And the Vadodara Marathon surprised us with all those Positives

This is one event where everything that can go wrong, usually does. But this time, it was the other way round. Which made for a memorable one & VIM should leapfrog places on the “must attend runs” list.

Let’s begin from the beginning, when it appeared that VIM will be its usual mismanaged self. I received an email from the organizers with a long list of participants. I managed to dig out my details & found that I had been registered in the HM Relay category. Inox group being one of the sponsors, our HR team was coordinating the registration of employees & they immediately intervened to bring this to the notice of the organisers. But VIM relishes giving nasty surprises to the participants & the SMS I received a few days prior to the event again referred to me as one of the relay participants. It was finally all sorted out satisfactorily which I may take up in another post on VIM. (As you know VIM always gets more than one post on this blog!)

The morning of 5^th Feb was cool & pleasant. Maybe, a delayed start will not feel so bad. Yes, one doesn’t expect VIM to start on time. Last year (2016) it was delayed by almost 45 minutes because the CM arrived late & then gave a long speech. I would have dropped out but Suresh Iyer, who had come all the way from Mumbai, didn’t let me. The previous occasion (2013) was even worse. Not only did the CM arrive late, he gave an even longer speech as if this was the last time he would get to practice addressing election rallies. That time, HS (name withheld as he is an active member of the party) & I went back as soon as we were out on the road! It was previously announced that the current CM would be flagging off the VIM. Later news came in that he would be flagging off the HM at Rajkot, being organized on the same day. The confusion turned to bewilderment when someone in the know let out that the CM would first flag off Rajkot HM & come to Baroda to flag off VIM. This year seemed to be turning out worse than the previous years!

But I was adequately prepared. 5:30 AM being the flag off time, we left home at 5:00 AM. It was around 5:20 when we reached the holding area. I was astonished to hear the full marathoners (yes, we had the FM this time) being called out to the start line. Even the HM should now start on time which was not something I had planned for. Some anxious minutes & I located Nikki Joshi to hand over the daughter who was running with his group, where I also bumped into Dr. Suresh Nayak with his daughter. Coming to the HM enclosure, it was time to catch up with the known faces of which there were many. Some of them were playing the bus this time, but more on them in the other post.

I am not much into pre-run stretching & the routine, but some warm up is needed. This timely start left me no time for that even. So, I walked for almost 2 KM to make up. It was up to this point only that the plan did not work. With the experience of Gandhinagar, I had planned to run the 1^st half at Dr. Suresh Iyengar’s pace. If it worked once, it should work again too. In fact, this time it was very well planned keeping the whole distance in mind. For instance, I always need to take a pee break soon after beginning. Knowing the route like the back of my hand, I had pre-decided that it would be near the tea stalls opposite SSG. With a relieved bladder, I would rush to catch up Dr. Iyengar & carry on along with him. But the initial walk & the break had taken him farther ahead than I expected. I overtook Mukti Shah, carrying the 3-hour bus & came to the Fatehganj Flyover underneath which Reni was positioned with his camera & other essentials. Moving on to Nizampura, I soon overtook the sister & then the wife & her friend (more of them too in the other post) who were on their maiden run. And saw Rakesh Rawat leading the 2:45 bus a little ahead with Dr. Iyengar for company. For some distance, I boarded his bus but it seemed slower than what Dr. Iyengar can do & we left Rakesh with our good wishes.

As I told you in my previous post on the Gandhinagar Half Marathon (http://runfunetc.blogspot.com/2017/02/getting-lost-in-babuland.html), it’s a pleasure to run with Dr. Iyengar. He runs at an even, leisurely pace which looks so easy that one feels he can easily finish a FM of he only so desires. And he doesn’t mind chatting during the run which helps in diverting the mind from any physical discomforts. He also spotted Dr. Piyush Doshi standing under the Chhani overbridge with his camera. And I got my 1^st photo clicked! The likes of him & Reni are the good Samaritans that make running long distances so much sought after! And Zaheer Khan too. I usually feel famished around 8K which happened this time too. That was when Zaheer came from behind & greeted us. He was one of the volunteer cyclists who were riding the route to assist the runners. He didn’t have any bananas but offered us water which we didn’t need. He moved ahead but stopped to offer us oranges, which we accepted. Something is always better than nothing.

