Like
previous year, I participated in the half marathon (approx. 21kms) competition
in Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon 2014. I completed the race in 3 hours and
25 minutes. My friend Amit Prajapati from SEBI also accompanied me for most of
the race and completed the race along side with me. From SEBI, total 59 officers
completed half marathon whereas 4 even completed full marathon. Fortunately
this time I didn't have much of problem with my legs post-race. I even didn't
have much pain 2 days after the race day. So it was a normal race.
 |
| Amit and Anuj |
Wait, this
much summary is enough for my parents to know. Of course, my life has
unexpected adventures even though I try to avoid them. So here goes the
detailed story -
As you might
already know, I gave up my practice in last December. Even though I had
recovered at the start of year, I was too lazy to restart my practice. It was
obvious that I was going to face issues during the race. But I was confident
about completing the race.
So when Amit
told me that he was also going to come for the race, I told him that I knew all
the information about the race like race timing, starting point, etc. My father
repeatedly asked me when was the race going to start, but I kept avoiding the
question. I kept telling him that there was no point in knowing that so early
before the race. Finally, I checked the web site a day before the race and
somewhere saw that the race was going to start at 7AM. I took a train to Bandra
and was really surprised when I could not see any participants in the
compartment. Last year when I went with Nikhil Sawant, there were so many
runners at the station. Even when we started walking towards the Bandra-Worli
sea link, I could not find anyone. When we reached the start point, I was not
sure what was happening, the whole place had a deserted look. Someone then told
us that the race had already started! We immediately started with the race and asked
a policeman near the start line when the race had actually started.
Well, it had
started at 6 AM!!! (It just reminds me the incident where Viraj, Aditya and I
were going to Rishikesh's brother's wedding at Virar. We reached the wedding 1
hour late, whereas we thought we had reached half an hour early. No guessing
who the culprit was.) It was 6.35 AM by that time and I was so much frustrated.
First thoughts were to give up the race. There must have been hardly 2-3 guys
in next 2 kms. The road was empty. I remember Amit kept talking on and on, and
I kept telling him to shut up and focus on the race instead (I did apologize
afterwards for my rudeness). Initially we thought we would at least clear the
Sea link and then Amit would go to his home at Worli. By the time we reached 4
kms, I realized I had issues with my right hamstring tendons. I wasn't going to
run for too long. After I cleared the sea link I decided not to run anymore and
simply walk. To think of it now, one can say that I "ran" the race is
a gross overstatement. I completed most of the race walking. There were
number of times I felt like quitting, especially when I came in the area near
my house i.e. Haji Ali, Pedar Road fly over, Girgav Chaupaty. And every time
that happened I reminded myself about Naruto and his "never give up"
attitude.
Slowly we
moved towards the “next” km mark. I was of course not foolish enough to make
the mistake like last time when I made sprint towards the finish line after
seeing the 100 m mark. I coolly walked to the finish line this time. No wonder
the photos this time weren't as enthusiastic as last time.
Post race we
got some good refreshments from SEBI and rested at home for rest of the day.
All in all,
it was fun sprinkled with lot of pain :)
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