8z 01/Dec Yeah. So I picked up my running kit from the school. It was called Global Bees. Very large campus, at one corner of Begur Kopparagode. I returned via Begur, which had some temples, caught Bannerghatta Road again, and then reached home. Had some fairly decent food, after which Rajani wanted to go to 100 Feet Road, Indiranagar, to buy some stuff. So I did those errands also and was back home by 10:00 PM. As she was at the iPlanet shop in 100 Feet Road, I picked a Red Bull for 125 rupees and had strawberry milkshake twice along with a vada pav. The vada pav had a potato, which I thought was a good carbohydrate supplement for my next day run. Back home by 9:45 PM or thereabouts. Tried to go to sleep by 10:15. I had to make a few arrangements at home towards the next day morning. I opened my running kit, put my t-shirt on the dining table, and fixed the bib onto the front of the t-shirt. I kept Vaseline ready. I also kept my knee brace and socks ready. Decided that I would wear the sweater since it was very cold during the evening. I put my Garmin watch on full charge and my Android phone as well. Had my diabetes medicine on time and tried to sleep by 11:00 PM or so. I could not get sleep for about half an hour, by which time Rajani also joined me after having seen that horror movie with Nisha on OTT. I was twisting and turning and tossing throughout those four hours of supposed sleep as well. I put the alarm at 3:50 AM, so I was awake when the alarm sounded because I had gotten up at 2:00 AM, after which sleep was not coming. I was fairly restless. At 3:50 AM, as soon as I got up, I went downstairs, made a cup of tea for myself, and took the tea cup as usual to the washroom. As I was sipping my tea, I tried to do my stools. I think a couple of strands came out, and by 4:10 AM I was out changing my clothes. I put on my blue colored shorts and running t-shirt. Before putting the blue shorts, I used Vaseline. There was a half empty Vaseline bottle on the table already. I applied the Vaseline on my groins, on my nipples, as well as between my shoulder and chest. After my t-shirt, I also put on the hoodie, a sweater-like jacket over me. Went upstairs, picked up my Garmin watch and my phone. I also took a Decathlon energizer gel and a nuts packet given by the organizers of this run. I bid goodbye to Rajini by about 4:20 AM. Walked out of the house and put on my socks, followed by the knee brace and my favorite running shoe, the ASICS gray and white shoe. Some other motions I had to go through: my scooter had to be on full charge, the shoelace had to be proper and tight, and I took the Red Bull bottle, the nuts, and the Decathlon gel. I also took a piece of paper in which to keep the keys later, the scooter key. At 4:22 AM, I left for the venue. This was the entrance to Nice Road Hosakere Halli. I went by Basavanagar Main Road, followed by Old Airport Road, all the way to Richmond Road, under the flyover, onto Hudson Circle, then took the right towards Mysore Road. I missed taking the BGS flyover out there, so had to go through the marketplace. Reached the end of the flyover, kept on going straight, and there was a petrol bunk along with Mysore Road Metro. There, I had to take a left which goes towards PES Engineering College. You need to go under the road, skipping the bridge, and take a loop and you’ll reach the event location. There was a lot of buzz already out there. Several tents were put up. The format is fairly standard for all the races. There was a scooter park. I had a little bit of difficulty locating the scooter park. There were things like a stage where one lady was trying to motivate the runners who had assembled there. This was at 4:55 AM. I had already reached by that time. By 5:10 or 5:15 AM, I was all set. There was a counter for water and hydration. There were also eight mobile toilets placed on one side. There was a counter for luggage, which I obviously did not use. There was a medical camp counter with a couple of ambulances waiting there. Like always, there was a set of drummers making all the noise. I parked my scooter in one corner, folded and kept the jacket away. Kept my mobile inside the storage space of my scooter, along with the helmet. My scooter key, I wrapped it in a piece of paper and kept it in my front pocket of the scooter itself, under one water bottle to make sure that it is not immediately seen by anybody. The reason I did that was I did not want to carry anything at all in my pocket during my run. The only thing I had as I was leaving the scooter stand was my energy gel in my right pocket and the Red Bull bottle in my left. By 5:15 AM, I came to the small queue waiting for the toilet. I did my toilet, came out, and started sipping my Red Bull. Between 5:20 and 5:25 AM, my Red Bull was done and I was progressively walking towards the start point where many people were already gathered. I was perhaps the hundredth person in that queue. The event—normally, I’ve never seen an event which starts later than the announced time, so the announcer was, every 30 seconds, talking about the time which was bound to come. 5:30 AM was when the race was supposed to start exactly. The State Bank of India general manager and a couple of regional managers