At the start of every marathon you have yourself questioning your actions as to why are you doing this to yourself! Why do hate yourself so much that you are you putting yourself through the wringer ! Why are you torturing yourself! But not this time. This time it’s a bit different. This time you’ve already done three 50ks and one additional marathon, not to forget that you’ve already done around three 40+ kms in your training. All this fills with you a quiet confidence, but as you will learn a few hours later, it all comes with its own set of setback.
So there you find yourself in a sea of runners, a sardine in can of sardines, slowly making your way, make that crawling, to the start line. In fact, you heave this claustrophobic feeling as you slowly and gradually walk with your fellow runners making your way past the BMC headquarters and VT, that’s lit up in all its dazzling glory.
Once you reach the start line, you quickly sign yourself and start all your apps and watch and off you go, zigging and zagging between runners, try to steady your pace and not give into temptation of going out all guns blazing.
As runners pass you try not to speed up but maintain your pace. They are running their race you are running yours!
You cheer friends and your fellow runners, humming to yourself…
“You can’t hurry love
You just have to pace
Marathons ain’t easy
It’s a game of holding your pace…”
Humming this you continue on your way past Flora fountain and the first ASIC water station, past Jazz by the Bay snd the loop near mantralaya and then NCPA.
You spot your friends from SWGB and run give them a big hug and hi fives as you pass them by.
Just when you thought you had everything under control nature calls you, well make that beckons you and you need to heed its call. Thankfully it’s for the short one and not the long one.
You stop at the first site of a restroom, but the person using it seemed to be taking their own sweet time, so you decide to skip it and try at the next stop. You are lucky to get a vacant one. So you quickly do your business trying hard not to gag on the fumes that clog your nostrils, and join the runners who have gone ahead of you.
When you finally hit the better side of Peddar Road you catch sight of the front pack of the half marathoners. As always you envy them as they are almost on the last few kms of their race while yours is still under 10k. And as usual you wish you were in their position. But you’ve signed up for an FM and so here you are. So you just keep running, running, running, what do you do, you running, running!
Slowly and steadily you complete Peddar Road and move past Mahalaxmi Temple and then Haji Ali. In a way you are getting a tour of diversity of the city, though you are not sure if the unity part of the adage holds true.
From here on it’s on to the brand new addition to the race, one that you weren’t too happy about but had to make your peace with. It’s up the helix you go and onto to coastal road. You walk up as there’s no point in consuming energy running it up, so you walk gingerly while others pass you.
And then something happens that sets off the panic bells in your head. You let out a yawn! Though it isn’t the first one, it sure gets the panic bells all jingling! The price you pay when you go out to meet a friend instead of resting at home and taking to bed.
You desperately try to wipe the sleep from your eyes and all the memories from your mind when sleep ran! You stop to pour water on your face at every chance you get, trying to wash and rub the sleep from your eyes and mind. But you just keep yawning and you run. You realise this has slowed you down.
You hear someone call out your name to realise that it’s your project manager overtaking you.
“Oh no you don’t”, you tell yourself and that’s enough motivation to awaken you and spur you on.
So you continue to run on the coastal road, dodging morons who want to capture themselves, cause when would you get a chance like this again (other than running TMM in 2027, again). They play a game of spot the camera guy and when they do they run right in front hoping to get captured not realising that the only possible thing that’s getting captured is their nostril hair, rather then their face.
You keep to a side, away from these morons, not bothering about the shutterbugs, running steadily and surely.
On the Sea-link you catch up with Manu snd for a couple of kms you have company.
The journey from the coastal road to the sea-link feels never ending and making your feet feel weary from covering the distance. But yet again you try to calm your mind to take it easy, take it as it comes and let things go by feel.
As you continue on your way you take a moment to admire the rising sun as it tries to break through the smog that’s has dulled out its rays and making it appear blurry in the distance.
Exiting the sea-link you stop for a while to capture the sunrise as you have customarily done.
As you make your way from Reclamation and on to the Causeway you are glad you don’t have to loop on the Reclamation, as you have previously done, but at the same time you are aware that the distance covered is much lesser than what it was in previous editions. So you know there’s going to be a loop or two somewhere down the line.
You try to put this thought at the back your mind, not letting what hasn’t yet come to bother you.
From the Causeway you take a right from St Michael’s church, running onto Cadel and past Mahim Darga and then Shivaji Park and Siddhivinayak Temple, giving you a glimpse of the religious diversity of the city, though it may not always evident amongst its residents.
At Shivaji Park you are greeted by your friends volunteering at the first of the two MRR water station.
You stop for while, sipping on water and indulging in some selfies with Sudha Ma’am and Raakesh and Anita, before you take off.
You cheer coach, as he returns your cheers with a few motivating words and a smile. You come up to Santa, tapping him on the opposite only to have turn on the side that you are, much to your disappointment. You tell him he’s doing awesome and give him a few colourful words (or did you!)
As you continue a few doubts begin to make their way in your head. You know you are running strongly but you begin to question yourself if you’re going fast enough?
Though you do know the answer, you try not to panic and focus on building your pace rather than quickening it and then cramping like you did last year.
You try to put these doubts to rest but somewhere they keep nagging you.
You reach the second MRR water station where Charu hands you a bar of Snickers and gives you a small bottle of coke, which you take a sip and hand it back to her much to charging as she had kept the whole bottle for you., but then you had no intention of running with it.
You take your customary pic with Charu, thanking for always being there for you and all runner, and you are off on your way, trying to catch up to the ones who have overtaken you.
You take a right and you make your way to Worli sea face. You feel this annoyance when you discover that you need to run to Worli Dairy and then take a u-turn running back to almost INS RATA, from where you take a ramp to the coastal road once again.
