The Mum­bai run was an excit­ing event for me. The reg­is­tra­tions start way in advance so there is quite a build up over the months. It was another story that I wasn’t too pre­pared and hadn’t put in any long runs in the month prior to Mumbai.

But I was excited, never the less.

My mom expressed her sur­prise when I said I was going to Mum­bai. To run. I had after all lived in the city for well over 5 years and she couldn’t quite fig­ure out why at this stage in life, I was sud­denly trav­el­ling all the way to another city just to run. Some things are just too hard to explain.

In my many years liv­ing in Mum­bai, I never actu­ally wit­nessed or took part in the Mum­bai marathon. Maybe, I had just read about it in the pass­ing or saw pic­tures mostly of celebri­ties in the dream run. That’s about it.

But life is strange that way. After 4 years in Ban­ga­lore, I was now trav­el­ling all the way to Mum­bai to run the Stan­dard Char­tered Mum­bai marathon on Jan 18.

Look­ing back, I left Mum­bai in 2004 in a bit of a hurry. There was noth­ing I wanted more to leave the city and start life afresh. All my pent up anger and bit­ter­ness got directed towards the “city” though I knew it had lit­tle to do with my problems.

Over the years, when I return, though I feel some nos­tal­gia for a place I lived and worked for more than 5 years, I have no regrets. The famil­iar sights I used to cross every­day on my way to work and the crowded trains bring back mem­o­ries but I don’t miss any­thing. “I’m so glad I left,” I told my friend as we were try­ing to get onto a crowded local in Dadar. While I don’t miss the city, at least I don’t look back in anger anymore.

The expe­ri­ence:

It was still dark in Mum­bai when I started from G’s place in Mahim to Azad Maidan, the start­ing point, well ahead of time. The roads hadn’t been cor­doned off as yet so I was able to get a ride right up to the start point. The Ban­ga­lore gang started trick­ling in one by one and around 640 am or so we made our way to the gates. There were thou­sands of run­ners milling around the ground.

By the time we crossed the flag off point near VT it was nearly 7 am.

I started off slowly (my usual pace!) and soon crossed Church­gate sta­tion and ran out into Marine Drive where a band was play­ing in Rock On style. They had placed loud speak­ers in some places with canned crowd noises so it felt like there was a sta­dium full of peo­ple cheer­ing you! Early morn­ing jog­gers and walk­ers stopped to cheer and peo­ple were out already all along the route.

The Marine Drive stretch of about 2–3 kms was nice and pleas­ant with the sea on one side and I could see thou­sands of run­ners in front and behind.

From there, we ran onto Ped­dar Road via the fly­over where a lot of peo­ple started walk­ing as it was a bit of an incline. I shifted to a slow shuf­fle mode. And then it was the next stretch of Ped­dar Road and here every­one accel­er­ated as it was down­hill right upto Haji Ali.

This stretch towards the half way mark was a lit­tle tir­ing. I took out a fruit bar. There was water all along the way with vol­un­teers hand­ing it out. I car­ried some nimbu paani which I kept sip­ping on.

Some­where near the half way mark, sirens sounded and the tim­ings car crossed with the full marathon run­ners behind them. The Kenyan marathon run­ners (most of them) with their pow­er­ful strides whizzed past and I just paused a moment to just watch them. What beau­ti­ful run­ners they are : their arms, legs all in sync : there is lit­tle doubt that they were born to run. It’s just amaz­ing to watch them. But, I need to get back to busi­ness. On the other side of the road, I could already see many half marathon run­ners mak­ing their way back.

While the Kenyans and other full marathon run­ners went on run­ning towards Ban­dra recla­ma­tion, we had to do U-turn under the bridge and con­tinue our way back on the other side of the road. At the half way mark I took a 2–3 minute walk­ing break and had some dried fruits.

Then I resumed run­ning again and geared up for the slope at Ped­dar Road again. The res­i­dents were out in full sup­port hand­ing out bananas and bis­cuits and water, cheer­ing and encour­ag­ing every­one. The atmos­phere was just great. Over the bridge again and then the plac­ard at the end of the stretch said 18 kms. I was begin­ning to tire slightly and I could feel my feet drag­ging as I turned the cor­ner back into Marine Drive and saw the Ambas­sador hotel in the dis­tance. It seemed really far away. The last stretch was tough and I slowed down a lit­tle to watch all the dream run folks com­ing out for their 6 km stretch on the other side of the road. I thought I would do some star spot­ting but I couldn’t see a sin­gle celebrity :-).

At the cor­ner of Marine Drive before start­ing towards Church­gate, I had some water and another fruit bar and then started back on the last stretch : the most painful because I know the end if near but it’s still out of reach.

As I turned the cor­ner and saw the huge gates near VT that we crossed a few hours ear­lier in the morn­ing it was with a sense of relief that I sped towards the fin­ish line to com­plete the race. Sweaty and tired, I was look­ing around when some­one from the Times Now chan­nel pounced on me and asked me some­thing like how I was feel­ing. I have no idea what I said, but I hope they didn’t air it. I wouldn’t have made for a very pleas­ant sight.

A few had com­pleted the race, still oth­ers were trick­ling in. We waited there for a while watch­ing the dream run folks still going out of Azad Maidan : there were around 10–15,000 peo­ple I think.

I caught up with a few other girls from the gang : Nirupa, Anjana and Vidya and we went back towards Azad Maidan where we were given refresh­ments (bananas/biscuits). We wan­dered around, Vidya tried to find a med­ical aid for her swollen ankle and we took some after race photos.

After a while, I made my way back towards Church­gate. Tired but quite happy with the whole expe­ri­ence of run­ning in Mum­bai : def­i­nitely a mem­ory I will cher­ish for a long time. As I boarded the train, I remem­ber the many times I would take the train back home tired and dead beat after work from Church­gate. This time too, I’m going through the same feel­ings but I’m glad it’s for dif­fer­ent reasons!

I boarded the Churchgate-Borivili slow train and made my way back.

(Pics cour­tesy: Vidya Sam­path)