were there on the stage. They also gave a couple of speeches where they motivated. One gentleman came on stage and talked in Kannada, saying that the weather is holding up, though you have a little bit of drizzle, it has not become a full-fledged rain, so guys go for it is what he was trying to say. Exactly at 5:30, the race began. I know that the first few kilometers are the most difficult, and I know my capacity to do a 10 kilometer run continuously. So I started running perhaps at eight or nine kilometers per hour. The whole path was undulating, up and down. The statistics later showed that it was 190 meters of elevation and 190 meters of descent. So it was meandering down and up. The strategy was very simple. Whenever it goes down, I try to run. Whenever it goes up, I try to run in the beginning 10 kilometers, and later, after the 12th or 13th kilometer, all I could do was walk whenever it is going up. But the point is, I was taking advantage throughout the run of using the down path, the path which goes to a descent because the road is not even, right? There is an up and there is a down. So I started pounding the pavement. I think half the runners or maybe more had gone ahead within the first one kilometer. Thankfully, I spotted the one kilometer board. Some of the races do not do this for every kilometer. In fact, I remember the Chengannassery run, which announced the distances only for every five kilometers of stretch. This one had very nice boards for every kilometer. It was dark. I was running, not too gently, but to the extent I could. As usual, I was huffing and puffing. For the first couple of kilometers, or maybe three or maybe half the journey of the run, nobody pointed out to me asking me to take care because of my huffing, because I usually pant a lot during my run. I make a huge racket, which makes people concerned. They look at me and usually say, “Sir, are you all right?” In fact, in one of the previous runs, I think Goa, seven people came and asked me how I was feeling and to everyone, instead of answering them verbally, I just used to show my thumbs to signal that all is okay, because I was panting so much that I could not also afford to talk to them. This time, this particular run, a total of three people very clearly asked me if I’m all right. The first gentleman said, “Are you okay?” The second person was the two hour 45 minute bus herself. Her name was some Kumar, and she came concernedly and told me as we were slowly jogging by, “Sir, please try to breathe out from your nose.” She mentioned it a couple of times. So much so that in order to escape her, I actually took the opportunity to sprint a little ahead. That was one of the reasons why I actually crossed the 2:45 bus and managed to get my 2:41 time. The third person was also interesting. He noticed as he was running past me that I was wearing my Garmin. He anxiously asked me with a lot of concern, “Sir, please check your heart rate.” I said, “I’m okay. Cool. Don’t worry.” He was not convinced, but he kept looking at me, even back as he was going past. That’s the kind of attention I drew from the other runners. Kept on running. The two kilometer mark came where there was a water station, and then the four kilometer mark. They had good water stations at every place. By the way, I forgot to mention that there was one hydration liquid also, which I had taken at the beginning of the run. So right at the beginning, after maybe two kilometers stretch, I had that liquid. To summarize, I had had Red Bull before the start of the run. I had this hydration liquid from the second to the fourth kilometer so that I did not stop at any water station and kept going. The hard time, usually in a run, is the time between the first and the third kilometer where you really want to stop. You tell yourself, “Look, the body will get adjusted to it, the body will get adjusted to the heart rate and the panting.” So if you overcome the chasm, if you overcome the block, then it becomes easy between the fourth and the seventh kilometer. This is how I have noticed always. If you look at my statistics, it shows that I have perhaps been at my fastest speeds in my fourth, fifth, and seventh kilometer. After that, a very slow slowdown happens. But still I managed to keep running. The run would’ve gotten slower. At the eighth kilometer, I had this urge to have a bottle of water. So I picked up a ready-made bottle and kept running. That small blip is also shown in my Garmin where it says that I took a walk for about 20 meters. There was some construction activity happening on the road. How they do it at Nice Road is, one part of the road, it’s a double road, right? One part of the road is given completely to the runners for both onward and the backward side, and the other half is for vehicles to go back and forth. Usually it is one half for left vehicles and one half for right vehicles. This time they blocked half the road for the runners, for the 10 kilometer stretch. That way nobody got affected. It also being a Sunday lessens the traffic potential, making it convenient and win-win for all. The eighth kilometer happened, and I think I did not struggle too much till then, but ninth and tenth I was looking for the turn back, so it was