Running that Familiar Route… from Bandra to NCPA

I didn’t realise how sorely I missed the Bandra-NCPA Training Run, after all, for better part of the years leading to the Pandemic, it was my baby. I did feel bad (read guilty) stepping away from it, but it was something that I had to do, I felt I needed to do, to avoid being stressed by something I so loved to do.

But after all this time, standing there, outside Otter’s Club made feel nostalgic and a tad bit forlorn, but also good. It felt good to be back and top of things. Well not really on the top of things, just making announcements and giving instructions, and clicking the group pictures, and whatever pictures you can click while everyone’s doing the warm-up.

So once the warm-up done, instructions given, picture taken, it’s off you go. It actually felt nice running this route, and not running alone, but with Sharad, Manu and Rohan baba, or at least you trying to first catch up with them, and then keep up with them. But then that wasn’t going to be any problem.

So while you try and catch up, you realise they have taken a different turn, something that’s not part of the route you instructed the runners, but a route that would avoid all constructions and diggings and dark patches. It’s a route you know though you’ve never done it before, except coming from the other way. At the same time you also wonder if you should have instructed other runners to do the same. But this is not a simple route to understand and would be confusing to anyone who’s unfamiliar with the Mumbai (which can be confusing, make that disorienting with all the construction).

So you continue to play catch with the people ahead while looking over your shoulders if someone followed you, worried they would get more confused.

So finally when you catch with your friends ahead, there’s another catch up you need to do (a side note, we runners run, we don’t jog), trying to catch with all the missed conversations you should have had.

Bandra has always been a beautiful place to run through, rightly owning its title, Queen of the Suburbs. So as you run past graffitis Rohan baba remarks that you should be clicking pics, and trust me I would have loved to have done this, but hey you are running, even though there have been so many time where you have stopped and clicked, but at this moment time is of the essence.

Though you are supposed to run at a steady and easy pace, you realise that the pace is quicker than you thought you would be running at, all thanks to Sharad for going quicker and Manu for keeping up with him. For our part, Rohan baba and I content at running steadily, a little behind them, enjoying the little jibber-jabber as we run steady, keeping pace with each other. So there was no complaints from me and I don’t think Rohan baba had anything to complain about, though we occasionally looked at our watches to state that we were going faster. But we still kept going on.

I have always contended that the MRR route is the way of the Gods, with all the Holy landmarks you pass, like St. Michael’s Church, Mahim Darga, Siddhivinayak Mandir, Haji Ali, Babulnath, and to some extent Mahalaxmi Temple. With this modified route you also had Mount Carmel Church and aJapanese Buddhist Temple, adding to the piousness of the route.

As you run the route you feel this sense of familiarity though so much has changed around you, leaving you a bit disoriented at times. You’ve run this route several times before (if not the exaggerated thousand times) but so much has changed making you feel a little lost, leaving you with a sense of longing to see the things you used to see, the things the way they were before, that are now hidden behind barricades and constructions. You long to see the route the way it was before, but you are also aware that change is inevitable, and for city that’s bursting at it seems, these changes, no matter how tough, are needed.

So you continue to run with Rohan baba, occasionally motivating, pushing each other, but then our dearest Rohan baba has found a better leggy pacer a few meters ahead and so picks the pace, till the pacers goes another way (only to be seen somewhere near our last water station).

The benefit of running this route is the people you meet enroute, many who you don’t see unless you run in these parts of the city. I do love running in the park and meeting friends and fellow runners who run there, but sometime I do miss running in this side of town, maybe not much because of the route, but the people you meet on the road.

Well as you make your to the final stretch from Wilson’s College to NCPA you have to dodge traffic, the vehicular and human kind. You wonder… When did these streets get so crowded on a Sunday morning? When did so many people, other than us crazy runners, take to the streets so early on  a Sunday morning? What happened to sleeping in late on a Sunday? When did this all change?

The roads and pavements from Marine Lines to NCPA are full of kids and youth and the couples and the usual riff-raf(sure makes me feel old saying this) doing Garba, or some strange dance, doing karaoke, or just flaunting their ripped physique, or performing street plays, making Reels and other along countless selfies, So in short, doing total timepass.

What should have been a carnival of runners from various running groups is now a mela of people.

So you weave your way through the crowd, trying hard not to run into people making reels, or taking selfies, or simply gawking at the runners.

You finally complete your 21k (by the time Rohan baba has also done his) so it’s just a cool down walk till you meet your MRR folks. 

It feels good to be back to a place you love so much, around friends and runners. You high five and you hug people who you’ve not seen in a long while, while indulging in some picture take outing (like we runners love doing, after all how will the world know (and if not the world then social media know) that we went for a run), cribbing about the weather (when by now you should be used to the Mumbai weather), enquiring what’s the next race you’ve registered, and shamelessly crashing into photographs like only you could do and get away with (cause you’re not that innocent).

So in the end it’s a Sunday well spent, running a familiar route that’s continuously changing, and meeting a whole loads of friends on the way. What more would runner want!!! And hey did I mention it was Friendship Day too!!!

Running with Wonder Woman

Well how many people can say that they got a chance to run with a superhero? Well not really a superhero (as you would assume) but your friend dressed as a superhero does come close enough. Lets face it, we all want to be a superhero, and to quote aunt May, there’s a little superhero in all of us (if I got the quote right).

She didn’t want to look like a fool as the only person running on the road in a Wonder Woman costume, and I was too tired to up my pace. She was taking baby  steps from returning to running (albeit cautiously) from an accident, and I was a victim to a finicky weather that was being quite the bitch on the day (if I may be permitted to use the term), not quite making up its mind whether it wanted to blow hot or cold, and so ensuing confusion turning the morning weather quite humid and dreary. 

So there we went, two running so(u)les, Running, jogging, crawling, walking, all the while chit-chatting about every possible thing under sun (literally as the morning wore on), greeting fellow runners as we passed them, as we hadn’t seen them in ages, involving them in our conversation, or just conversing about them. Taking walk breaks where needed, crawling too, but all the time trying to get some mileage under feet. We talked about our training runs and friends who joined us, the books she read, and the ones I was trying to read, about writings and topics to write up on, about friends and family.

Wherever we went, we were met strange quizzing glances wondering who were these morons running in costume (well, not me, you know who got those glances). We were so busy ignoring them and carrying on with our chit-chat run (if I could dare to borrow the term from my friend Manasi), we didn’t see the devil lurking around the corner, well not around the corner but behind the car, jumping right at us, scaring the bejesus out of us (ok I was the one that got startled the most). The devil being our friend, volunteering at Wilson, where the volunteers were dressed as witches. So that made them the three witches (dang I should have asked them what they saw in my future, like Macbeth did), laughing at the whole situation, and then posing for the camera (who I guess must have been in on the scheme distracting us, while the witches scared the living daylight out of us).

So from there we continued on our way to the NCPA, trotting along, chatting along, encouraging one another, trying our best to overcome the November heat, knowing very well that we were brining up the rear, clicking pics with vintage cars along the way. So when we finally reached, the cool down session was done, but there were bunch of runners hanging around, some in costume (thus not making her out of place), chatting excitedly, socialising, smiling. So we greeted them, clicked pics and socialised, as we Runners do.

So finally we made it, slowly and steadily, but we surely made it to the end. The weather didn’t matter, timing didn’t either. So now I can proudly say that I had the opportunity to run with a superhero, aka Wonder Woman.