Last mentioned in my previous post, I was in two minds whether to run the half marathon or no. I hadn’t been practicing since the entire last month and was not too comfortable running the half marathon. Post a lot of persuasion by my brother, I decided to run the race, even though I was not at all prepared for it. The night before the race, I also caught cold, even though it wasn’t too serious to be worried about. Sunday morning came very early for me (4:30am, time when I am usually going off to sleep). Got ready to head for the race with my brother, who was super charged up. Met P along the way. He was running his first marathon, but he was prepared as he had practiced enough. We reached holding area at around 6:20am and did some warm up for the race to begin at 7am. We slowly moved towards the start line and in between I got to see a beautiful sunrise. There were a lot of people who were participating in the race and it was good to see so many people turn up for running. Indian’s are normally not known to run and all, even though we produced the Flying Sikh. So it was nice to see so many people turn up for this event, though this was a fraction of what turns up at the Mumbai Marathon.

The race started sharp at 7am. In the beginning I was able to keep pace with P and my brother. But the signs of not practicing started showing up, once I crossed the 3km barrier. At this point I was simply wanting to kill myself for participating in this event with no practice at all. My ankle had started to pain and swell and even though I was wearing an ankle band, it wasn’t doing much to stop the pain. I had now almost made up my mind to not run the race any further. I could see the Vasai station exit and all I wanted to do was go straight and board the train and head home. My mind kept saying straight and my heart kept saying turn left, turn left and that’s what I did. I turned left. I was running, walking, running, walking and after 30 mins, my running app said you have completed 7kms. I was ecstatic. I knew I still had a very outside chance to beat my  existing time and I started pushing for it. The heat and humidity were now really taking a toll on me. I started to get the same feeling again. Don’t want to continue any further. I wanted to sit down and take a break, but I realized, if I sat down anywhere, I wouldn’t be able to get up and continue. So I kept walking. I tried to run, but my knees were starting to hurt and I felt like ankle was going to swell so much that it would burst outside my shoes. I had managed to complete around 13kms in 2 hours. The remaining 8 were going to be bitch and I knew it (prior experience of running the marathon).

I was now only walking. I tried to run again, but I was just not able to do that. I was extremely tired and all I wanted to do was to finish the race. I trudged along the rest of the route and was able to finish the race in 3 hours and 17 mins. Not the worst that I have performed. The entire race made me realize that I need to be a lot more fitter and at the same time, need to practice before I participate in the next event. I also need to manage my schedule better as currently, I reach home and then go to sleep. May be I should run for a little while and then sleep.

On the side note, the event was extremely well organized. Though I felt they should have managed the traffic better as there were vehicles on the road while the race was ongoing. There were also people walking along the route and were definitely a distraction. The organizers had kept water junctions at various places and that was really great. One more thing could be – they can start the race an hour early as starting the race at 7am is a bit too late, considering October heat and humidity. Overall a good event and well managed and organized.