difficult. Not that it was smooth sailing all throughout. This time I remember very few people who were my peers. There was the two hour 30 minute bus, which was ahead of me with a group of people. There was one girl for whom it was her first half marathon, and this two hour 30 minute guy was continuously talking to her, and I tried to keep pace with them till the seventh or the eighth or ninth kilometer. I did manage to, but then I lost touch with them. There was this gentleman in a yellow shirt by name Venkata Badri. The name was displayed boldly on his T-shirt. Since it was a yellow color T-shirt, he was visible from a distance. This was the gentleman I kept following as a flag. The beauty of the whole thing was that I actually sped past him at the 10 kilometer mark. There were two things I did. At the five kilometer mark, I sped past about five or six runners because I thought the software would identify me as being ahead of these guys. At the 10.5 kilometer mark, where you had to actually turn back—as you know, the run is 21 kilometers in length and 10.5 KM is the midpoint—I was shoulder in shoulder with that yellow T-shirt gentleman, Venkata Badri. Of course, after that he kept jogging past me. He was obviously a good runner. In fact, the T-shirt at the back also mentioned some logo which says “hundred days of running.” So obviously he would’ve been a very potent runner. But he was my flag. 10.5 happened. On the way back, we could do a small loop for that half a kilometer, and when the loop came back… By the way, when I was in the seventh or sixth kilometer, the elite runners were actually turning back, which means that by the time I did my seven kilometers, they had done their 13 or 14 kilometers. In case you are not aware of the record, I did my half marathon in two hours 41 minutes. The topper for the race yesterday was a gentleman, Indian. In fact, the second position was backed by an African, but the first position was by an Indian who did the run in one hour nine minutes. Awesome. For those elite runners who double back, there is always a flag scooter which goes ahead of them. In my ninth kilometer, I saw two girls who were again running past. All this gives you a complex, but that’s okay. You’re running, you know your limitations. I turned back after 10.5 and mentally I know, and this has happened in each of my races, after half the journey I lose the pace. My first five kilometers was at 35 minutes. The second five kilometers was also at 35 minutes. The third five kilometer was at around 40 minutes. The fourth one, the fourth block is the longest. 43 minutes is what it took for me. But this happens naturally to me. I get tired. I’m not able to walk. I did a couple of things this time. At the 10th kilometer, again, there was a water station where I picked up water. But before I had the water, I had my gel. In that half kilometer loop, I remember I used my mouth to suck out that sweet strawberry smelling gel content from its packet, threw it out on the road. I did not care too much for civic sense. I just threw the bottles on the road because I was too stressed out to do things prim and proper. Then after that, to wash away the gel in my mouth, I took that hydration water bottle from that water station and kept going. 11th kilometer onwards, it was a series of walks and runs. At one point I was looking at the palm trees on my left and counted the palm trees. I remember I could run or rather jog for the length of about 16 or 17 palm trees and then stopped and started walking. My walk was with my whole body forward, an attempt to walk a bit fast with longer steps, but huffing and puffing as usual. I kept looking at my heart rate in my watch at that time. That perhaps was a bit of a motivation for me because whenever the heart rate went to 154 or 155, again started trying to run. I knew that if I keep my heart rate at around 160, I am able to achieve a run kind of a module. I very consciously did not look at the time or look at the distance I have covered, only towards the end I looked at the distance. I did not look at the time at all throughout the 21 kilometer run. The palm tree thing happened, after which I looked down on the road and was looking at the slabs. I counted the number of slabs I was encountering. When you’re in a train, you look at the track in front of you and you just focus on the track. You get a bit hypnotized by that, and you keep going, right? Same way, I looked down. I did not look at the runners on the left or right or the path or the road or the sky or the scenery on the side and all. Instead, I was looking down on the road in front of me, in front of my shoes, and was counting the slabs or seeing the path and kept walking. That was another thing I did. There were people on the left and right who were taking photos. The ten kilometer runners who were doubling back also, I had encountered. There was also a five kilometer run. People were having fun. There was one specially abled lady helped by one guy. Both of them were holding hands and walking towards the last three kilometer stretch. I saw one couple. By the 13th kilometer or so, I left that two hour, 45 minute bus lady behind me. She had her own set of small followers. After that, I never encountered her till my 21. That was another motivation. I didn’t want to see her again. I didn’t want her to cross me. That somehow made me gallop to the finish point. 