Mumbai Marathon - 2011

Two days before the 2011 Mumbai Marathon I could sense the pre-marathon blues in the form of right heel pain, which was increasing – part of it could be the bus journey and lugging bags etc.
Come Saturday, it was time to collect the bib. Veda and I headed for the Expo at World Trade Center – a busy place with lots of stalls to visit. I picked up a ice bag from our - Khusi exports. Met Chandra, JP, V Srini, Sindhu, Janardhan and family. Did not hang around
By evening my heel started to pain really bad and this time it seemed real. Iced it like hell, went to bed at 9pm. I was anxious about the Marathon, got up several times. Finally got up at 3:45am.
Ravi (brother in law) and I headed towards Marine Lines by the 4:30am local train, had some good adrak-chai at Marinel Lines and was in time at Gate no 3, Azad maidan. It looked like I was early. By 5:30 the crowd started building and festivities seemed to start with some loud music in the background.
Saw Ashok Nath, wished him a good run! Met V Srini and we parked ourselves on a plastic mat near the holding area. Was pleasantly surprised by a pat on my back by my ex-boss Stan Bradbury who was gunning for a 4-4:15 finish (he finished in 3:48!), Srini looking to do his PB 4:30 and me looking for under 5.
Off to the holding area. Met Janardhan, Tom and JP. All of us walked to the start and run kicked off on time at 6:15am.

0-10k
Ran a bit with Srini and Vinay. Met Chandra our brave runner running in spite of injured leg.
Vinay and I were about 300m behind the BUS (5 hour bus) and caught up at 4k and just around that time I spotted Kiran. I had promised him some electrolyte tabs and could not give it to him at the expo and was glad to spot him - gave him his share of dope and broke away from the BUS and Vinday as I wanted to maintain a 6:15 per K pace.
At Kemps corner made friends with Pankaj. We chatted a bit on the up slope and parted ways. (Marathon is a journey you meet friends on the way and also part ways)

11-21k
A familiar voice called “Murthy Uncle” and it was our good old little coach - Avinash manning the RH support along with Vinay's brother and his daughter. Grabbed a banana and biscuit and continued.
I met another Pankaj, who seemed to be running at my pace. Made friends with him and talked a lot about running, gait analysis and life. He had done mumbai before and gave me tips like - pick two bottles of water before sea link, and the need to conserve energy for peddar road on the return and say Hi to Ganapathi at Siddivinaya.
I hit the 21k at 2:13

22k to 30k
Veda and Saru(my sister) were waiting slightly ahead of Mahim Church. My heel pain was peaking and thought of quitting passed my mind. I immediatly dismissed it.

Ate Oranges, a fresh Bandana and off we (Pankaj and I).
And just then (24k) the lead vehicle passed us, followed by a double decker busload of camera men and the came the East Africans running at blistering pace, some of the runners were not even sweating.
Soon we were approaching the sea link. The sun was up but it was still pleasant. The sight of the gradient was daunting, I slowed down wanting to conserve and soon stopped. Was glad to see Pooja and Suman. Got my fix and contined. Pankaj and I parted as friends.
My calfs cramped, stretched it a bit and started trotting and soon the BUS overtook me. I felt de motivated at this juncture but made an attempt to tail it but realised in 60 seconds that it was a bad idea. Soon Vinay passed me at who was determined not to stop till end of Link.
Got to RH support, banana's etc and continued.
I hit the 30k in 3:36 about 15 minutes behind plan.

31k to 40k
What a relief 75% done at the same time I was thinking about the balance 12k. Negative thoughts were pouring in. I said to myself take it 1K at a time and I was determined now NOT to stop till I covered another K before the next walk break. It worked till 34k. I knew the next 1k was tough. Remebered Santhosh's advice, walked the uphill, well, the other option was to take a TAXI!
I was hoping to make up a bit on the down hill and started to stride, felt comfortable for the first 200m but soon the calf started to twitch, slowed down and reminded my self - as long as you trotting it is fine sub 5 hour is not important being close to it is.
Saw a runner cramping and massaging his calfs, helped him stretch and we continued at our own pace.
Marine drive was monotonous and hard. At the water stop I got my quads and calf iced. That really helped to increase pace.

Touched the 40k mark in 5 hours.

Felt great with 2k to go but legs were not willing to run. Saw a fellow runner with a ice bag, shameless asked him if could spared it and he willingly did. I iced my legs again, did strides to return the ice bag and headed to the finish line.

It was a great feeling to cross the finish in Amchi Mumbai and this would not have been possible without the support of Santhosh, Preeti, Chandra, Vinay, Vinon, Abnash, all RH support crew, RH runners, and last but not the least Ravi, Saru and my better half Veda and of course ICE!

Look forward to more running and getting better at it.