As we neared the toll plaza, we saw water dripping down on the road. I would have blamed VMSS for the poor condition of the water pipe (hoping it wasn’t sewage!), but for two things. One, even VMSS will not take a water line overhead above a toll plaza & two, it was pouring (and not dripping) over only a part of the road. Coming close to it, we realized VIM had put up showers. Wow, this was beyond expectations. This time, the organisers had ticked all the right boxes. I haven’t seen a shower in any of the places where I have run. In fact, I have seen it only at Rio 2016. Getting drenched underneath was a luxury that I also availed when I returned.

As usually happens on an out & back route, we started coming across the faster ones on their return. The half way mark was approaching & leaving Dr. Iyengar behind I moved ahead. Sheetal Griglani, carrying her busload of 2:30 hour aspirants along, informed that the turnaround was not too far off. Which also meant that I was not too much behind the 2:30 barrier that I missed the previous weekend at Gandhinagar. The half way mark was very well provided for. Enough volunteers, hydration, fuel & medical aid too. I think this time there were fewer medical facilities than last year. Or maybe, I missed observing most of them.

A little beyond & I saw Smriti (wife) & Anita (wife’s friend & running buddy) coming along. Their faces did not show any signs of having run almost 10 KM on the trot. This did not surprise me despite the fact that they started running barely one & a half months back. Because I was sure they had been chatting all the way from the start. And if they continue to chat till the end they would not even know when they come to the finish point. Hopefully, the organisers would have positioned volunteers to guide runners to the finish point, else these ladies may very well chat & run all the way home (some 7K beyond the finish) missing out on the finisher medals & post-run selfies! Keeping these fears to myself, I gave them the good news of the half way mark being very close & carried along.

The 10.5 KM point starts playing with one’s head. Up till here it all seems easy & effortless. You cross it & the thoughts turn to the remaining part, especially the end when it becomes a task to carry oneself forward. This is also the time when the sun would be up & it starts getting warm. But the weather held good. The cloud cover shielded the morning sun. As a result it was still pleasantly cold, good enough for a long run. Except that we had to go over a bridge near the half-way point. Being a lazy sort, I always walk up a bridge for I see no point in tiring oneself by running all the way. And I did this twice, cursing the organisers both times for making us climb the bridges within such a short span. The route selection could have been much better, more so for the FM. The poor guys had to go right inside the fertilizer-petrochemical complex which is always much warmer than rest of the town. Add the pollution level which would have been even higher than normal owing to the cloud cover. I will pass this on as Siddharth Katju has left nothing unsaid in his facebook post. Yes, those of us doing the HM were lucky in this aspect.

Descending the bridge, I passed Nilesh Shah on the other side running strongly despite this being his maiden HM. Even I ran up the bridge during my 1^st HM, I don’t know how but the first one always draws extra energy that one has never been aware of. But in all my subsequent ones, including VIM 2017, I have always walked up. I am so lazy that I avoid the bridges even during my routine runs. Another reason for this aversion to bridges is that most bridges in Baroda have not been built for runners/pedestrians or cyclists. Which reminds me that I have long been thinking about doing a blogpost on the bridges of Baroda from the eyes of a runner/cyclist. I hope the coming months would see me doing it.

Dr. Iyengar not besides me, I missed Dr. Piyush under the bridge with his camera this time & he missed me too as I have seen only one photo of mine clicked by him. Actually, I realize this only now as I write this. But I did not miss the group of sardars at the Chhani gurudwara. The day being a Sunday, it was inevitable that the sight of a gurudwara would make one think of a Langar & I tried to smell the familiar aroma but it was too early. The Langar’s at gurudwaras, for those who have been to one, dishes out the best Punjabi food the taste of which cannot be matched by even the highway dhabas. But this time, they had brought out the water for us. Which was better because it was on the return leg that the hydration points had gone missing. Perhaps, I didn’t miss them in the first half.