16th to the 18th kilometer was extremely tough for me. There were a couple of things also which happened. Since I had done my Makalidurga Trek the previous day, I had walked with my shoes over jagged rocks and the point between my toes was hurting because of the rock injury. Thankfully, they did not get very big. The pain was there, but I managed that. 17th kilometer, I realized that I was so tired. There was a huge chunk of walking, which I had done at this point of time. Thankfully, by the time the 18th or 19th kilometer come, you know that you only have two kilometers ahead of you, so your body somehow motivates itself to give it your best. At 19th, I remember I struggled to try to run. One thing I noticed was after my first five kilometers, the day broke out. It was brightness. But this time, unlike many other races I’ve seen, there was no photographer. Usually there would be photographers at every nook and corner. You need to wave to them or show your thumb to them. This time there was no photographer at all. So I don’t think I have any photographs of my running the race, unlike several races of the past. This was probably a conscious decision taken by the marathon organizers, which is fine. Of course, they had a finisher arch at the end where there was a long queue. Anyway, I’ll come to that. The 20th kilometer was touched when I saw at a distance the finish line, and there was a little bit of noise or shouting at that finish line. That yellow color guy had gone ahead. I think I lost him by the 15th kilometer itself. He was my only reference point. I walked for some bit. Usually my last kilometer is full of running, but I had to walk a little bit. I was too tired. 500 meters mark was also there and that was a good motivation. For the last 300 meters, I think I ran. There was a bit of carpet put on the floor for the last 50 meters or so. I was not able to sprint the last 50 meters, unlike previous attempts, but I did run to the extent possible. I did not have any competitor who I had to cross and all that. Normally, I do that. In some of the races, if I see two or three people ahead of me in the last 100 meters stretch, I somehow try to sprint across to cross those two or three people. This time, I did not have any such opportunity, but as usual, very muted cheer for my run. I crossed the finish line. People were standing on the finish line, but I don’t think anybody cheered for me at this time. Goa was different. At Goa, I still remember a 100 meter stretch to the finish line. I had finished at a very bad time, three hours, five minutes or so. But these people were there who saw an old man trying to sprint the last 100 meters and everybody was cheering for me. It was perhaps a sarcastic cheer but still, and I felt good about it. This time there was no cheer, so I crossed the finish line and felt a huge sigh of relief. Moved to the left side. There was a water station counter. I took his permission and sat there. The body was going through its various motions. I usually feel very uncomfortable, not panting. A huge sense of discomfort would be there for the first 30 or 45 minutes after the run ends. I asked this guy for help in giving me water twice, so he gave me water and I sat there for about 10 to 12 minutes, stood up, again had one more glass of water, put it into the dustbin and slowly walked to the medal counter where this guy put the medal around my neck and also stamped my right hand to signify that I have collected the medal. Then I slowly walked my way to the food counter. There were medical stalls there. I did not see any massage people. But during the run, I spotted a couple of ambulances going back and forth. The arrangements that way were quite good. As I was walking towards the food counter, the announcer was announcing the winners. Obviously, there were all kinds of category: male, female, male under 20, 20 to 30. In fact, the part of female 10 kilometer was very interesting because there was a 60 plus year old female who had done her 10 kilometer in 57 minutes, whereas I do my 10K in one hour, 10 minutes max. That is the best I can do. So obviously, I have a long way to go and I feel ashamed of myself for talking about this kind of statistic. The food was so-so also because I was not able to enjoy the food given the tiredness of the body. There was kesari bhaat, poha, and upma. I had as much as I could. I think I wasted a little bit of kesari bhaat. Put the plate into the dustbin. Slowly walked up to the tea counter, had one tea. Looked around. The queue for the finisher photos was there. I did not have any great interest to stand in the queue and have my photo taken. So I finished the tea. Realized that I did not need to hang around there any longer. Slowly walked to my scooter. Arranged all the things accordingly, put on my helmet. Took the key from that hidden spot in the front pouch. Tried to find the way back to Mysore road. I did one full u-turn back to the same venue, unable to find the way. Then I put the navigation tool on my Ather for Radhakrishna Viswa. This time I went on the left