Dreamrunners half marathon in Chennai - 7th July 2013

As always, in the weeks leading upto an event, one always wants to ensure that training is on track. My last event was the TCS 10k and it seemed to me that the best way to ramp up my running miles would be to register for events which have increasing distance over the next few months. It’s a way, I keep myself motivated and away from slacking off – have something to work towards.

There was a gap of 7 weeks between these 2 events and a distance of 11.1 km to ramp up by. This meant the luxury of recovery for a week, followed by 6 weeks of training. For those that have followed my journey for a while, you would know that I was not lucky enough to have had the entire 6 week period to train. Due to physical and psychological issues, I was finally left with a 2 week training period, one week of which is meant to be tapering.

I am not sure why, but I usually end up in these catch-22 situations and for the record, I do not like it. With essentially a week of training left and no structured runs under my belt, I took a call – forget chasing a podium finish, forget chasing a PB – build up time on feet and a couple of confidence runs for the distance and then just go and have fun. Cool bananas – race strategy was in place!

2 weeks flew by and it was the day to leave for Chennai. The Proton crew decided to drive down – 9 of us in 2 cars – it just meant that we would have the convenience of being mobile in a foreign city.

Geeta (she has now become my regular room share buddy) came home on Friday. Since we had not met in what seemed like forever, the two of us swapped stories and giggled late into the night. As we woke up 30 minutes late to the alarm clocks (yes! plural) on Psycho Cuckoo mode, we realised we would have to hasten to stick to the timeline we had all set.

Eventually, the 6 of us settled into the car and made a move towards Silk Board to meet up with the remainder of the crew. The boys were waiting for us. Once all in, it was a smooth drive to Chennai. I could probably write a book about the journey, the drama and the conversations therein, but lets just suffice to say that there was a lot of emphasis on carb-loading all day.

Once we reached, the entire posse headed to The Leela Palace to pick up our bibs and the goody bag. I must mention that the goody bag itself was a harbinger of how well planned the event would be. No long queues and a warm welcome by the organizers. We felt real good. We were all happy and very satisfied with the quality of goodies and the bag itself.

Next, we realised that our current accommodation was too far from the event’s venue and honestly it just didn’t make sense to take any chances with arriving late for the event. So, we called and cancelled accommodation and quickly booked service apartments at a place way closer to the venue. After lunch, we all checked into our respective rooms, had a quick shower and ventured out to find our way to the start point. With that out of the way, we all decided to retire for the day.

I would like to mention here that at many points in time, I had made futile attempts at convincing the crew that it may be a good idea to turn off the air-conditioning so that we get used to the humidity. Each time, this suggestion was met with strong opposition. My last attempt was with Geeta when I suggested that we try to last the night without artificial comforts. She shot me a glance and I knew that this was a battle just not worth fighting for. We pinned on our bibs, got organised for the morning and retired for the night.

3.00 am, and it’s time to wake up. Geeta wakes up first and rushes to the restroom. I chuckle to myself, 10 more minutes of sleep – SCORE! Like THAT was going to happen. By the time I was done folding my sheets, Geeta was out. I rushed into the restroom, freshened up, slipped into race gear and was now excited. As was everyone else.

4.00 am and we head out to the venue. So, there had been a shower earlier that night. I am not a big fan of rain the night before an event – that just means high humidity levels. 15 minutes later, we are at the venue. As we were driving towards the venue, we could see a small trickle of runners walking towards the venue. As we got closer, the crowd got denser until off-course the venue itself, which was a bunch of energy and chit-chat of over 2500 runners. As always, a smile came across my face.

As we walked in together, we started noticing familiar faces, a hey here, a hello there. We were home! As always, we walked towards to the noisiest corner, and off-course it’s the Bangalore runners. Everyone giving each other a hug, and a hello, and a high five. It’s already just 15 minutes to the start. This means just enough time for some good warm up stretches. Warm up all done and we all head to to the start line.

As we walk to the start line, we meet Nanjunda Yellappa – the Bangalore boy who is quite the cheetah. We meet the familiar faces of our beloved photographers and it feels right. We all wish each other the best and wait for the start. And now the race starts. There are a huge bunch of really excited runners right up in front.

Oh well! There’s 21K of distance to catch up so I start with a relatively slow pace. It’s dark, it’s humid. There were a lot of people cheering the runners on and I could very distinctly hear Narayani’s voice, screaming out my name. I just got onto an easy pace that I decided to maintain until the half way point after which I would pick it up if I was in a condition to.

So started the rhythmic one step after the other and this is how it would be for the next couple hours. It’s always nice to run on a new track and with spectators. These distractions tend to keep you amused and you don’t feel the distance right away.

As I reached the 3K mark, I saw Ankush on the pavement, walking. I called out – it’s too early in the race to walk. He jumped off the pavement and got into stride next to me. We exchanged a few lines of conversation and fell into a comfortable silence as we fell into an easy pace together.

Around the 4K mark, the route opened up onto the bridge and boy, was it a sight to behold! In the dark night, the beautifully lit up bridge with thousands of runners trudging along at their own pace – it was stunning. As we ran together on the bridge, we overtook many runners, but there was one that I couldn’t help but notice. He gave a real good fight, increasing his pace as we caught up to him, and then relaxing as he had gained some distance. He repeated this for about a kilometre. It was around this time that I was getting warmed up and feeling strong.

