The Real and long winded story of the Kaveri Trail Marathon

The reason why I am writing about the Kaveri Trail Marathon (KTM) before the Bombay Marathon is because of the recency effect. I also think I might have romanticized the Mumbai Marathon a little, in my head. And a romanticized version might make this 'real' thing so mundane that you might not even want to read about it.

It has been about 10 days since the KTM now. But it seems that it happened a long time back. It might be because I have been off running in a way since the marathon. Clock roughly 25Km since that Sunday when I drove down to Srirangapatnam. Yes, the same Srirangapatnam where the story of 'Sher-e-Mysore Tipu Sultan' took place. Do you remember the DD serial?

This was supposed to be a tough marathon. For me the toughest part would still be getting up at 3 in the morning and start the ~ 140Km drive at 4:00am. I think I would have cursed Shantanu atleast a few times for volunteering me as one of the drivers. I mean, I would have normally liked this kind of long drive, but at 4 in the morning it was a big struggle. Against the onslaught of the headlights and my own sleep. So after a few anxious moments, for the fellow runners in the car, we were at the starting point.


Somehow, the usual anxiety before an organized Race was missing. I guess it was because it was an RFL event. Another reason might be that this was supposed to be a ramp-up for the Ultra. I will post a detailed log on that in a couple of weeks.

The sky was clear. And that was scary. On a race day, I would always trade in a sunny day for an overcast sky. But as usual, the dice was loaded from the start! It was pleasantly muggy. And I thought to myself, this is close to Mysore so it should not be warm in the day. I did not have to wait for long to realize how wrong I was!

So there we were, almost unaware of what the course had in store for us. Off at the starting point. I chatted with Deepak for a while to realize that he is also trying for the 12-in-12 (Twelve marathons in twelve months) ala Bhaskar. This was his fourth marathon in as many months. And Bhaskar was trying for this 3-in-3. For me it was the 2-in-10 ;)

This was where I stopped a couple of weeks back. I started typing this piece and then I stopped because of the usual distractions. And then with the Ultra looming large over the coming weekend. I thought that I need to finish it.

The first 21Km were easy. They always are. You and your fellow runners are in a chatty mood. You keep talking to someone or the other depending on who is keeping pace with you (or with people that you are able to keep pace with). I think I was on my own after the fifteenth kilometer. The heat hit me around the 22nd Km mark when I started looking for the water station and it was still a good km away. But I think I was still in good shape till the 29th. The Sun was spewing fire by then and there were no trees in sight. It was very muggy, humid and completely unbearable. There were green fields but they were only to be good backgrounds for photographs. And at that point, I think few runners would have been able to muster a smile. So after struggling for the next 3 Km which was a small loop, I came back to the water station where I applied a lot of pain relieving spray.

And then it was just about getting one foot to go forward after the other for a long time. The water stations on the return leg seemed to have disappeared. I felt that the law of physics governing the time-distance continuum had failed. The number of runners on the return leg were fewer. I saw a lot of regulars stopping and taking a break. I was very tempted. Then I heard Amrita calling that there were just another 5 Km to go. I felt proud of myself. The last 7Km just flew by!! 'You rock!', I told myself. But a few minutes down the line, I saw the '6Km to go' mark. I cannot explain my disappointment.

'You suck!', I told myself.

I did not carry a timer with me. I never do. I like to depend on other runners for an indication of the timing. At times I hear, You are going strong' and at times, 'Are you all right?'

Today, I mean the day of the Kaveri Marathon, I was getting the strong comment most of the time. Especially on the return leg.

Yet, I was wondering if it were ever going to end. I was focussed but it was becoming incredibly difficult to keep the focus intact.

And then I saw Ashok. He had completed this marathon in a relatively inhuman time of 3hrs 20min and was sautnering on the track. I asked him, 'How much to go?' I got an answer that told me that the end was just another 100m away.

I did what I usually do when only 100m is left. Put the engine on full throttle and start sprinting. But it seems that the 100m expression was just figurative. The finishing line was atleast another 300m away. Those '100m' were the longest 100m ever. But I did finish the race with a flourish.

I hope I do that the will and the energy to do an encore in the 50Km run coming up this weekend!


PS: Do check out the photographs by Sudhir. Mind you, that the course looks beautiful only in photographs. Its extremely cruel otherwise!

