SCMM 2015

These are some really long notes about SCMM and running.

Sometimes I think in my perfect world I would never register for races. Nor would I travel to different places just to be able to run in an organized fashion. Its not my perfect world, and hence for above reasons I take decisions from time to time to register for racing events and train for them with experts. 

Before every outstation event I go through this :
i. make travel plans a month/15 days in advance
ii.  plan my clothes (its a big part of how you fare at any run!) well in advance. Shop if required and practice in them.
iii. Excitement starts building up in the race week.
iv. The Friday before the race is full of travel anxiety.No productive work gets done. I still go to office (Must thank my stars that no one bothers me with important work on such fridays!)
v. Dream about things that may go wrong. For eg. What if I do not reach the venue on time and they disqualify me. Such positive thinking makes me full of nerves. I am *this* short of outbirsts.
vi. Travel. Travel. Travel.
vii. Meet friends to keep mind off d-day. If possible shop, eat out.
viii. Try to get minimum 6 hours of sleep. Though my brain clock wakes me up at ungodly hours like 2.30 am, 3.30 am and then finally 4.30 am.

Till now (this was my 4th half marathon), I have not missed out on showing up at any event. Things haven't gone as worse as I play the what-if scenarios in my head. But all this has somewhere made me a better human being. 
I look at the positives. I make plan A-G to be executed during any run. My failover scenarios are ready. And I feel as if I am raring to go. Exactly 2 years ago when I started running, I would not have been able to say a single word about all this, of course for lack of experience. These stretch-your-limits experiences have taught me to be prepared and not prepared for elements of life. I am also not sure if I am conveying any meaning out of the words I just typed. 

Anywho, the point is this is my way of tackling pointlessness which loves making its presence felt in my head from time to time. After every race pointlessness takes a backseat and I gain one point. You see the point I am making ?

So if you are a runner in India then SCMM marks the official end of running season here. Its one of the oldest, well organized and prestigious events here! 
I signed up for SCMM to nicely seal off my training plan for the year and later to serve as a marker to analyze running performance over the year. I had a good amount of rest in the race week, showed up well before flag off at start point, clicked selfies with friends, ate almonds, calmed my nerves by remembering favorite bollywood songs. Somewhere I was not feeling that strong, but I had following goals laid out :
A. Target the 2.15 hour bus, wherever the pacers were. Run my own race as all the 5 pacers of the 2.15 bus had weird pacing strategies. If I finished 9.5 km in one hour then I would be able to finish in 2.15 hours by staying strong in the last segment i.e. post 18km.
B. Do a personal best.
C. Run my own race. Did I say this already ?

I started really slow as planned, gained pace over the majestic worli sea link, got steady with every passing kilometer. Surprisingly, I did not have to take a single walking break till 17th km, even for drinking water. Even during the infamous steep Pedder Road incline. *humble brag* I could not run a single kilometer without walking breaks 2 years ago and in my last half marathon I took 10 seconds walking breaks just to gulp water. A huge shoutout to RP and their training!

I was taking 2-3 sips of water every 5-7 minutes to compensate for the humidity in Mumbai. My body showed first sign of weakness in the form of salt loss at 16 km with cramps in lower left abdomen. I immediately switched to sipping enerzal from a nearby aid station. They went away fairly quickly. The next event happened post 17km. Lower right abdomen started cramping. This time I walked for 10 seconds, sipped good amount of enerzal and water. Willed it to go away. Bugger did not. It kept on making its presence felt even if my body took a slight bend or tried to do something different to steer my brain away from the pain. I let the body take over the brain which was in such a good controlling position till now. In a way I knew my race was over specially goal A. I walked a bit more. Let time slip by. Post the 18th km marker, I decided I would walk every 20 seconds. But. But. But. The mumbai crowd and excellent support system in the form of bands playing live music, dance troupes, motivational songs, showed up. Damn! How could I even imagine to walk when so many unknown faces were cheering all of us weirdos for no particular reason to keep going. So I kept going. At a slow and steady pace. The pain went away. I crossed the finish line with a timing of 2:21:25. And fainted. This is what real electrolyte loss feels like, I told myself. I steadied and made way to the amazing and special recovery area for women athletes (if I may call myself so without any pretense). 