Cheers - Murthy

Running in 2010...

I have been thinking for a while that i should be writing about my running journey but never got to it. Today seems to be the day, as i am off work, down with a bad cold, tired of sleeping - so tooking this task...

The first nine month of 2010 have been eventful for me....It all started with training for the Auroville Marathon 2010, my first, a difficult one for me, some how managed to complete took me a good 5:40 to complete this trail marathon - my first goal acheived.

Took some time off to review my running goals and settled for half marathon but with a focus on improving time..The season started of with Sunfeast 10k and the Runnershigh training was tough - with a lot of tempo runs - but we did see some improvement in speed. Come race day, we are all off the starting block but with very little space to run - the crowd was too much, however, did the 10k in 55m (not much different from last year).

The next challenge comes two weeks from now - 19-Sep - the Kaveri Trail Marathon - plan to do a half marathon and having been training hard for a better timing and hope the weather is kind to runners on the race day.

Wish me luck.

My First Huarache Sandal

What is an Huarache Sandal?
Tarahumara Indians are a tribe residing in Northern Mexico and their footwear is minimalistic and is called Huaraches or akaraches.

I read with interest some of the articles on barefoot running and a website dedicated to barefoot running. Thats when I got a but curious and said lets build one. But here is what I did - bought a Bata Slipper, hacked the straps except the peice that goes between the toes and used cotton lace. It just takes couple of minutes to do the whole sandal.

Here are some before and after pictures






Making it was easy - and followed instructions on how to wear it ...I could not wait to test it and here is the video of my initial trial.



Couple of days later I ran a 3x400m - felt comfortable but there was a sense of non-shoes...Will i run with these? don't know as yet - whats blocking me now is the fear that my toes will bang against something on a trail run...I am not as a tough as those Tarahumara Indians....

If you want to try - you have the option of buying it - Barefoot Ted sells it for 60-70 US$ - the Bata hack costs 2$.

Fun at Bangalore ULTRA 2009

It is a bit late to report about the Bangalore ULTRA 2009 - no problem - better late than never. I am sure you guys must have read about the kind of attendance - over 600 plus runners at the ULTRA 2009 and what a location to run. My friend Uttam - an professional aeromodeller - was so impressed by this location - now plans to do all his experimental flying at Heserghatta.

For those new to ULTRA 2009 - ULTRA 2009 is organised by RFL and is an Ultra Marathon race with provision for short distances too! - we have 100k, 75k, 50k, 37.5k, 25k, and even a 12.5k (thanks to Jayanagar Jags)

Location was great and add to the great weather - though it had rained the night before and quite dark when the 100k/75k started 5:00am, 50k at 6:00am and the 25k at 6:30am....

The routes is a 6.25k out and back and here is what the first 6.25k looks like. The first 3/4k has open spaces are that quite daunting - it kind of gives the feeling that you are not progressing while running. The next 1k or so is narrow trail - can be quite a challenge if you are not used to trail running - this then is followed by a down slope on a tar road. The forward and return journey have equal share of slopes up and down and kind of get tougher on second and subsequent loops

Some performances by experienced runners was inspiring - wonder what do they eat!
Santosh Padmanabhan - did a 125k and will soon be attempting a 48 hour run....
Yasuhiro Honda - did a 100k in 10:23:59 - he is like an engine. I heard he has been running for about 25 years!

Some senior runners put in massive efforts, hats off to them - Chandra Gopalan 50k (bib # 716 ) in 7:20 and Sunil Chainani ran a 100k in 14:57 look for bib # 933


I did a 25k at the ULTRA 2009 - my first and the longest since I started to run in early 2009. thanks to Runner's High who made me fit to run. Check out bib 533

The training for ULTRA was long over 18weeks with a mock run at the ULTRA Location

Through this blog I want to encourage each one of you readers to start running - distance/speed is not important - just begin and enjoy the act of running... If you have never run before and want to start then here is a good place to begin. If you need support then check out Runner's high

Ulsoor Lake Run

Run around Palak soup lake
The run around Ulsoor lake was good - I am sure the authorities (BMP) could do better than just putting up a board disclaiming responsibility for any "loss of life in or outside the lake" this make it clear that they do know nothing can survive the thick palak soup kind of water - as Preeti put it - if there is something in there it must be a MUTANT! (looks like she been watching a lot of x-men type of movies).. The Army guys were busy rowing and i can imaging they were having tough time rowing the boats/canoes through the thick palak soup!













After the run everyone got busy stretching - we were so focussed that we almost tore down the steel fencing around the lake.....



Break fast at M Gees.
It was good to see about 25 people gather at the M Gees with Santhosh trying his best to motivate all to get some better attendance - we even explored proxying to improve it...