Last time, many schools had put up support stations along the route with adequate stock of water. I particularly remember the one at Mehsana Nagar crossroads, Nizampura, put up by Jumbo Kids which had a young kid stuffed inside an elephant outfit on that hot day (hotter owing to a delayed start). It seems they opted out this year owing to the route that took us to the outskirts of the city. Or, they may have been asked to participate in the run to shore up the numbers. This was more important because Rajkot was competing with VIM this time for the world record for highest participation. Anyway, the last two hydration points I found were at Nizampura & Kamati Baug. Why can’t the organisers understand that runners need hydration & fuel when they are nearing the finishing point? I had anticipated this to some extent & asked Reni to keep some bananas when I would be returning.

Coming to the Fatehganj flyover, one saw Reni holding the fort with his camera reminding one of the BSF jawans at a border post. The runners of Baroda find as much joy in the run & the finisher medal as in Reni’s photographs & his comments when he posts them on facebook. After he clicked me running, he went over to hand me a couple of bananas. Most welcome as I was feeling so famished, but only one. He didn’t take the other one back insisting that I could give it to someone. He knew what lay ahead of us. Later, nearing the end I needed water & not having any, I had the other one just to get something inside. As Shakespeare once said, blessings come in all shapes & sizes.

I had been trying to catch up with the 2:30 hrs bus, something I just missed at Gandhinagar the previous week. But there was no sign of her ahead & I hurried up. The last 2-3 KM are the toughest as the legs start giving up. With a particular time in target the mind has also been overworked & starts feeling the strain. Pushing the mind & body one last time, I gave it all I had & the Garmin told me I had finished it under 2:30. But it said the same at Gandhinagar too while the official time showed I had just missed the mark. But Sheetal, who appeared to have reached a little while earlier, was of the same opinion as Garmin & I went about looking for the daughter. I found her with Nikki & both of them told me that she had run 10K. A few hours earlier I won’t have believed she could do this but here she was, though very tired which doesn’t happen in the case of a 5K.

The two of us waited at the finish line for rest of the gang to turn up. Gauri was the first to arrive, followed later by Smriti & Anita. Leaving Aanya with them, I moved on to join Harjeet, Nishant & Ajay Sharma at the food court. The food not being enticing enough, we decided to go to Shastri Bridge for some eggs/omelet, picking up Reni from his post.

But not only was he nowhere to be found, even the larri’s near Shastri Bridge were closed. We came back to Reni’s spot & he returned soon to click the full marathoners on their way back. It was late in the morning & the commuters were getting restless. The police personnel at the junction were not enough to manage the crowd & we joined in. There was some exam/test on the day & the parents ferrying their children were getting restless being made to wait for the runners to pass. It was a tough task, deciding who gets the priority. Is it the runners who have done over 37 KM or the students going for an exam? With the help of the traffic police, we managed to keep both the groups from getting too annoyed. As the last of the full marathoners passed us, we also moved to Kirti Stambh to hog on eggs. Where we came to know that VIM had run out of medals to hand over to FM finishers. Somehow, some things need to go wrong at VIM!! But overall, this was far better organized than any of the previous ones & I believe VIM can only get better in the years to come.

I had received my medal & was happy with it but the medal was not, going by this picture. Poor thing, this was the best it could get in a dry state.

Getting Lost in Babuland

The earliest two HM’s I ran were at Ahmedabad, so going to Gandhinagar felt more like returning to familiar territory. At Ahmedabad/Gandhinagar, one also gets to meet many friends who travel to from Baroda which is another attraction. Rakesh Rawat not only hosted us at his brother-in-law’s place which was vacant for the weekend, but also drove us all the way. While RK Menon dropped out, Adil Marawala & I did our best to prime Rakesh for a super finish. We began with delaying the departure by 45 minutes. This was enough to bring Rakesh to his elements, who covered the Expressway in another 45 minutes. An early South Indian dinner at a neighbouring larri, we awoke to a cool, pleasant morning. Rakesh stopped enough to get the proper directions to get us to the venue in, you guessed it, 45 minutes. We were sure 29^th January 2017 was going to be his day, which it turned out to be, with Rakesh getting his PB. But I am getting too far ahead now…