#scmm2015 memories

SCMM is a really well organized event. Water and aid stations are plenty and well placed. If you have studied your race route well, you would find water/aid stations exactly where you were supposed to find them. In addition locals setup stalls to help poor, thirsty and hungry runners. 
But this year's race felt too crowded for my taste. There was not a stretch where you could have the patch of a street to yourself. That's my only grouch. I can imagine how tough it can be to organize an event on such a massive scale so my only plea to the organizers is to cut down on entries. Pretty please!

So what am I up to now ?
I am still recovering from the race. I have showed up at work. I have achieved my personal best timing. And I have learnt to run my own race and enjoy what I can by planning what I can plan for during a run. I am also grateful to the support my friends and family give and sometimes plan their life around my running schedule. I am now going through marathon events in India this year and listing down interesting ones. I'll plan a part of my year around them. Because as I mentioned at the beginning, in my perfect world I would never register for or run races.

Book Love 2014

I read 23 books this year. 2 more than last year. Yay!

Though I had planned to read many more books, as I always do, I could not because of other stuff happening in life. Altogether I am happy from a completely analytical perspective, because 23 > 21 and the genres I touched during this year were much varied than last year's! Despite that I did not have any absolute favorites like previous years.

goodreads link here : https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/4760161-yamini?page=1&shelf=what-i-read-in-2014&view=covers

Special mentions for The ocean at the end of the lane, Principles of uncertainty, On the road, Anna Karenina and Burmese Days.

What did you read last year that you loved ? Share ?

To my aaji

Kadhi is one of my favorite staple Indian foods. I remember chilly winter evenings in Chicago when I would only make kadhi and drink 4-5 cups of it. It gave me comfort. I learnt how to make kadhi from my aaji (mother's mother). I would always tell aai, how aaji makes the best kadhi in the world and aai could take tips from her. The honesty of childhood!

Aaji passed away about a month ago. It was not sudden, but it was expected. She was not keeping well for past two years. During every visit I, over the past 6 months, I could see the life waning out of her. But no one wants to prepare for such inevitable. No one wants to lose a part of their childhood.

I spent many summer holidays spending time at my grandmother's. With nothing much to do apart from reading books, I would often poke around in the kitchen. Trying to help her at times or learn things. She would be impressed by this curiosity and teach me things. But only if I behaved. The lady always needed her space. Specially when she was frying something in the kitchen. She considered it a bad omen to have anyone standing in the kitchen behind her, when she was frying things. She would always shoo us away. I used to compulsively annoy her with my presence. 

Over the years the house she lived in with my uncles and aunts changed. It was made bigger, with multiple stories added. People changed, they started living and cooking separately. Lives started being better but different. 

I am not sure how aaji, even for that matter aajoba (grandfather) took these changes. We always saw them being happy and contented. Their lives had always been shared. With big extended families. The idea of privacy and separate rooms must have been strange to them. But they accepted it gladly. That's what I feel. 

Because, whenever I visited aaji would still cook things for me. Over one such summer after my 10th standard examination, I told her I wanted to learn how to make chapatis. Aaji with all her heart taught me the magic was in the dough. Always. The better you knead it the better your chapatis would turn out to be. She would say, dont put pressure at the center while rolling the chapatis. Try to put it uniformly. And then the crucial part, how to roast them. She told me to cook one side longer than the other and roast the other side directly over flame. 

My aaji was the most curious person from her generation who I knew. She would read entire newspaper. Solve the puzzles and crosswords. Keep them ready for me when I asked for some entertainment. Tell us random bedtime stories. Let us pull her leg when we teased her how handsome her husband was. Listen to my translated version of harry potter.

