Archive for September, 2009

Over the weekend, I ran the Kaveri Trail Marathon,Ran the Half Marathon this time, 21k , in Srirangapatana, close to Mysore. The track was just wonderful running all along a water body through rich green paddy fields, running in this serene surroundings early in the morning watching farmers toiling their fields and local women washing clothes was quite an experience. There were more than 700 of us out there running and this has now become a yearly feature attracting a lot a long distance runner all over India.

The track is a bit uneven making your run a little more challenging, especially the uneven stones begin to hurt you later on in the race. But what was quite amusing  was loads of people carry all sorts of gadgets while running, for people who couldnt stand their own breath you had the i-pod, there was also a bunch taking calls while running, wonder how busy a person can get ?? and then you had those who carried so many water bottles around their waist belt. Crazy I tell you. Given a chance I would run almost naked (just the bare essentials though) because the lighter the better. Aint it ? plus you had hydration points at regular intervals. Its not like you running on Pluto. There was one great soul who asked me while running, “I think my blood pressure had dropped, What about yours? ”  I wanted to ask him, Surprising you haven’t carried your BP kit huh? People i tell you.

Anyways for me, after having done two 10k runs, A half marathon would be the obvious next transition but with less then 2 weeks of preparation it turned out to be much tougher than I imagined. The first stretch was all fine but the last 4 kms was a real stretch. But thanks to the spirits around, with fellow runners pulling you and your morale up it wonderful how it makes your journey so much easier And in the end it all feels worth it for having finished the race and then diving into water to soak into your personal achievement.

Guess now am an inch closer to run a full marathon and strike it off my “to-do list”. But I’ll look at it only after a lot of preparation because 42 kms I personally feel is quite a distance for an earthly mortal . And hopefully I should have reduced my weight so that my knees are in a much better position to take it. This time I was practically immobile after the race and navigating a bunch of stairs seemed like a huge ordeal.

As of now I’m in great shape for walking , so on Royal Mysore Walks, Keep Walking should be fun, A lot of fun