During every full marathon, there comes a time when you are hobbling and cramping, trying your best to push yourself over that damn last few kms, you promise yourself that you’ll never do this ever again, never put yourself through this pain again, and still you go ahead and register for another, and this time you’re going international, and not the usual TMM.
Looks like you are sucker for the pain. You find pleasure in putting yourself through all that cramping and hobbling and cursing and wondering why you do this to yourself.
You find pleasure in those hours and hours of training, running on empty streets at ungodly hours, barked at by dogs (not chased, cause somewhere I have found a way to continue running believing in the saying that barking dogs seldom bite ( god I do hope I am right)). Running in the dark park under the watchful eyes of the furry one (or so you assume).
So you find yourself amongst a sea of runners. Well not a sea of runners. If you want to see a sea of runner you need to see the start line of the half marathon at TMM (or so I’ve heard and will get to see this time around).
Getting back to the point, so you find yourself amongst all these runners of varied nationalities, ethnicities, race, colour, gender, orientation, and I could go on and on. A virtual melting pot. You desperately try to find that one familiar face in the crowd, which makes you miss the start line at TMM where you cannot go a centimetre without bumping into someone you know, someone asking you what is the time you are targeting, someone wishing you the best.
So when you see someone wearing a past TMM singlet or Stadium Run tee (even if it was from Bangalore and not from Mumbai ) you feel a sense of familiarity, a sense that you are not on your own.
As the race clock countdowns to the start, you quickly start off all your tracking apps (you can never be too sure by running with one single app), and you start your watch as you cross the start line (that makes around three apps and one watch helping me track my run). Then it hits you, not really like a ton of bricks, but somewhere it dawns on you like the sun that’s slowly lighting up that Dubai skyline, you are really doing this, and now you’ve got 42kms to go.
You steadily make your pass the iconic Burj-al-Arab, focused on the Jumeriah skyline in front of you that’s slowly lighting up as the sun rises from its slumber. Your favourite toothpick is nowhere to be seen. To be honest, how do you see something that’s behind you when you don’t have hindsight or rear view mirrors.
Somewhere down the road you get sense you are passing the Palm.
By now you try to run steadily and what you assume slowly, letting others in a hurry pass you as you don’t want to hasten down the route, trying hard not to give into temptation and speed, running as Dan sir advised, in the first part, don’t push the pace but let the pace come to you.
You chance to glance at your watch to realise that you are going at a faster pace than that you had plan to run your first part of the race.
You begin to worry wondering if you were going too fast, fearing the cramps and soreness that would come from it.
But then this felt effortless. Your weren’t pushing yourself to maintain this pace. So you kept going steadily.
Was this the pace coming to me? Somewhere deep inside me was this hope that maybe, just maybe, if I am able to maintain this, then that PB was within my grasp.
So with this knowledge I came up to the first u-turn, with three more to come, kind of happy and satisfied at the pace at which you are going.
You once again make your way pass the Burj-al-Arab. This time you are tempted to take a pic with it in the background knowing it will a good picture for the blog you’re going to write about the run.
But then you run past it not wanting to break the steady pace you have been going at. Also you know that you’ll get another opportunity on your way back.
So you continue to trudge along doing a system every now and then to check if all system are firing in all cylinders. Even the slightest twitch gets you a bit riled wondering if your muscles are tightening. But then you slow down a bit, calm yourself and you continue on your way.
As you make your way on an empty streets you are surprised to see people come out there to cheer and support you, besides the volunteers at the water stations.
There are the running groups manning the the unofficial water stations, offering you bananas and oranges and electrolytes and water and what looked like gummy bears.
Then you had the usual family and friends standing there to cheer their loved ones.
You also had spectators who cheered you by calling out your name after reading them off your bib, and even dancing to cheer you on. All on in it was really good to see them and on that road cheering and motivating you.
What caught me by surprise was someone actually calling me Roddy as nowhere was I wearing anything with the name Roddy on it and only those who know me, know this name. It left me wondering who exactly was this angel soul.
And then you had this person wearing a unicorn onesie giving out unicorn power blast to anyone who needed it. Actually it was anyone who tapped her board. This brought a smile in your face as you tap and hi five her.
Besides these there are many others who are there to support and cheer you on, taking you by surprise, as Dubai isn’t known for people braving the Dubai sun to cheer you, and yet here you had them, not exactly in full force, not forced, but there to cheer you.
You meet a gentleman from Powai ( I shall refrain from calling him uncle cause you know you are one too). You enthusiastically discuss about all things Mumbai and if you know this soul and that soul (thankfully no asshole), whether you have run this race and that and what’s your next race. Actually learned that we would both be doing a HM at TMM.
Slowly and steadily you get to that third u-turn. You once again find yourself on your own. You know your pace has dropped a bit but it’s isn’t a cause of panic cause all systems have been working well so far. So you don’t get into that panic mode.
Lo and behold each km passes you by. You feel you’re in a comfortable position and if you continue in this pace you will get there in good time. You try and enjoy the people who have come out to cheer the runners own, clasping and shouting encouragement, giving you hi-fives, and even dancing in the street.
You take it all in, the route, the weather, you are actually running a marathon on foreign soil , an international marathon. But then the Mumbai Marathon is also an international marathon, so technically this isn’t your first international marathon.