Also check out the snap, timing etc at the Previous post on KTM

Time

Usually, I do not like posts where in people post lyrics of some song on their blogs. If you really want people to checkout that song you can just make a plain recommendation. But am making an exception to what I would usually do.

Have always loved this Song by Floyd. Because its haunting, scary, revealing and inspiring all at the same time. Today it keeps coming back to me. And I am sharing it with you!

...
Time, Album: The Dark Side of The Moon

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day

You fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way

Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but its sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but you are older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought Id something more to say

Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
And when I come home cold and tired
Its good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells

My Second Marathon

I ran the Mumbai Marathon at the beginning of this year. And last weekend I ran the Kaveri Trail Marathon. Shaved around 35 Min from my Bombay finish time of 5hrs 15min. And even then I felt that this was a weaker race. It was very hot and humid. The track was a difficult track to run on and I struggled after the 32nd Km. But I did finish it with a flourish. Practically sprinted the last 300m.


More on both the runs later.

Got this from a friend. Check out the message on the Auto rear-window. Just awesome. The enigma called 'Love' aka 'Lou' (in namma Bengaluru) explained.

In case, the font seems really small:

L: Losse of time (sic!)
O: Out of Mind
V: Vest of Time
E: End of Life

Was totally blown away by such an insightful four liner!

Thank you, Sachin

Yes, I am a few days too late on this. But there was no way that this post was not being written on this blog!


Sachin, this is for you.

Thanks for the years that have gone by. In the last 20 years, you have given a lot of moments to us to be happy/ elated about. You have also given us moments that just wrecked our hearts. But most importantly, you gave us hope. You gave us hope that India can be good at some sport. That an Indian can dominate and decimate the rest of the world, with elan.




Probably, Ponting would overtake Sachin on a couple of statistics. But he will never be able to even come close on how the world has held you in awe over the last two decades!


Here's to the 'hope' that you will bring home the 2011 World Cup!

The Realization

This was almost like the first time a little girl (wanted to be clear about the 'little') called me 'Uncle' on a train journey. I was shocked not because of the actual event but what it meant to me! The days of uncling people were over and the days of bhaisaabgiri were in!

Anyway, I have been reading Paul Krugman for a few years now. At times I think he is too leftist and may be unequivocally Democrat (US Politics) but overall I am addicted to him. So when I got the alert from WSJ that the Swedish Academy has decided to award the Nobel Prize for Economics to him, I swelled with pride. May be it was because it was a first of sorts - being cognizant of the Nobel prize winner before the list was announced.

How you explain knowing the name of a nobel prize winner? Mathematically - With more and more names thrown at you with the passage of time, the probability of such a event happening just goes up and up. So it is also a cold realization of the fact the one has aged! Never expected it to be this fast!

Rock On! and Jaane Tu...

I know when I write about Rock On!, I would not be the first one (or the last) to write about it. At this coming at the time when I should be writing about the Bomb blasts in Delhi and Pakistan or the Bajranj dal hud-dang in the name of protecting Hinduism. May be, I am writing this because a friend's wife told me that she thought of me when she saw Farhan Akthar (I wonder why no unmarried women is telling me this!!!). Or maybe because of the wide eyed, sugary sweet Prachi Desai.

But really, I just had to write about it. So obviously, it seems that I liked the movie.

I think people have written peans about the movie. How they liked the characterization and the plot and the script. Some people felt that the movie was long.

I am writing this because this movie brought back the memories of all those live performances that I have been to. Rock and non-rock. I think there is something about being in presence of music that you can connect to. The sound track of the movie is great. Farhan is no great singer but Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy do a great job of making him pass off as a rocker! And the soundtrack, it just keeps coming back to you. Also, because I believe that there is a huge market for Hindi Rock. I am secretly hoping that some good Hindi rock bands will take the cue and dish out some nice music. And someday, the Hindi rock scene would rival the Japanese rock scene as well (Am telling you some of the Jap songs are just awesome!!)

I also saw Jaane Tu... [I am running a huge backlog on Movies, so please bear!] Again, since this movie has been written about to death, I won't even try to write anything about the movie. I just wanted to mention that this movie has a great music as well. The classics from this album for me are Tu Bole, Main Boloon and Kahin to Hogi woh. I especially love the Rahman's rendition of Tu Bole. I think the last two songs that he has sung were just about ok (Khwaja mere -Jodhaa Akbar and Tere Bina - Guru) - as far as his singing is concerned. But with Tu bole, its pure Magik!

