SCMM Full marathon report - V - Running route map

Though all the run reports had been posted post the Mumbai Marathon, the route map had not been posted. Here it is now :

The distance really looks mighty now ! I am surprised at myself. The Map is thanks to my   Garmin Forerunner 210.

SCMM Full marathon report - IV - Run report

Woke up at 3.30 AM to be able to reach the venue by 5.00 AM (Azad Maidan opposite Mumbai's famous Victoria Terminus).

Had slept great and woke up with a clear head WITHOUT a single of thought of  " I must be F***ing crazy to be on a holiday and waking up at 3.30AM to run 42.195 Ks in the heat and humidity of Mumbai. I should go back to sleep". Got dressed - I had kept my gear all ready the night before.

In my bottle I took Gatorade mixed with water.

As I came out of the hotel dressed in my gear and clutching my 3 bananas, I came across another marathoner (working with Microsoft, dressed in a Microsoft shirt, talking high of Microsoft Mango coming from Hyderabad, sorry mate, I forgot your name) getting into a taxi. So I ran upto him. He took one look and asked me to get in. We reached VT, crossed the VT and exited to the side of Azad Maidan and there he found his running group from Hyderabad and I found my 5.30 bus.


I joined Rahul's 5.30 bus and followed it till 20 K. The bus followed the programme of every KM marker we walked for 20 steps. Every water station, walk another 20 steps. The routine was awesome and had I trained better I should have been able to follow and finish with him. The Bandra Worli sea link came and went. It slowed me a bit but not much. But 20 K was when I started lagging and at one point had to get off as I was getting exhausted. I had remembered some good advise from fellow runners and had prepared some food for the run, some bread, butter, jam / marmalade with salt sprinkled on them.

I remembered various discussions on R&L forums about cramps and only remembered water & salts as the things to have to avoid cramps. I had started with Gatorade in my bottle and tried to refill as many times as I could get my hands on it at different watering points. At around 27 K there was no more Gatorade Was having watered down Gatorade till 35 K when I decided that I was going to be a candidate for cramps, so I switched to electoral as I thought it to be the next best thing.

The Mumbai citizens did what they always do, Cheered the runners ! They were awesome, out in big numbers armed with food, fruits, water, sprain sprays etc. I thanked as many as I could for turning out and they were thanking me in return ! What warmth !

On the return loop we were on that part of the route , marine drive I think, where there was direct sun  and no shade. That was killing. I was thankful for my dri-fit microfibre clothing, incl microfibre undies from R & L, my cap and sunglasses.

At around 38 K mark I cam across an angel. An angel with a bottle of cool water and a cool mist spray. I stopped in frot of her bowed to her. Took off my cap and glasses and said give it to me. She sprayed the cool water on my face which was heavenly. I then asked her to spray on my head as well. She, however, knew better. She poured the bottle on my head. I could feel the steam and the cold water trickling down the spine to my shorts my bums and I relished. relished the wonderful feeling. Most wonderful at the time.


I was tired now and couldnt run continuously for over a 100 mtrs at a go. I dint stop. I pushed myself to walk faster. Thanks to my   Garmin Forerunner 210.   I could keep track of my speed and therefore could convince myself to run / walk faster to be able to keep to my target.

Was very happy with my under 6 hrs first marathon. Couldnt stop smiling. No aches, pains or cramps. Decided to skip the beers at Leopold as Rahul told me to get a cold shower ASAP. I had not realized till then the aspect of over heating. Reached my hotel. Had 2 glasses of Glucose. Took a cold shower, got into a bath robe. Had a beer. Had a sandwich. And slept away !

However, the next day, I caught a cold and a cough. I read on it online and found that this is pretty common as the body has low immunity after being exerted too much.

Took me 10 days to recover from the cough and cold, but all is well.

SCMM Full marathon report - III Music

In my previous posts I have talked about several of the motivational videos that I go through on the morning of a big run. This time was planned to be no different.

However, due to a quirk of Apple iTunes, my iPad did not have those videos ! I had to rely on the some my fav high tempo music tracks to pump me up (at the same time allowing my baby to sleep).

