So what are we talking about over here......
Yes its the much awaited event - 'Bangalore Midnight Marathon 2007' touted as "The World's First Midnight Marathon" (Not sure if it really was:
http://www.mayomidnightmarathon.ca/, but yep atleast in India it would've been the first midnight event) organised by Cross Over India.
Taking the Brindavan Xpress we reached B'lore on 19th afternoon 1.15 p.m, and realized the climate was defntly better than in Chennai. Then we - (me, Boston, Abhinav and Balajee) - proceeded to our friends place, while the remaining of us - (Karthikeyan Vijayakumar V, B Karthikeyan, V.Aravindh, and V. Sriram) moved to Vishwa's and friends's place at Domlur.
Thanks to our whole batch of Bits guys (read: Pathu (Srinivasan), Raghavendra, Thaneermalai, G.Ramkumar and Muthuraman, Vishwa, Collins, Laksminarayan) who were wonderful hosts to us :) over the weekend. Thanks guys.
The whole of Saturday evening was spent taking some rest for the midnite event. At this juncture, a special gesture goes to Abhinav for arranging a car for his friend Arun to help us to get to the venue - Whitefield - (a similar distance comparison wud be from city limits to Siruseri IT Park in Chennai)
Enroute to the place, it started drizzling, making us wonder if our dream run would turn up to be a Ind-Ban test match dampner. Luckily it was not to be, the rain gods were quite merciful to us :)
Reaching the venue: There were some tense moments at times if we could get to the venue in time to receive our RFID-time chips. Luckily all was fine, and we were able to reach comfortably and meet our Chennai Runners buddies as well - the guys who've been pushing us during our weekend runs. We managed to capture some memorable moments before the event started.
The Half-marathon, which our team had planned to participate was underway - at around 12.40 a.m a few minutes later than the scheduled 12.30 a.m. The event started with a 'false start' - with everyone starting to run from the Igate entrance, while the start point was supposed to be 'Ginger'.(Refer the route map:http://coindia.com/images/doc/map.pdf). The half marathon 21 km to run around the loop 4 times.
Getting started: was proceeding at a steady pace till sometime when Boston came alongside and speaking to him realised that the 1st loop was not yet over. Was wondering if I'd survive the 4 loop distance. The going was fine, with the uphill and downhill making the going tough at times. I was really determined not to take a break atleast close to end of 2nd loop and was very sure I can keep running non-stop for atleast 1hr 10 min. Not bad, was just getting there, and proceeded on to run non-stop till 1hr 15 mins.
The water booths were well organized with lots of volunteers helping out the de-hydrated runners. The other encouraging factor during the run was the locally organised traditional village band with their music 'beats'. It definitely made me run faster in that stretch where these bands were playing as compared to the normal stretch. The other fact which really needs to be lauded is keeping the dogs at bay (what with B'lore city gaining notoriety over its 'dog menace'!)
The Pain: During the 3rd lap and the final lap, I realised that my calf muscles were aching awefully and decided to walk the remaining stretch. That is when I noticed something really weird. The more I walk, the more it pained, and once I started running the pain reduced. Alternating the run with some walks proved to be better and was heading off to the finish line.
Atlast by the 2hr 45 min mark I realised I'd completed the half marathon. Am quite satisfied with the timing, as I'd kept my timeline to finish before 3 hrs, and this one being my first such attempt.
Hope to improve upon in the future ones. And one day go for a complete full marathon - 42.195 km, which the experienced regular pro-runners' like KK, Hari and Shumit would define as 'Runner's High' :-)
Some Key takeaways from the run:
- Do not carry your mobile phone along
- In case you want to carry some glucose, ensure you take along small glucose sachets or a smaller pack (I was carrying with me a glucon-D 250 gm box which I never used until I completed the entire run)
Things to do:
- I've never tried how it feels to run with the ipod/mp3 on. Plan to listen to something while in the runs coming up.
A Big thanks to the entire crew and the ChennaiRunners who accompanied along making the weekend a very memorable and special one :-)
And special thanks to mom, dad, and my brother for their constant encouragement and support!