You don’t mind that it’s mid-morning and the weather is getting a bit warmer, you been pouring water on your head and the nape of your neck to keep yourself cool.
You make your way past the half way mark and you do it in a good steady time. Catches and cramps and tightness are now all but a distance memory. So there’s a bit of confident calmness that you got this, if you can just executed those final kms as coach said.
You make your way past the fourth u-turn. This time you click a pick with the Burj-al-Arab in the background and the awesome soul in the unicorn onesie.
You decide to walk a bit before you reach the 30th km after which you know you will have to push it.
So after you reach that 30th km you start trying to run quicker. Everything seems to be going well so far. But then too much of a good thing ain’t always a good thing.
By this time you get a bit impatient. You can see the 35th km on the other side of the road, making you wonder when will that 34th km come and with it the final u-turn and your way back.
When you finally make your through that last turn you breathe knowing that you only have this one stretch to complete.
And then like an unwanted guest that comes visiting you, you start feeling your legs, you start feeling tightness and cramp.
In your head you go oh no, not this again, and all those memories of you cramping comes flooding back in your head, and with bringing that sinking feeling.
You wonder if you somewhere manifested this soreness.
You are determined to make it across the finish line, if not your PB maybe at the baseline that you gave yourself.
By now your are alternating between hobbling, jogging, walking down the route, trying hard to take motivation from the people standing there cheering you own.
You keep pouring water on your head almost making you feel like you are having your very own Mandakini moment, almost making you feel like you are having a bath in the middle of that Dubai road.
By now the people who you passed are now passing you, and this is never a good feeling.
You see a family with a “Go Emily” poster and then you have Emily pass you by. You even have the runner from Bangalore who was wearing a NEB Bangalore stadium run tee l, who was complaining about the weather pass you.
You desperately stop at an aide station asking to spray your tight muscles. You actually stop at any point where you see a volunteer with a spray.
You try your best to get a slow and steady space till the tightness of your muscles makes you want to scream , asking yourself what the hell did you get wrong this time.
Your mind directly goes to the weather and an imperfect hydration plan. But then you’ve trained in a humid weather, so a possible reason could be you got your hydration all wrong.
Slowly and steadily you make your way down the last stretch. By now you have whole lot of runners pass you by, even the gentleman from Powai. Runners who you could have finished ahead (and this not me really being cocky).
In the final stretch you are left to the elements as you have no shade anywhere in sight and you’ve got to brave the sun burning down on you.
You try to give it that final burst, but everytime you try to push yourself your muscles begins to pull and cramp forcing you to stop.
You take a deep breath and continue to push on, raising your hand as you finally make it across that finish line, partly because you are relieved that you made it , you survived, partly you want some dramatic finish line pics.
Somewhere you kind of realise that you haven’t shaved your armpit so you are actually flashing your armpit hair. But in that moment you don’t mind it, you are being au-natural.
You collect your medal, click a pic with it (like it is customary), hobble to collect your goodie bag, which doesn’t contains theplas and cake but some nutritious fruits. You call up your sis to come and pick you and you continue to hobble to collect your bag from the baggage counter.
You have this mixed feeling. You have this disappointment that once again, despite all your trainings, and trying to keep to Dan sirs advice., despite of running a good 75% of the race strongly, you still had to face those dreaded cramps.
Though you started the race with this fear of cramping, but during the race you felt that you were worrying for nothing, only to have manifest your fears in the 10 odd kms.
You wonder what did you get wrong. Was it your hydration strategy? Was it the weather? You even grumbled about the late start of the race. Or did you go too fast? But then that was not possible since you were running evenly and quite comfortably.
You would learn, from your discussion with Dan sir, that it was about running at a pace faster than what you had trained at, targeted for, and this actually was the cause of the fatigue and you hitting that wall. Something you had kind of known and still did it, like history repeating itself because you keep repeating your mistakes.
Then this feeling of loneliness and being all alone. You passed runners with their friends and runners with their families, here you were with no one you knew. You couldn’t help but miss the finish line at TMM, no matter however chaotic it maybe. At least then you knew there were so many familiar faces you would bump into, you could congratulate, who would click pics with you, who would click pics for you and you didn’t have to use your watch and timer.
In the flip side, you were happy that you got your mandatory annual FM out of the way of the way, and not in the humid Mumbai weather.
There’s the ease at which you ran at least 75% of your race gives you the belief that with training at a quicker pace would definitely help you do better, and he’s with coach’s help you definitely will get there.
Lastly, and most importantly, it’s never easy to run a marathon(especially for someone like me), considering the amount of training you have to go through and the amount of time you have to dedicate to training. So deciding to do one done, that to on international soil, and to complete it, it quite the achievement in itself. Something you definitely can be proud of.
You maybe disappointed but there’s always a lesson to be learned, a fire that will keep burning within you. You know you can come back stronger and better.
So there’s a lot to be proud of, there’s a lot to look forward to. You that you’ve got miles to go before you hanging up those running. In fact, you never know want to that.
As your sister reaches to where you have been standing , you hobble into the vehicle, happy to see Sparky in the back
seat. You hug and cuddle and kiss him , happy that he’s there. You put the medal on him and hug him tight, and some how all your worries disappear.
So for now, you’re happy that you have this one in the bag, and here’s a toast to all the races that is to come.
No comments:
Post a Comment