not sure how far can I take you... After having a fight with my mind, I was at Haji Ali. Now it was an up-hill and very painful. The heat was unbearable. Very humid weather, it was taking a toll on all the marathoners. Thankfully finished Haji Ali by alternating my walks with some short runs... Finally I was at Chowpatty and the end was nearing. Slowly pulled myself and just a few kms before the finish I turned to a wrong road, which lead me right into Azad Maidan instead of the finish line. I had asked a pedestrian for the road to the marathon finish line and he directed me through another route. Anyways I reached Azad Maidan. That was the end of my 3rd Mumbai Marathon. Vowing to do it in less than 5 hours next year, I went back home to give my body a much needed break! I was not able to sleep as my body was kind of overheated though I was alright.
That evening spent some time with cousins and finally had a light dinner and went to sleep. Got up at 4:50 am for the second time to catch my flight back to b'lore. Unfortunately I hadn't thought about the goodies bag that I had been given by the organizers which had a lot of gel/oil tubes/bottles. The security didn't let me take one of the moisturiser inside the goodie bag :(
I don't understand the kind of security system we have these days... Anyways finally I was greeted by bengaluru international airport to a pleasant weather. It lasted for a few mins after which i was greeted by the bad b'luru traffic :)
I was limping for a couple of days of the run. But now I feel much stronger and ready to run! I ran with 2 things on my mind. Educating the poor kids and helping the wild life. Finishing off with the donations I am now looking to do some volunteering work.
Thats it from me. Hope to be back again with a bang!
March 14, 2008
Marathoner, I am!
I had booked the friday late night spicejet flight from bengaluru to mumbai. The flight was late by over 3 hours. Suresh mama and Siddant had come to pick me up and they waited for around 2 hours. I had sandwich and juice on the way and we were home at around 2 am.
I was in Mumbai! It was Jan 20th Jan. I was there to participate in the 5th Anniversary of the Mumbai International Marathon.
I had prepared for this event for the last 3 months. I participated in a marathon for the first time 2 years back in bangalore. Since then had been able to finish half marathons but a full marathon was still elusive to me... I had participated in the bangalore half marathon which was just a month before this event. I was not in shape as I hadn't practiced much and it took me 2 hrs and 30 mins to complete the half marathon.
Uncle had been also preparing for the Mumbai marathon and he was getting trained at Talwarkar's. At 6 amI dragged myself along with him as there was a small warm-up session to get everyone set for the marathon. We had warm-up and streching exercises and then a slow jog and I learnt from the trainer that we should breathe in through the nose and breathe out through the mouth. All these things and other tips for the marathon were really useful. Finally we went to have breakfast in a nearby restaurant. It was 10:30 am when we finally came back home.
After this I left with my cousin to Navi Mumbai to my aunt's house. The lunch there was simple and I slept well in the afternoon. In the evening we went to a temple and then had a walk in the park with my aunt. Later in the evening went out again for a walk with my cousin. I was totally excited about the next day's marathon. Evening uncle had got a lot of snacks and we couldn't eat much as we had to run the next day!
Couldn't sleep much as I had to get up early in the morning to catch the train to Churchgate station. From there we went to Azad Maidan were the race starts.
It was a great feeling... lots of people from various backgrounds and ages and come down to participate in the event.
I started out walking. After 2 km of walk I started to jog and then maintained a steady pace. Also I tried to stick to the breathing technique that I learnt the day before. I was running alongside my uncle when a Cricket Ball just whizzed infront of us. It was very shocking. Had we been ahead by a second it would have hit one of us. I just thanked God and continued. The Cricket ground was next to the road and somebody had hit a huge six! After 28 kms I couldn't run as I didn't have enough practice for the marathon. But determined to finish I continued walking. It was dead hot in the middle of the afternoon and every minute I felt like quitting... I still had 10 kms to go and I could see only people who were opting out of the marathon. Not much to motivate myself I kept on going. Finally there was Haji Ali and then Marine Drive. There are many things that I learnt out of the Marathon, but the best lesson I learnt is that "When you are close to getting to the finish, it gets tougher, and only the tough make it to the finish". Some other take aways are "Slow and steady wins the race!". Luckily just when I was just getting bored of walking in the hot sun, totally exhausted, I met Superman!! This guy was wearing superman costume and was walking at my pace. So we got into a conversation. His name is Meherosh. He gave me company to the finish line and thanks to him the last 4 kms of the marathon was not so painful.
