Thursday, May 19, 2005
Marathon
Took part in international Marathon in Bangalore. had mixed experiences..
We had to report at 5:30am on Sunday 15th May around 10Km away from my house. On the day before, we, me and Anant Kamath, my friend-colleague, went to the venue just to clear some doubts
about the route. We were planning to take part in half Marathon. There we were told that no parking will be allowed near the venue on Sunday. That seemed like a very serious problem to me. I didn't want to walk even a bit before the marathon started so the possibility of parking my bike little bit far from venue and come walking from there was out of question. Then the only resort was to turn to Abhaya, my roommate who recently bought a magnificient Honda city. I thought it would be very hard to get him agreed to wake up at 4:45 in the morning and drop us. But to my surprise, he readily agreed.
We reached the venue exactly at 5:30am. I don't know why we were called at 5:30am when half Marathon was to start at 6:30am. And we did what we expected. Just wandered around. The full Marathon was scheduled to start at 6:00am. O man! what a crowd it was! more than 200 people should be there for full marathon. I could not believe that. It is after all 42Kms yaar. You need enough guts to even think about that. I had thought I would see only proper athelets in full marathon.
But that crowd consisted of almost every age possible. Khair, it started with a gunshot in the air and the huge crowd moved. It was really amazing to see so many people running out there for no medals, no prizes, just for sheer joy of running.
After some time the participants of Half Marathon started assembling on the tracks inside Kanteerva
stadium. There were more than 500 people out there. I was really thrilled to be a part of the event.
Again at the gunshot, half marathon started. Our target was just to complete the full distance of 21kms.
We were obviously not in medal race. So we were running very slowly, may be 8-9km/h(this no I got from the time in which we completed the race..:o)) Initially I was not happy with that pace but very soon I realized, that was the properly calculated pace by my little bit more experienced friend, Anant so that we don't get exhausted very soon. We were going on such a pace that we could easily talk without panting.
At every 2kms there were water stalls. And sporadically we encountered some very enthusiastic viewers cheering the runners at the peak of their vocal strength. That was really touching. They didn't know us. We didn't know them. They were not going to get anything out of this. We were not any big shots whom they could shout for. But even then they were there, supporting us with full enthu.
We crossed Raj Bhawan, windsor manor, Mekhri circle and reached Hebbal flyover, the half way point from where we had to turn. But the difficult part was, we had to climb up the flyover then go down, touch the outer ring road and then again climb up the flyover and get down to come to our original route. I don't know this flyover business was put there in the race just to make it more interesting or to suck out more and more energy out of us. C'mon yaar. After 10km of jogging you are asking us to climb up a flyover twice, running and that to when we know that we still have 10kms to finish the race. But we were at the mercy of the organizers, couldn't do anything but what they wanted from us. Then we did that going up and down business and were back to the route from where we came. Still 10 more kms. But somehow we were not feeling so drained out, may be because of slow and steady pace. We kept running.
Then after some time I kind of started slowing down. Started feeling the toll that 13-14kms running had on me. Anant was undeterred. His pace was constant. I asked him to move on. From that point I started repenting my decision of taking part in this. It was really becoming tiring. I am not the kind of person who likes jogging a lot. In college,I could not complete 2 rounds of our football ground without panting heavily. The max distance I had covered recently was 10kms, I don't know how, when I jogged from my house to MG road and that to only once. Before that, max was 5 kms on our company's gym's treadmill. Why the hell I thought I could complete 21kms. But there was no looking back now. I had to complete it, no matter what. So I went on running on a very slow pace. Some guys were walking instead of running. They could compete with my running speed.
I didn't give a damn. I just wanted to complete the race, kept telling myself again and again, just few more steps. Finally I, don't know how, reached back to the Kanteerva stadium and completed the half
marathon. I got so thrilled and satisfied, I can't tell. Anant reached there 15 mins before me.I complete it in 2:30 hrs. But that didn't matter. We completed it and were finally happy to be a part of that maga event not just as spectators but as participants. It was really an enriching experience.
Will be there in my memory forever.