The music tracks running in my mind specially when I was at my weakest were only 2 & one motivational ad from Saucony :

- Dirty Dozen Brass Band - My Feet Cant Fail Me Know  



- Ram Sampath from movie Delhi Belly Bhaag DK Bose Bhaag  



- What is Strong ? Saucony @ You Tube

SCMM Full marathon report - I Results

In 2011, as I was running the half marathon and coming over from the Sea Link on to Marine Drive (queen's Necklace), I looked on the otherside of the road and saw a bunch of runners, some shirtless, some fully clothed, running, walking and I thought " Man ! These guys are Heroes ! Gods ! I am a lousy halfie running half marathons and boating to my family and friends and they further boast about me. " Thats when I decided to do a full marathon !

A year later on 15th Jan 2012, I was the guy on the other side ! The halfies were looking at me and possibly (hopefully) thinking the same ! I was the God and the Hero at that time for those moments. There were certain moments when I felt truly the mortal I am, but I quickly lost track of them.

And when I finished... I thought I will have tears in my eyes on completing my first marathon . But no, just one big SMILE that just wouldnt wash away ! I did it ! Though I didnt do it alone. There have been many helping hands to do this and they shall all be counted with their own dedicated post.

Here are the results of the run :

Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon 2012 -Marathon 5:40 Start
Bib Number	2250
Name	RISHI MADAN
Gender	MALE
Category	OPEN
Overall Rank	1169
Category Rank	830
Gender Rank	1098
Split@2.7 Km	00:20:11 at an Avg Speed of 8.03 Kmph
Split@15 Km	01:52:14 at an Avg Speed of 8.02 Kmph
Split@20 Km	02:29:29 at an Avg Speed of 8.03 Kmph
Split@27 Km	03:26:37 at an Avg Speed of 7.84 Kmph
Split@28 Km	03:36:55 at an Avg Speed of 7.74 Kmph
Split@29 Km	03:48:47 at an Avg Speed of 7.61 Kmph
Net Time	05:55:26 at an Avg Spped of 7.12 Kmph
Gross Time	05:59:28

To check your timings at SCMM click on Timing Technologies

Here comes the highway to Hell !

The Mumbai marathon is around the corner. I am a bit scared. Only a few long runs and no running on weekdays for more than 3 months ! And no running at all in the last 3 weeks !

Good news - that niggling pain below the right knee is gone. Bad news, haven't tried it out yet !
Another Good news, I have lined up my family members to give me gifts, if i complete my first marathon !

Here is the route of the Marathon, looks real mighty looooooooooooooooong. I will be earning those gifts. Really.

I will be singing and praying what the Dirty Dozen Brass Band are singing below :

Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon

My running stuff all laid out the night before.




The lines in front of the loo, the slight nip in the wind probably had all the bladders aching for a leak....
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This is the crowd before the starting line, took me 6 mins to cross the start line from the point where i was starting. Real narrow, more like a 2 lane road.




The Bandra-Worli sea link, in a different view. The sun was just coming up and the mumbai skyline from the sea link was looking good.

Mumbai marathon

Being completely Gung Ho abt the whole half marathon thing and before even running my second half marathon (the delhi half) I registered for the Mumbai half ! Which I ran today. And finished.

The run was quite good. Some key things which immediately stood out

- since the start point and end point were 21.097 kms apart, the organisers had implemented a marvellous idea for bagge storage for the runners. They had trucks being used as storage. Each with a number on it to identify. and after the race started, the truckes moved to the finish line and wre available for people to take their stuff back! Awesome simple idea.

- the people were a bit more well behaved then the Delhi crowd. no was peeing on the walls in the holding area as they did in Delhi. But then the auth. were stupid not to provide any port-a-potty or a water station. At least in Delhi they had organised port-a-pottys.

