Dreamrunners half marathon in Chennai - 7th July 2013

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!