“Pain is temporary but pride lasts forever”, this is
something I experienced on Sunday 19th Oct when I ran my first full
marathon at Bengaluru Marathon! The pain of running 42.195km vanished in one
day but the achievement still remains:).
I wanted to run my full Marathon last year itself but didn’t
do it. However, sometime in August I read about Bangalore Marathon and took the
first step of registering for the run. Things started to happen the moment
registration was done. Started reading about what it takes to run full
marathon. And step by step increased the distance during the practice run on
Sundays. The yoga classes helped to improve breathing and bring stability and
calm during the runs. Increasing the distance on practice sessions on Sundays
was also not easy. 10km, 15km, 20km, 25km and finally 32km 2 weeks before the
run. Sometimes as early as 530AM in morning. During one such practice I started
my run at 5:30AM, when I reached Cubbon park there were few volunteers standing
in the pitch dark and not allowing vehicles to enter few roads. That morning
there was a traffic awareness drive at the park. The function started by around
8 and completed by 9. They also finished removing all the shamiyana’s and I
kept running!:)
During this time also ran my first official half Marathon
along the banks of Kaveri river at Kaveri Trial Marathon in Srirangapatna in
September. We left Bangalore at 2AM in morning with 2 other colleagues from
Bosch, completed the run and returned back by 2PM. I completed the run in 2hr
6m.
I was also very impressed with the Bengaluru Marathon team.
They organised practice runs at different places in Bangalore, one week we ran
behind the Art Of Living campus on Kanakpura road. And one day we had an
Addidas Adreline run at the Kanteerava Stadium. It was a 5km run with push ups,
hurdles, ramp running and finally a 200m sprint to end the race. Kudos to the
team for the way they build up the momentum and kept all of us engaged in
running.
Finally, the D day arrived on Sunday 19th Oct.
Race started at 5AM. We were very lucky to have such a pleasant weather on the
race day. Right throughout the race sun never came out. Route was also very
nice. Cubbon park to Ulsoor lake -> old Airport road, Inidiranagar to
Kormanagala on inner ring road, in front of Bosch office in Kormangala till
Adugodi and then u turn all the way back till Kanteerava stadium. Best part of
the run was at 22-24km while going and 31-33km on return at the inner ring road
Kormanagala. There was a 2km long line of Army Jawans standing on the either
side of the road and cheering us:).
Wow! Some of them also called out names and cheered (names were written on the
Bib), “Sunil sir badeya running!”, “Sunil sir thoda aur josh”, “Keep running”. I
guess this was the best part of the race for all the 2000 odd full Marathoners. I
kept smiling, thanking them and saluting our real heroes!
Everything was fine till this point. Completed the first
30km in 3hours and 3min. However, soon all the positive thoughts vanished. At
37km mark, I kept screaming in my head “Somebody please stop this torture, I
don’t want to run anymore!”. To make things worse traffic was opened and had to
manage running with traffic (only bad thing about the otherwise extraordinary event). Somehow dragged the body and reached the stadium.
Finally, I did it! Felt so satisfied. All the practice runs had paid off!
Had the most wanted breakfast from Adigas and limped back
home with the medal around the neck. Timing wasn’t impressive enough. Took 4hr
43m and 2s to complete the race. Looking to improve in the next attempt either
at Chennai Marathon or Bangalore mid night marathon in December this year.