- the humidity, it was easy to start sweating within 15 mins of starting the runa at a leisurely pace. It acually becae a bit easier once the sunn came up and the drenching stopped

- the smell, Mumbai stinks, literally. Through out the run there were stinks that lasted a couple of kms making it diffficult

- the no. of water stations were so low and poorly organised. people had to climb over each other to get to that precious bottle of water. They were also not as frequent or large or well equipped as in delhi

- Delhi provided entertainment on rout in the way of live bands, cheerleaders, dancers, good music to give that extra push. Not in Mumbai. The only thing was a small 200 mtr stretch with "Rose Sound' the old style bhompu kind of speakers who had torn to shred the whole body n soul of the sound coming out. What were they thinking ?

Luckily there was a nice girl running ahead of me with her mp3 player who was singing aloud the sings she was listening too. Entertainment !

- ofcourse neither Delhi nor mumbai believe in providing dustbins to throw away the empty bottles / peels. This inspite of the Clean mumbai posters through out the route. maybe they were just posters, no meaning.

- Mumbai also has some hot ladies. Here I mean physically. Both running and on road sides cheering us on. Another factor which added the smile to my face. btw I think this was one marathon where I was smiling throughout inspite of some nagging things.

- The best part of Mumbai - the people ! They were awesome. They were out on the road with water, oranges, bananas, biscuits, candys and the most important motivating cheers. More than once they put the pep in my step and a smile on my face to keep on running and reach the finish line.

- Finish line - no markers for exit, where to go, information desk - nothing. so either walk in a wrong direction or ask people around. took me 1.5 hrs of loitering, 5 kms of walking to get the to the car.

btw I finished in 2hrs 48 mins and reached the final in good shape no aches, no pains. The trach was difficult with some 2-3 kms of upward incline, 1 flyover and the bandra worli sea link. a couple of pics i took.

Speed Limit 50kmph
No overtaking



The sea link !



after the half.



ADDENDUM :

The story at the airport.

My 2.45 PM Kingfisher flight got delayed and was finally scheduled at 4.00 pm. They were nice enuf to keep informing abt same. I arrived at 3.00 pm, checked in, went to the Kf lounge, had a beer and some snacks and 3.30 went for the security. Standing in the serpentine queue with just 4-5 people ahead of me I was on schedule. Then when i started emptying my pockets into my bag, I realised I did not have my boarding pass. In retrospect, I would have loved to see the shock on my face. In any case, i backtracked to outside the queue to look for my boarding pass. There was a kingfisher fellow and as I was approaching him another guy was also walking towards him with a boarding pass he had found :) Awesome.

Time 3. 35
Well then came the security. Both my jacket & handbag went in for the X-ray. My hand bag was packed the same was as was on my trip from Delhi, no addition / subtractions except adding vada pao for Sue. After the X-ray the guy kept my bag aside saying I had a lighter in there. I opened up my bad with all contents outside but no lighter. There was a a wafting smell of the Vada paos though. Well they went through the bag with a fine toothe comb and still no lighter. Then the constable went into one of the side pockets and came up with the lighter ! It was a complimentary to be given away therefore forgotten. Surprising was the secirity in Delhi had cleared the bag without batting an eyelid. So Security ??

Time 3.48 - after the security I ran down the corridor to get to the staircase, flew done the staircase and reached the sirity gate where the ground staff stood fuming seeing how short I had cut the time. Then came the second shock. In the hassle of the security check I had clean forgotten my jacket. I kept my bag with security chap, flew up the stairs , ran dow the corridor on to the X ray belt and true to goodness my jacket was there, squashed by the oncoming baggages.

Time 3.53
With the jacket onto my shoulders and then for the third time i ran down the corridors, flew down the stairs and on to the gate. Then with poise i handed them the boarding card and quitely walked in, knowing they cannot leave without me.

Time 4.00
On the flight, my seat was the second before last 29 D so i walked again to the end of the plane and took my seat next to a nice beautiful Kingfisher air-hostess. Yippee, i thought. After unpacking my book n music i settled in my seat. Food came pretty quick. i had 10 molecules - 5 each of the chat & the seek kebab and the terrible taste was disgusting me but i didnt make any faces as the pretty Kf girl was eating it all up ! What a turn off ! SO i slept only to wake up in Delhi.