These are my vivid memories of my aaji. Taking pride in my sillier achievements of roasting a chapati perfectly. Or hearing from aai about my kadhi adventures away from home. I am sure every grandparent must do the same.

Now we have a maid who makes chapatis at home. So I make chapatis rarely. I was telling a friend how aaji taught me the art and smiling. I am sure aaji must be proud. Still.

On love

The past two weeks were a lot of activity and full of daze and drama. The runner in me can handle continuous activity but things were happening on auto pilot and it had become difficult to put my finger on what was going through my head or what I was feeling.

And then I decided to attend the wedding of a friend almost on a whim to get away from everything.

When the groom's eyes lit up to the bride's entry under फूलो की चादर accompanied by her brothers, things started to settle down in my heart. That 'singular magic moment' when magical happy smiles were exchanged between the two, must have been what drove me to Delhi.

I have exchanged many notes, emails and thoughts with Someplace else. And on this Monday morning, when my vacation has ended, I am feeling nothing but a weird satisfaction. 

Because its not just the movies where you meet your Shahrukh khan on a train journey. Sometimes fairy dust makes these things magically real.

there is a wedding at home!

We are beginning to get on each others' nerves. Polite discussions are now annoyed arguments. The Nagpur winter is colder and chilly. There are people sneezing all over at my place. And sometimes the warmth only seems to come from a cup of tea.

There is a wedding at home.

We are in a plush mall buying shoes. In the same hour we are in the middle of a bustling market, asking and bargaining for matching bangles. There is a polite shouting match going on inside the car between brother and me, about shopping tasks on our list. I am an efficiency maniac. He likes to take it 'chill'. We pass bhavnagari. We unanimously decide to stop to buy some kachoris and samosas for evening snacks.

There is a wedding at home. We are functional in our dysfunctional ways. 

Pune run beyond myself - half marathon

Pune running is an active bunch of amateur runners in Pune city. PRBM (pune run beyond myself) is the flagship charity event organized by this group along the lovely route of NCL/Pashan/Bavdhan (if you know your bearings around Pune you will know what I mean).

After the hyderabad running nightmare I really wanted to run a half marathon to gauge the improvement in my running stamina and form. So I signed up for the half marathon at PRBM (which my trainers at running potential did not approve of!). Reluctantly I resumed the training routine. Running 4 times a week with a comparatively longer run a week before the actual run. I even started developing a cold feet a week before the run. 21.1 km started feeling like a ridiculously long distance to be run by anyone. (Full Marathoners I respect thee!)

With all these background activities going on in my head, race day arrived. This was exactly 48 days after the Hyderabad run. The pleasant Satara Hill run had assuaged the running blerch a bit. But there were still doubts in my head. I wanted to validate my own beliefs.
Like a kid getting nervous before her first stage appearance, I started feeling jittery before the run. A point came when I could hardly contain my excitement so I made myself watch the tragic Anna Karenina. That did help! 

So race day arrived. And if you like me get excited about racing events like school exams, you would know the emotions. I was ready with warm up at 5.15 am (race was to start at 6am). But despite that I reached the start point late ie around 5.45 am and made a dash for the start line. Thankfully I caught sight of  the 2.30 hour pacer and I snuck behind his bus.

My strategy for this run was to stick with the 2.30 hour bus for the most part and try to finish the HM under that. My earlier HM timings were more than that so it was a huge task in my head. The gun went off at 6 am sharp and I slowly made it out of the crowded beginning section of the route. 600 meters into the route and the 2.30 hour pacer started walking. I had not confirmed his race strategy earlier, so this run-walk routine came as a big disappointment to me. It became clear to me that I had to run the race with my own bus at my own pace and just try to be ahead of the 2.30 hour bus all the time.