I have to thank the people of Mumbai for organizing such a huge event. Nowhere in India can one get such enthusiasm and a clean road to run the marathon. Thanks to my mom who has always supported me. Finally to my uncle who had inspired me to win this battle of the mind, his never say die attitude is just great. Thanks mama, you are just amazing! I dedicate this run to my avva (grandma).
Thats how I became a marathoner!
I was in Mumbai! It was Jan 20th Jan. I was there to participate in the 5th Anniversary of the Mumbai International Marathon.
I had prepared for this event for the last 3 months. I participated in a marathon for the first time 2 years back in bangalore. Since then had been able to finish half marathons but a full marathon was still elusive to me... I had participated in the bangalore half marathon which was just a month before this event. I was not in shape as I hadn't practiced much and it took me 2 hrs and 30 mins to complete the half marathon.
Uncle had been also preparing for the Mumbai marathon and he was getting trained at Talwarkar's. At 6 amI dragged myself along with him as there was a small warm-up session to get everyone set for the marathon. We had warm-up and streching exercises and then a slow jog and I learnt from the trainer that we should breathe in through the nose and breathe out through the mouth. All these things and other tips for the marathon were really useful. Finally we went to have breakfast in a nearby restaurant. It was 10:30 am when we finally came back home.
After this I left with my cousin to Navi Mumbai to my aunt's house. The lunch there was simple and I slept well in the afternoon. In the evening we went to a temple and then had a walk in the park with my aunt. Later in the evening went out again for a walk with my cousin. I was totally excited about the next day's marathon. Evening uncle had got a lot of snacks and we couldn't eat much as we had to run the next day!
Couldn't sleep much as I had to get up early in the morning to catch the train to Churchgate station. From there we went to Azad Maidan were the race starts.
It was a great feeling... lots of people from various backgrounds and ages and come down to participate in the event.
I started out walking. After 2 km of walk I started to jog and then maintained a steady pace. Also I tried to stick to the breathing technique that I learnt the day before. I was running alongside my uncle when a Cricket Ball just whizzed infront of us. It was very shocking. Had we been ahead by a second it would have hit one of us. I just thanked God and continued. The Cricket ground was next to the road and somebody had hit a huge six! After 28 kms I couldn't run as I didn't have enough practice for the marathon. But determined to finish I continued walking. It was dead hot in the middle of the afternoon and every minute I felt like quitting... I still had 10 kms to go and I could see only people who were opting out of the marathon. Not much to motivate myself I kept on going. Finally there was Haji Ali and then Marine Drive. There are many things that I learnt out of the Marathon, but the best lesson I learnt is that "When you are close to getting to the finish, it gets tougher, and only the tough make it to the finish". Some other take aways are "Slow and steady wins the race!". Luckily just when I was just getting bored of walking in the hot sun, totally exhausted, I met Superman!! This guy was wearing superman costume and was walking at my pace. So we got into a conversation. His name is Meherosh. He gave me company to the finish line and thanks to him the last 4 kms of the marathon was not so painful.
I have to thank the people of Mumbai for organizing such a huge event. Nowhere in India can one get such enthusiasm and a clean road to run the marathon. Thanks to my mom who has always supported me. Finally to my uncle who had inspired me to win this battle of the mind, his never say die attitude is just great. Thanks mama, you are just amazing! I dedicate this run to my avva (grandma).
Thats how I became a marathoner!
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