A Drop of Blue in a Sea of Orange!

I wasn’t really planning to do two back to back races, haven’t done it in a while, ok read it as in the past three years, but still I found myself doing exactly what I stopped doing. Having done this race twice before always gives you the upper hand, cause there’s no scope for surprises (even the slight modification in the route doesn’t scare you much). You know what to expect, so you are ready and raring to go.

Although you planned and promised yourself to take it easy, (with you already having raced the previous Sunday, and achieved the time you needed to secure a better starting line up at TMM) you can’t help but relish a good challenge. And to top it all you have those huge sulemani keedas that will never let you take it easy. So you rise up to the challenge, literally and figuratively, starting easy before gradually easing yourself into the run. Thanks to all the hill repeats at Kanheri, and the khadoos Dyloo making you run up those slopes, with Pankti, slopes no longer scare you. Ok not completely but you don’t fear it any longer.

So you run steadily, letting the road take you where it needs to take you, going where it leads you, well not exactly where it leads but as per route. And as you ease yourself into the run, you begin to enjoy it, relish the challenge, and by and by you begin to overtake runners who were ahead of you, starting with the 1:50 minutes pacer. You maintain a steady pace, putting a bit more effort while going up hill, and opening your stride downhill, letting the road carry you on, running to the sound of Ananth Khirsagar’s shoe in your ears. Although you by know that sub 2 is a given and running within 1:50 is within your grasp, a small voice inside your head feels that 1:45 is a possibility, which would be your best time on the course.

So with these thoughts, your confidence grows with every km. But you try not to be overconfident, or for that matter, over cautious. You’re comfortable at the pace you’re running at and even able to up it! As always you have people on the route, your fellow runners calling out to you, cheering you. You acknowledge their cheers and return it, cause you don’t run in isolation, but your run together, feeding off the energy, the inspiration, you give and receive. At one point on the route you have your friends from RuNCouragers cheering you “come on MRR!” And you smile, cause though you’re not wearing an MRR tee, MRR will always be with you, a part of your identity, and you don’t mind it.

And then you reach the turn around point for the 10k and you have make your way through a sea of mostly first time runners, many who are walking, clicking selfies, chit chatting, but not giving way easily. You try to weave your way in the sea of orange, navigating through the walkers, without breaking your side, screaming yourself hoarse asking them to go to their left. But then making your way through the crowd affects your pace and takes quite bit of your energy, one of the reason why I had not done this race in a while.

In the end, managed to keep my focus, for a change, managed to find a way to push myself in those last few meters. Buoyed by your fellow runners and friends who cheered you on, managed to dash to that finish line, finishing in a time of 1:45:13, much better than I expected, an improvement of 2 minutes from the previous Sunday’s race. So now it was time to celebrate, to meet and greet, preen and pose, to congratulate and cheer others crossing the line.

At the end of it all I was happy with my timing, considering the route and the challenges it held in terms of inclines and crowd. So definitely one run worth celebrating cause after long time got a timing I knew I was proud of, a step in building self-confidence, finding my way back, building that self-belief. But would I do this race again? Well may be not! Don’t want to end up being a drop of blue in a sea of orange!