You put your head down and just keep plodding on knowing that getting annoyed isn’t going to help you. So you just keep running steadily making the most of the challenge as well as the opportunity of running on route where you wouldn’t get a chance to run anytime soon.
You marvel at the changing skyline, how much things have changed over the years, how much seem familiarly unfamiliar.
By this time the sun is up and shinning. There’s no place to hide or take shade so all you do is keep going steadily ensuring you stay hydrated.
You are joined by a runner from Chennai who cheerfully tries indulge you in a conversation. You try to be polite and give him a few replies and a sweet smile. When he tells you that he’s doing this for his hero, his father, you wonder who are you doing this for? But before you can ponder on this you get your answer, “ass you are doing it for yourself”.
You smile at this thought. You tell this runner to go ahead as you’d be walking up the slope. So he goes ahead while you walk steadily.
Once again the coastal road feels endless and your feet feel weary.
When you finally see the exit off the coastal road, you feel this sense of relief. You actually don’t quite mind that you need to go backwards to move forward.
Once again coach has caught up and passed you. Once again, you have these lingering doubts plaguing your mind if you are running slower than you should. However, as you exit the coastal road, you are able to catch up and overtake him, cheering him on.
It’s time to switch things up and take it up a notch. You switch to Taylor Swift’s Opalite (yaya, I may not be a Swiftie, but Taylor is heart) and off you go, making good progress as you pass Haji Ali and Mahalaxmi Mandir (making you wonder if religious monuments can co-exist peacefully next to each other, why can’t we)!
You finally approach Peddar Road, a section that has invariably gotten a bad rap but is in fact the most well supported and fun part of the route.
As planned, you walk up Peddar Road, conserving your energy for the final push. You even tell your fellow BNP mate, Nidhi, to walk up instead of run or jog ( she would later thank you for making her do so).
As you walk up Peddar Road you see something that makes you believe the sight travels faster than smell.
You see this firang runner in front of you whose pants and legs look like he had a spill or sat down in some mud. But as you approach him and you catch the smell you realise what all the brown thing on his pants and legs, truly is.
You go wider in order to avoid latching onto any smell as you try to continue on your way as if nothing was wrong.
Reaching Babulnath you decided to take your final gel even though you had taken the last one not more than 30 minutes ago, arguing you would need it to push through the last lap of the race.
Finally you find yourself back at Girgaum Chowpatty, knowing just a couple of kms more and you’ll be done. You marvel at the fact that you have come this far without any signs of the C word, hoping you haven’t thought about it too fast.
You take a glass from the Red Bull station, and instead of just taking sip, you drink the content of the glass (which is not much).
Just as you begin to cruise down Marine Line, the one that you are constantly worried about makes its presence felt.
You begin to feel cramps on your quads and hamstrings. You try your best to shake it off, walk for a while hoping it will pass. But after you run for a while once again you feel those pesky cramps.
You grit your teeth and try not to panic, but just then the 5 hours pacer passes you, setting all sorts of alarms in your head.
You try to pick the pace and catch up with him, but those pesky cramps don’t let you go too far before slowing you down. Every step is now a challenge, every steps feels monumental as you try to fight back the pain.
You get this sinking feeling in your guts that you wouldn’t be able to complete within 5 hours, which is really bad for you knowing what you are capable of. You feel this dejection and disappointment and all sorts of negative feelings and thoughts and emotions, wondering where did you go wrong.
Just when you hit your lowest of low, you find that spark of hope you need. You tell yourself it isn’t over till it’s over. It isn’t over till the fat lady sings.
You muster all the strength you’ve got and hobble on, trying to keep a slow and steady pace.
As you take the turn at Ambassador Hotel you spot your friend Suni who enthusiastically cheers you on. Smile and wave at her as you continue past Brabourne stadium and then Churchgate station, and onto the last couple of meters.
You can see the 5 hours pacer who’s slowly walking towards the finish line knowing that he got there before time and now needs to wait before he crosses the line.
You muster every ounce of strength that you can hobble across the finish line with 4 minutes to spare. You raise your hands in elation and breathe a huge sigh of relief. You got it done, no matter what.
You limp to collect your Finishers medal and then your towel. You feel this joy to see your friend Shital and give her a tight hug. She then gives you a tighter hug and gives you one of the best chocolate chip cookie she has made. You hold on to it as continue to limp towards the baggage counter.
You meet the runner from Chennai who met you on route, who congratulates and thanks you and asks you to present him his medal, an honour that you reluctantly accept and awkwardly put it around his neck as he once again dedicates it to his hero, his father. You can’t help but smile and applaud this beautiful gesture.
You once again continue towards the baggage counter, but not before meeting congratulating your friends.
As you patiently wait for your bag you begin to feel this drowsiness, this strange feeling that you would blackout at any moment. You feel this strange sensation in your stomach as if it wanted to empty itself out.
You collect your bag, and walk groggily, afraid you would blackout at any moment. Lucky for you meet your friend Mitali who recognises that your BP has gone low and quickly helps you get down on the ground and put your leg up to help regulate it. And you slowly begin to feel better.
So after your customary pictures with your medal and your friends you make your way home with Mitali for company, talking to your burgers and fries, telling her you are ok and have completed your race.
With that you close another chapter of your love for all things TMM. Yes you happy that managed to complete it within the time you needed (by the skin of your teeth) but you are also a tad bit disappointed the way the race went for you, knowing it didn’t go well. You feel that sense of dejection but in the end you know you will bounce back and come back more well prepared to tackle it all once again!