I am real blessed to have a brother like Ankush and that we are both more friends than the traditional brother-sister. He gets me. He understood that at that point I was ready to take over. So we both created enough distance between the two of us to flank the runner on either side, overtook him and returned to running side by side again.

The street lights were turned off soon after. We could expect the sun to rise slowly now. Not far ahead was Proton Hero Gajju, running along with his trademark style. We screamed a hello and acknowledged each other. Around the 7K mark, Ankush signalled that he was done and needed a breather – “keep going Tim…kill it!! “

I kept going. Another 2K, and the route was meant to open onto a flat stretch next to the beach. I was looking forward to that. The sun was out by now but thankfully, it was not as harsh due to the cloud cover that the weather gods had bestowed on us. Every 1.5K or so, there were aid stations with super enthusiastic volunteers who were not only providing us with the needed refreshments but also greeting us with stunning smiles.

I noticed that the traffic police was out there right through the entire route providing their support. Their expression did convey mild amusement – and from their physical fitness levels, it was obvious that they thought running for fun was just a completely alien thought. I do have to mention here that it was heartening to see a lot of female cops and some of them actually made the khakhi uniform look mighty fine. I waved out to a few of them and they smiled right back.

Before I realised, I was on that open stretch of road. I looked around – and in that one moment, I felt the entire essence of the run. I saw some early morning joggers cheering me on. Beyond the road and the beach, I could see the sea and as I ran I could see the sunrise in motion. It felt peaceful – to be in tune with oneself and the surroundings.

As I looked up, I saw Nanjundappa charging down from the other side. I already had a smile on my face and as I saw him hurtling down, the smile morphed into a Cheshire cat grin. One just cannot help, but admire this spirit. I clapped and cheered him on. I soon passed the 10K mark. From the back I heard a familiar voice. It was flying-barefoot Bobby from the pacemakers, flanked by a couple of others from the crew. All three encouraged me on as they pulled away with ease.

I was smiling to myself and enjoying the warm fuzzy feelings that familiarity bring with them when I had a cyclist pull up next to me. He told me I was in the lead. We exchanged a few lines of conversation and I learnt his name was Vijay, a runner himself and was volunteering for this run. He would be escorting me on my way back. We settled into an easy pace, exchanging a few lines of conversation every kilometre or so. He was very encouraging and super supportive. The 11.5K was the U-turn – the tough part was over. From now on, everything’s just groovy baby!

As we were introducing ourselves to each other, I also noticed that there was another runner I was close to and kind of chipping away at. He is my favourite kind – the boy that hates being overtaken by a girl. And so this saga began and it did last until 2K of the race. At times, he took off and at times, I did. And yes! I finished before him. And we ran.

I had a lot of encouragement on my way. On the way back, I had so many of the runners giving me high-fives, shouting across encouraging words, clapping as we ran. Not to mention, my escort was my personal cheerleader encouraging me all the way through. As I ran back, I met my favourite people along the way – Salil, Dharma, Sudhir Sir, Ankush, Vivek, Geeta, Brojen, Pani sir and many of the familiar faces of the Bangalore running community. I was surprised though to learn that the Chennai runners knew me and it was really nice to hear them call out my name and shout out words of encouragement.

Before I knew it, we were at the 16k mark. Just 5k to go. Quick check with self – “You reckon you can pick up the pace since it’s the last 5k? We can still do a sub-100 if you do.” Self: “Hahahahahah! Are you kidding me? You want me to do the last 5.1K in 20 minutes? Stop dreaming! Next time get your training runs in. This is the pace we can maintain at this time. Check again in 3K.”

So that was it, we kept at it. We started meeting the 10K runners now and they were way too adorable. All clapping, screaming, shouting and generally spreading great cheer and good energy around. I saw a few people walking and encouraged them to break into a jog at least as I ran past them, gave a few high fives. Vijay and his other volunteer friend did a great job of clearing the route out for me. And thats it, at the 20K mark, the body felt better, finish line was close, picked up the pace a wee bit.

Next thing, 150 metres to the finish. Self: “This is part you sprint.”. And so I did, amongst cheering, shouting, screaming, it was easy to do it too. I saw Narayani, Runabm and Henna right at the finish point. As soon as I finished, I had Shahul and his team waiting to greet and congratulate me. Runab was standing there giving me a high five. Henna cheering me on. Felt so damn good. Looked at the watch. 1:44:09 – serious? I had beaten my previous PB by a good 36 seconds and I had not even tried. Hell YEAH!

Looked around. Results? : Bangalore Runners rocked the event. Nanjunda Yellappa came in 1st in the Open Men’s HM, Dilip Sankar in the Open Men’s 10K and yours truly in the Open Women’s HM.

Big shout-out to a few people:

Shahul Hameed, Dream Runners: What an event! An event by runners for runners. Thank you. You did it right!

Vijay: You were just amazing!

Chennai and Chennai’s runners: Thank you for the relatively decent weather, we Bangaloreans are a spoilt lot and Chennai runners – what energy – Thank you! I would love to see some more women take up running.

Bangalore runners: I can’t possibly name each and everyone,e but you guys are home for me. Thank you.

Protons: Narayani, Henna, Sudhir sir, Gajendra, Dharma, Shrey, Geeta, Ankush – Love you!