With this little improvisation I got my mind back into the race. The earlier part of the route was uphill so my slow but constant pace helped. I ran with a pace of 6.45-7 mins/km during the first 5 km, having crossed the 5km mark at 35 minutes. This is when part deux of my strategy came to the fore. I took my first water break for exactly 30 seconds, where I kept on walking sipping 200 ml of water. My next water break of 30 seconds came after the 7 km mark. Next 20 second electrolyte solution break came past the 10.5 km mark. And so on. The return route was quite downhill and the weather was perfect for a long run. Of course the sun had started shining down on us by the time we started our journey back to the start point. But it all felt like good sun god behavior. Post the 15 km mark, my urge to take more and longer water breaks started creeping in. This is when the real test began. I managed to cross the 18 km mark under 2 hours and gave myself a treat by taking a 1 minute long walking water break. With only 3 kms to go, I knew I could achieve that elusive timing. 

But these 3 kms were not a breeze as my over imaginative brain had pictured. I took another walk break on a quite uphill part and totally lost track of time. It was only when I saw people behind me overtake me, that the competitive person in me awakened. I started running with all my heart (literally, you should have seen me panting :P) and finished the race in 2 hours 24 minutes and 30 seconds.

This is my personal best timing after having run 3 half marathons. I have realized, the only way to get over a bad race (or run) is to run another race.

Until SCMM in January then!

Satara hill marathon 2014

I can see this blog is slowly becoming a place to document running events. But as long as I keep on writing here, no one's loss right ?

The Satara Hill Marathon is an elite ultra marathon event in Maharashtra, which only in its 3rd year has already become famous for some superlative arrangements for runners and gorgeous and tough route. I ran the 10 k race there yesterday and immediately made a plan to run the half marathon next year.

I and P reached Satara, (1.5 hours drive, 2 hours by bus and 3 hours by train, away from Pune) a day before, collected* our stuff (kit consisting of bib, running tee, route map and other goodies)  from the expo and set about exploring Satara. 
* Great story about the managing team here: They sent a wrong text message regarding the bib number and race category to a bunch of participants. I was one of them. My immediate thought was to get this resolved at the expo itself. To my surprise, I received an email the next day, where they admitted their mistake and gave instructions about what should be done by these participants. I think this was a pretty good corrective measure in what could have been a management disaster, where I could picture participants arguing and fighting with the marathon staff.

Satara has a distinct small town feel to it. There is not much to do in the city itself, except some amazing foodie treats. But around the city are some great escapades like, Sajjangad, thoseghar falls, kass valley (smaller version of valley of flowers) which are 30-40 minutes drive away from the city. So if you are the adventurous kind and would not mind exploring these instead of resting it off, these are a must visit. Of course, we did not do any of this as we were quite anxious about the run the next day.

We hit the sack early and got up at 4.30 am on race day. Owing to the fact that our hotel had some cleanliness and water issues. Runner tip: If possible get an idea about where you will be staying in advance to avoid such issues.

We reached the start point when the half marathon was about to start. After cheering the amazing elite and non elite runners for the half marathon and some warm up, we queued up for the 10k race. The 10 k race, starts in the city, takes one to the sahyadri ghaats upto 5km and then one returns to the start point having gained an elevation of 2034 ft. 
I clicked this picture during one of the water breaks -> 

<3

Needless to say I had not run on a route which is outside the city limits and is surrounded by luscious green hills. I was mesmerized by the views on my way upto the 5k mark. The return was even more beautiful with view of Satara city covered by fog and mist in the early morning hours and the sun penetrating the cover. I did not click any pictures on the way down from the ghaats as I was busy capturing the beauty for my own sake. I will go back to these images in my head over and over, is the only thing I can say right now.

The live traditional dhol-tutari played by local troupes welcomed the runners back in the arena on completion. That along with some astounding ground support all along the route made this one of the most well managed events I have attended since I started running.

I wish to come back over and over again to this wonderful city and these amazing people, just to run with nature and take it all in. If you are a runner anywhere and reading this, then I also urge you to visit the Satar Hill Marathon. You will not be disappointed!