On the way, I realized I had forgot to pick up my mobile pouch & was not sure whether I would be able to take it with me during the run. As it turned out, the mobile did not fit in the pocket & I left it behind. The main reason you won’t find any photographs in this post. Of course, I have been to Gandhinagar earlier & it is a boring city with a very monotonous layout. I am not sure, but I believe Gandhinagar would be the only city in India not to have a MG Road!! I do not think this is because the whole city has been named after Mahatma Gandhi. The naming of roads in Gujarat’s administrative & legislative capital is as unimaginative & uninspiring as only seasoned bureaucrats can achieve. More on Gandhinagar roads later…

The weather had turned cold the last couple of days & we were hoping it stayed this way on the run-day too. Of course, Gandhinagar is greener & we expected it to be not as hot as Ahmedabad. It felt good when we got to the venue. Apart from the weather, meeting up with the Gang from Baroda, many being contenders for the podium. This was the 2^nd time Gandhinagar was organizing its HM. One of my apprehensions was the start of the race. Having had bad experiences at Baroda, which is flagged off by CM’s who have always been late & follow it up with a long speech. Of course there was hope that Gandhinagar being a small town, the neta can always come on time, flag off the event & return to catch up on the sleep. So it was with crossed fingers that we awaited the flag off time. The dignitaries arrived 10 mins before the start & the flag off was as scheduled. Gandhinagar, take a bow!

Some time after the start (usually around 2 to 3 km), I always need to take a pee break. In fact, this has now become a ritual (and I planned for it during my next HM at Baroda)!! Gandhinagar does not have those convenient spots (trees, bushes, boundary walls) as other cities do where one can take a leak. Fortunately, the route passed through Mahatma Mandir, the venue of the famed Vibrant Gujarat investment fairs, which has enough public urinals. I got to one but found the male one locked. I tried the one for physically challenged but found it locked too. Fortunately, the one for the ladies had its door open & I made my way towards it. But finding a female runner also coming to it, I left the place looking for another “public utility”. Which was not too far off and, fortunately, the guy was just unlocking the door of the male urinal just as I reached. I should have thanked him but I was too preoccupied with the task at hand.

Mission accomplished & I returned to the road to find the ever-smiling Doc, Suresh Iyengar. I joined him & we ran at his leisurely pace. The only time one finds Doc Iyengar awake at an early hour is during a marathon at Baroda or Ahmedabad/Gandhinagar. He loves his sleep so much that he won’t get up even if you offer him a beer as an incentive. You should try this, but I will have to be there as a witness (to finish off the beer too).

I had told Dr. Iyengar before the start that today I will return a fast time as I did not have the distraction of the mobile. While we were chatting during the run he spoke about how he always reaches the halfway mark around 1:15 hrs, which was remarkable. Because, I run stronger in the 2^nd part of the run. So, if I stuck around with Dr. Iyengar till the halfway mark, I could make an attempt to finish around 2:30. Of course, he runs at an even & leisurely pace that helps in conserving strength & energy. We were still running around Mahatma Mandir, when Dr. Iyengar spotted an SBI ATM & pointed it out to me. Out of habit, I asked the guard whether it had any cash (remember, cash withdrawal limits had not been lofted then). An affirmative answer made me regret leaving my wallet behind. It would have been sad to leave a cash-laden ATM behind without withdrawing anything. But one had Dr. Iyengar for company.

Around 8K mark, we knew we would now be coming across the faster ones from Baroda on their return. Soon, they arrived – Sameer Gaikwad, Shital Pawar, Narpatsingh Jadeja (Bapu), Siddharth Katju & the rest of the express runners. At around 9.5K, Rakesh crossed us, lost in thought (was it about the 4 things?). Bereft of distractions, he was running a fast one today. The route was flat till this point after which there was a mild downward incline to the turnaround at half way. It was also cooler here with the breathe frosting as we exhaled. Thus, if you want to return a PB, Gandhinagar should be on your calendar. But, maybe not & I will tell you why a little later.