Recommending

Would really like to recommend the Faking News blog. Really loved its coverage of the contemporary news items.

Actually wished that I were writing all that. But guess, I have been taking myself too seriously for sometime now.

Reading Two Books in Seven Days

I have started reading again. I mean I am always reading something or the other but lately I have felt have my attention span has been waning. Over the years my concentration has deteriorated and my interest levels have dwindled. At times, I have blamed it on my context and at times on the lack of familiarity with the context of the book and its characters. At times, I think, it might have been sheer fatigue with the written word.

May be I read too much of the dark/sad stuff and the poison slowly seeped into me from the pages. At times, I fear that I am becoming (have become?) one of those lamenting, numb characters from one of those books that I just love. I think therein lies the appeal of those profoundly sad books. They touch something somewhere inside you. And you are startled by it - and if you are lucky, you discover something about yourself. Anyway, as I said, I might have been reading too much of this stuff. So on purpose, I have been laying off such books.

I have changed the kind of books I read. And I think I like this change.

I read the Maltese Falcon and then the City of Djinns. Nice books both of them. I think the vagabond in me liked the city of Djinns. And the Falcon was ok. Then, I started the Moviegoer. It is a book that I have wanted to read for a long time. But as I started it, I realized that it is another of those self-discovery books. Nothing wrong with it. As a matter of fact, it is one of the Time's top 100 books from the last century. But just that these days, I am not in the frame of mind where I can ingest, digest and love such books. So I gave it up mid-way. Maybe, i will pick it up again. Someday!

Then, I started 'The Day of The Jackal'. I told you that I am loving the inane these days. But Forsyth tires me easily. Not with this book but he has done that with aplomb in the past. So for no reason, I gave up reading this book midway. Certainly, no reflection of how interesting the book is. Am clarifying here as I do not want any hate mails from the ardent lovers of this book. Like the one who loaned me this book. May be, I will also turn into those who swear by the Jackal sometime down the line!

But last week has been phenomenal. I read two books. And to the readers of this page, I would like to recommend them. Its Not About The Bike by Lance Armstrong and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Murakami.

The former has a significant amount of American showmanship. But even if you normalize it for that, it is a wonderfully inspiring story. And what delights you is the fact that most of what is being said in that book happened. I never knew that Lance came back from death (His Doctors had pegged his chances of survival at lower than 3%!!). You feel the climb up the col du la madone and the chaos from The Tour de France lands right into your room. It sure did fire my imagination in a way that no book has done in a long time.


Then there is the Murakami book. This is a usual Murakami book if you have been reading him for some time. But as a runner ( :-) I think I have earned it!), this book is just delicious. There are things in that book that only runners will understand. And like me, he is also a re-creational runner (Though it seems that he trains harder). So at times, it seems like an intimate conversation. How often do you get that in a sheaf of papers bunched between two hard boards?

The Slight

It might have been so slight that it went unnoticed. Or may be, people did notice but decided against bothering themselves with it.

The Games, as usual, have their own diplomatic element in full flow. It seems so, at least, on the set of things that are close to India. It started off with the invite for the opening ceremony going to Sonia and Rahul. Reaching out to the power center but a slight of no small dimensions to our sovereign head. Of course, this was extensively chronicled and discussed in the media. More in the Hindi/regional newspapers and with a small mention in the English newspapers.

But this thing with Nepal can become disturbing. Deuba, the newly elected president was to go for the closure ceremony of the Olympics. But as soon as, Prachanda (of the CPN - Maoist) was elected Prime Minister, an invite was forwarded to him for attending the closure ceremony. How does it matter?

Nepal has had a strong dependency on India for a lot of things. From trade to defence, India has had a major (not to the liking of the likes of Prachanda at times) role to play in Nepal's affairs. With this kind of change in the leadership in Nepal, things were to change. It seems that China is trying to precipitate the change. We might have to take appropriate diplomatic steps to keep Chinese 'encroachment' under check. The MEA might want to make some right noises that this point in time.

Bhutan is turning into a democracy. It is a state where we have had a strong (at times, intrusive) role to play. It might be a good idea to play our cards right to ensure this relationship does not go the Nepal way.

And what do we do with the slight? Forget it, not sure if anything can be done on that part. Apart from biding our time and taking the odd chance when Taipei is under discussion.