Dreamrunners half marathon in Chennai - 7th July 2013

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.