I had earlier during the run decided that I will stay along with Dr. Iyengar (who usually finishes around 2:45) & break away at 15/16 K. But Dr. Iyengar was slowing down & I was getting restive. So, wishing him well, I went ahead. Running alone is something I am quite used to. I was frequently checking the watch to see if I could make it in about 2:30 hrs, perhaps the reason I did not notice the surroundings or other runners. I simply maintained the pace & followed the other runners ahead of me.

Let me now take a breather & count some of the positives about this event. Apart from the timely flag off, the hydration & fuelling arrangements were very good. The hydration/fuelling points well provisioned & I did not find any station out of stock. There were enough volunteers at these points to hand out stuff to runners. The medical aid stations were also sufficient for an event of this kind. It helps when the government machinery itself is involved in organizing an event as I had observed at Rajkot last year (http://runfunetc.blogspot.in/2016/03/and-bapus-ran-on-cold-winter-morning.html). I didn’t come across any traffic (which is a big problem at Baroda & Ahmedabad) along most of the route except at very few junctions. Now for a couple of negatives.

Crowd support was practically absent. Compare this to Rajkot/Baroda & one would think one is running in a ghost town. It seems the netas & babus catch more than 40 winks on Saturdays. Lack of crowd support would turn off 1^st timers & those coming from outside from returning for the event. But this was not such a big problem as the nature of Gandhinagar’s road layout. This was my prime fear prior to the run. I have always been confused about these whenever I have been to Gandhinagar in the past. Fortunately, this time I didn’t lose my way in the maze of metal & tar. Unlike some others.

After around 15K, I came across runners walking dejectedly & telling friends they met about how they took the wrong route & gave up. The first time I heard this I thought the lady was from outside & got lost in Gandhinagar. But a few more times & it dawned that I hadn’t come across any markers along the entire route. Later when I finished, I came to know that Sameer ran into a group of 7K runners on the return & ended up following their route to finish, thus ending up with a DNF. Another podium contender returning empty handed. A little before Mahatma Mandir, I came across a runner carrying a staff as he ran. I wished to know what bus it was (though passengerless) so that I could guess my finish time. He informed that he found it lying on the road & picked it up. Well, a positive here – Swachh Bharat works! Upon finishing, we were told that the entire 2:00 hour bus went along a wrong route & ended up with DNF. Probably, the staff that our friend found was the one this bus threw away. When I was some 3K away from the finish, I couldn’t believe my eyes. There, in front of me, were a couple of runners, one of them I could make out to be Bapu. As I reached them (the other guy was Abdul), I asked them how far it was to the finish. I thought they had already completed & were just out to relax the muscles. They had another story to tell – they actually had already run over 21 km (again, victims of this massive blunder) & had given up when they realized this. They were just jogging to the finish line. Mind you, all of these were the fastest guys but ended up with nothing. Seems more like a modern day version of hare-and-tortoise story, doesn’t it?

Now I wasn’t sure whether I had run the correct course, but looking at my pace & distance it seemed to be in order. I have never run this fast earlier over this distance (I had done Goa & Daman, both in 3:00 hrs the previous month) & the last few kilometers were tough. While I wasn’t really tired the legs were losing their strength fast. I was also very much within the target time of 2:30 hrs & pushed ahead hard. I was forced to take frequent walk breaks on this last stretch. And each time I started walking I would realize that this was only slowing me down. While I gathered strength to run again I also walked as briskly as I could. Never before have I been so focused while running. It was as if the last few days were left in the year & a few more orders would see me through to achieve the sales target. It seemed, real life is so much easier!! The watch showed that I was just a few hundred metres short, the finish was in sight & I pushed along with whatever I had, my eyes set on the watch throughout to see whether I would make it. It told me that I had managed to run 21.1 km in 2:29:something but the finish was a little further away & I raced to it. Later, the official timing turned out to be a little over 2:30, but it was still worth it.

After catching up with the rest of the gang at the finish, a round of selfies & hearing more stories of how the faster ones got lost, the first thing I did was get my mobile from Rakesh’s car, next thing was having some tea (the Gandhinagar one is so less that it can’t even be called cutting) & then another tea, but not before placing the medal on the altar as some rituals need to be done religiously.