The idlis, vadas and dosas were good and the service quite efficient considering it was a sit in place. We almost got Chandra to pay for the B/F but did not succeed, of course there is always a next time....

The Tees looked good - especially the pink ones - stands out in the crowd and one of our runners suggest the group with pinkies should be named 'gay ho'

Some photos to remember this day....



We should have this more often and at different places - overall it was a good opportunity to know runners from other groups

Jai ho!

--
~~~~~~
Regards
http://www.jaxtr.com/ugmurthy
Murthy

Chai, Samosas and the batch of 1982 BHU-ITs

Over a 100 plus ex-BHU-ITians descended in Varanasi, some braved the roads, other took the trains and still others came by air. Some with family and some without. All eager to meet their batchmates after 25 years.


25-Dec-2008 Christmas in Kashi


A contingent of 'n' people left their hotels for a la BHU. The buses could not take the main streets of Varanasi and had to take route via DLW and soon arrived into Lanka - greeted by the tring-tring of the rickshawallas, the incessant honking of the motor vehicles and of course the aroma of samosas and kachori on the road side, the tea vendors overboiling their tea to kill any kind of bugs. Groups of people huddled around the chaiwalla cupping the kullad and having hot chai and warming themselves on a cold Christmas morning.

Thus began our silver jubilee journey in Kashi......


Seeing the main gate took me back 25 years, there were goosebumps on my forearms. Some good and some not so good memories came to me - only to be shaken by the sudden braking of the bus which halted strategically in front of WH (Women's Hostel)









Going by the number of hugging incidents we had since 24th Dec 2007 we could have easily broken any previous Guiness record for hugging.















Chera yaad hai lekin naam yaad nahi araha hai!!!!!
The Name tags help resolve a lot of memory lapses and saved a lot of embarassment, thanks to organisers and volunteers (Thats Keshav not a post card vendor)




Chaos at Birla Mandir

There were more photographers than the number of people being photographed.

And dont forget there were some first time visitors to Birla Mandir

We then proceeded for lunch at Morvi...........

Visit to the Hostels, Chai at the nukkad....
Each of us parted ways to look at our hostels - of special interest to me was the Dhanrajgiri where i started and the final year hostel - Visveshwaraya - nothing seems to have changed - its all frozen in time......however there are fewer cycles and Wifi in hostels...that at times works...and note Ragging is punishable - the guys don't have to visit Birla temple as often as we had to do to avoid ragging...

























The chai at the Rajputana nukaad still tastes the same....and the Sada Panwa costs Rs 2.00




While the guys were having a good time the ladies too made friends and were enjoying themselves......

210 minutes of not going through the bridge....by Crofty

It was 6:00 am on the morning of 4th December - the Janpur railway station was complete confusion and disorientation. We stumbled along behind ButtFloss, who had taken it upon himself to lead the herd with superhuman speed. For lesser mortals like me who’s legs need to do two cycles to match one of the rest, I put my head down and sped along, avoiding men and mucus with equal dexterity.

We positioned ourselves under the largest public address speaker (or so it seemed) and for half an hour were brainwashed by the Janpur Railways to ‘go through the bridge’. Just as I reached a hypnotic state of heading towards the bridge in blind madness, Buttfloss hurtled down the platform, once more followed by a team desperate to keep up. Saved from a suicidal trip through the bridge, I was suddenly awake as we found a landmark next to a pile of garbage. And I saw samosas.

Rows and rows of fresh station-made samosas lined up and selling like hot cakes. Corona Discharge and Lung Farang were especially impressed by this sight, having been deprived of such treats during their growing years - the good old days. Lucifer’s demons watched transfixed as golden brown, deep fried, management, teamwork and leadership examples emerged till rudely disturbed by a cow.

Repeated pleas by to move away from the beast went unheeded, and suddenly the animal was inches away, head in dustbin and Lung Farang in considerable danger. The dustbin’s lid flew off, agilely sidestepped by Lung Farang (who refused to retreat), and the cow was balancing precariously, neck deep in trash. The tension lasted a few minutes until someone threw water all over the beast. Shocked out of position, it staggered off, leaving us to battle another problem.

Draped in traditional albeit rather dusty Indian attire, this new problem stared us in the face, neck and back. All movement from Paneera, the Sergeant Major and myself were watched from various angles. Romeo found considerable entertainment in providing a running commentary of the gentleman’s eye movements and the Sergeant Major’s reaction was to stare back with equal intensity.

As time passed and the train got further delayed, ButtFloss emerged with food supplies and Corona Discharge alternated between listening to music and assessing if a body on the platform was breathing or not. Lung Farang’s expression of gloom had increased since morning (if that was possible) and Paneera had been sucked into the pages of Bollywood. This left me to discourse with whoever was ready to listen, on the state of the country, female infanticide and subconsciously fight the urge of going through the bridge.