We had to report at 5:30am on Sunday 15th May around 10Km away from my house. On the day before, we, me and Anant Kamath, my friend-colleague, went to the venue just to clear some doubts
about the route. We were planning to take part in half Marathon. There we were told that no parking will be allowed near the venue on Sunday. That seemed like a very serious problem to me. I didn't want to walk even a bit before the marathon started so the possibility of parking my bike little bit far from venue and come walking from there was out of question. Then the only resort was to turn to Abhaya, my roommate who recently bought a magnificient Honda city. I thought it would be very hard to get him agreed to wake up at 4:45 in the morning and drop us. But to my surprise, he readily agreed.
We reached the venue exactly at 5:30am. I don't know why we were called at 5:30am when half Marathon was to start at 6:30am. And we did what we expected. Just wandered around. The full Marathon was scheduled to start at 6:00am. O man! what a crowd it was! more than 200 people should be there for full marathon. I could not believe that. It is after all 42Kms yaar. You need enough guts to even think about that. I had thought I would see only proper athelets in full marathon.
But that crowd consisted of almost every age possible. Khair, it started with a gunshot in the air and the huge crowd moved. It was really amazing to see so many people running out there for no medals, no prizes, just for sheer joy of running.
After some time the participants of Half Marathon started assembling on the tracks inside Kanteerva
stadium. There were more than 500 people out there. I was really thrilled to be a part of the event.
Again at the gunshot, half marathon started. Our target was just to complete the full distance of 21kms.
We were obviously not in medal race. So we were running very slowly, may be 8-9km/h(this no I got from the time in which we completed the race..:o)) Initially I was not happy with that pace but very soon I realized, that was the properly calculated pace by my little bit more experienced friend, Anant so that we don't get exhausted very soon. We were going on such a pace that we could easily talk without panting.
At every 2kms there were water stalls. And sporadically we encountered some very enthusiastic viewers cheering the runners at the peak of their vocal strength. That was really touching. They didn't know us. We didn't know them. They were not going to get anything out of this. We were not any big shots whom they could shout for. But even then they were there, supporting us with full enthu.
We crossed Raj Bhawan, windsor manor, Mekhri circle and reached Hebbal flyover, the half way point from where we had to turn. But the difficult part was, we had to climb up the flyover then go down, touch the outer ring road and then again climb up the flyover and get down to come to our original route. I don't know this flyover business was put there in the race just to make it more interesting or to suck out more and more energy out of us. C'mon yaar. After 10km of jogging you are asking us to climb up a flyover twice, running and that to when we know that we still have 10kms to finish the race. But we were at the mercy of the organizers, couldn't do anything but what they wanted from us. Then we did that going up and down business and were back to the route from where we came. Still 10 more kms. But somehow we were not feeling so drained out, may be because of slow and steady pace. We kept running.
Then after some time I kind of started slowing down. Started feeling the toll that 13-14kms running had on me. Anant was undeterred. His pace was constant. I asked him to move on. From that point I started repenting my decision of taking part in this. It was really becoming tiring. I am not the kind of person who likes jogging a lot. In college,I could not complete 2 rounds of our football ground without panting heavily. The max distance I had covered recently was 10kms, I don't know how, when I jogged from my house to MG road and that to only once. Before that, max was 5 kms on our company's gym's treadmill. Why the hell I thought I could complete 21kms. But there was no looking back now. I had to complete it, no matter what. So I went on running on a very slow pace. Some guys were walking instead of running. They could compete with my running speed.
I didn't give a damn. I just wanted to complete the race, kept telling myself again and again, just few more steps. Finally I, don't know how, reached back to the Kanteerva stadium and completed the half
marathon. I got so thrilled and satisfied, I can't tell. Anant reached there 15 mins before me.I complete it in 2:30 hrs. But that didn't matter. We completed it and were finally happy to be a part of that maga event not just as spectators but as participants. It was really an enriching experience.
Will be there in my memory forever.
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well done, loki!
when i was in school......400m was the max i could run! that too somehow, panting, i'll complete the last 50m.
now.....50m is my limit!!!!
21km? ya, i can walk the distance!!
when i was in school......400m was the max i could run! that too somehow, panting, i'll complete the last 50m.
now.....50m is my limit!!!!
21km? ya, i can walk the distance!!
padosiyon ko dekhne ka mauka na mila dost. i just hope ki they are nice, but i also wud hv to be nice as its TOO POSH a area :-(
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