towards, I think, Kanakapura Road or some place and under the flyover took a right that brought me onto Mysore Road into that satellite bus stand, Deepanjali Nagar. Up the flyover towards SP road and then came to Sharada Theatre. At that junction, usually at that Ulsoor Gate Police Station junction, I take a left but this time I took a right. Went towards the income tax office. It curved towards Mission Road Flyover. Took the flyover into Residency Road and right towards Hosmed Hospital and the Army Accounts Office. Left on Richmond Road, Old Airport Road. It was 8.7 kilometers it showed at that particular command hospital junction to reach my home. But I took the road via Cambridge layout. That showed 6.7 kilometers at one corner. I reached my place at around 9:30 AM. As soon as I came, Rajani was not there. She had gone to her sister’s place. I rested for a couple of hours, just lying on the floor for some time and lying in the downstairs guest room bed because there was nobody to question me, right? Then slowly set about taking bath and stuff like that. I did not feel the urge to eat till about 2 PM or so. Then I did hog some things. I had my butter bread and something else which was there in the fridge. And food, of course. The children had ordered something, so I ate that as well and slowly became better. I rested for some time in the afternoon and by evening I was all right. But I wanted some time by myself so I told my family that I’m going to spend one hour in front of the TV. Then I retired to bed by about 10:30 PM. I was fairly okay. Got up by 7 AM after a good sleep. I think I had a good sleep. No pain in the chest. No nothing. By the way, it was a white T-shirt and when I came home, my family noticed some red color stuff on my chest area below. Then I realized that my nipples actually have bled. My left nipple has bled. That was the external pain which was there when I was actually coming down in the scooter. I was getting worried. What is this chest pain all about? Is it to do with some heart or cardio affair? Later I realized that it was because of the abrasion in the nipple. The left nipple especially. The right nipple also pained. The abrasion happened because of all the running even though I had put on the Vaseline gel on my nipple. That should be a lesson for me to put a bigger piece of the Vaseline gel. So this is how my run went. I did see my statistics at 9:30 only when I came. I still remember when I had just exited the finish line it showed 8:12. So I could mentally calculate on the way back in the scooter that I would have done two hours forty minutes but let me see because I had to open my app and open my Garmin phone to see. I was not in a great shape to do that till I reached home and till I rested. I did feel happy that I had done my race in 2:41, which was a great time for me. Could I have done better? I don’t know. I don’t think so. Any other lessons? Yeah, one lesson is looking at the floor and running by. That was a big distraction for me. Instead of looking left and right at the scenery, which takes a lot more effort as well. Ten kilometer of straight running is a given henceforth. In any future half marathon that I am going to undertake, I am going to run for ten kilometers straight and after the tenth or eleventh kilometer I think you should not stop for a water break because anyway you are going to be reaching your finish line in an hour max. So therefore do not again stop for water at a later stage. I did see people at the nineteenth kilometer or twentieth kilometer stopping and having a sip of water. In fact, there was a water station 500 meters before the finish line and people stood there and had water. I was laughing internally at them. Same way at the nineteenth kilometer one gentleman used that mobile toilet which again wastes time. I don’t know. I don’t waste any time and I keep on resolutely and steadfastly running and still achieve a time which is less than most others. For context, let me tell you this. There were 300 runners who completed the race and my position was 230th. There were 50 people who completed the race in my age category, which is 45 to 59 years. I was 40th among the 50 people. So it is not as if I have had a great performance. It has been relatively a bad performance relative to the other people. But for me personally, I think it was a good effort and I look forward to preparing for the thumbs race at the same place, Nice road, Osakareahalli, which comes fourteen days from now and going to continue to give it a good shot. I am today aiming to do some core exercises with Pradeep in a disciplined kind of way before I attempt that race. But let me see how it goes. I’m saying all this in the josh of having finished my race in a good timing yesterday. But it was a nice experience. Like any other race experience, I have done nine or ten marathons till now. I have those nine medals hanging in one particular wall at Vista. I hope to add to the kitty and I am feeling fairly content after the race. So thank you for reading through. I have spent a lot of effort piecing together this write up. No marks for guessing how I have been able to write such a huge write up. So goodnight guys and cheers to each one of you. Thank you.