Hungama in Manama: Eka Lavya’s vivid Mumbai Marathon 2014 race report

Meeting that night for dinner at Gaylord, we were a much relieved lot with the sleeping issues sorted out. We also managed to run into some Runners High folks at Gaylord who could not resist ribbing me about my milk supply for the next morning (another story from a different time; SCMM 2013, which involves someone blaming his tragi-comic running display on the quality of milk he had had that morning).

The line-up the next morning that started together from the hotel clarified the BHUKMP hierarchy, broadly– Sid, Sampath, Pankaj, Vishy, Rajesh, and a couple of others up ahead and out of sight – never saw them during the run; Shilpi, Amrita, Nari, and the two Chandras slightly ahead where I could see them from time to time, with Sanjay, Anjana, Gurmeet and I bringing up the rear.

I remembered my prayers in SCMM 2013 only at 30K after it was a bit too late, so as I crossed 10K I turned to pay my respects to Haji Ali in the darkness. This is a dargah built in the 1400s for a saint whose coffin was dropped in the Arabian Sea. People come here to pray for whatever (timing in my case) by tying a red thread to one of the pillars. I did not have time to do that during the run.

I also turned a bit more to my left to nod my respects to the silhouette of Mahalakshmi temple. This is a crucial point on the race where one sees three places of worship. And finally, I said a confirmatory prayer to please take care of me until 42.2K with a nod to the Maa Hajjani dargah in front of me as I was leaving this point.

This was a very important part of my race preparation – considering the previous few times when I had got mauled by this very course. (I was going at a pace of 10.7 kph and kept this up; it was 10.65 kph by 31.5 K as per timing info available for the 6 checkpoints between these two markers). I would also make a final petition at SiddhiVinayak at ~ 25K. Trust me, this was far more important than salt pills. I could almost sense Anjana running next to me in the darkness wondering what the hell I was up to, as I was looking backwards and fervently nodding my prayers.

Crossed Worli sea face and entered sea link and got excited (as usual) seeing the numbskulls with equipment from marathonphotos.com. I tried to run away from the crowd and in erect posture, striding a bit higher than what was necessary, hoping my huaraches would catch their attention. I also tried not to look directly at the camera as I did not want to appear too earnest.. just one click you buggers, against the sea link backdrop.

I had tried this the last two times but these guys just wouldn’t click me.. same story this year. While the last time I got zero photos of myself, this time there were a handful but all at the finish line, and none at the sea link. I will try harder next time, or even stop and ask one of those jokers; screw the timing.

At 28K I was alone and suddenly Shilpi appears from behind. I couldn’t believe I had been ahead of her all this while, but the excitement was short-lived; I fell behind at 34K. At the 35K mark I crossed Haji Ali back again, and realized my strength was waning, and after this my speed slowed. Kalpana crossed me after this, the African elites at ~ 36K, as did Rishi, and finally Nari at 39K. By the time I finished my average speed overall for 42.2 had dropped to 10.01 kph. So the last 8K turned out to be real slow. But still I think my prayers were answered; I did far better compared to any other full that I had ever run – hopefully not a one off.

The scene at Leopold after the run was something like this: imagine Madiwala wholesale market with baskets of beer bottles in front of the screaming shopkeepers instead of veggies. I got the feeling they had stopped printing bills and were just recycling them. No matter what table you sat in, or what you ate, you got a bill of 10K for that table if it had enough people. But who cared, I was on a high even before I got in there. The beer was lovely, but a formality. We finally moved to Starbucks and then ate some more at Shivsagar at the airport before finally polishing it all down with strong filter coffees.

Here’s to Manama!