Bombay meri jaan

I am trying to learn this by heart. I have a big blister/corn on my left heel which keeps dully pounding away every now and then reminding me that I am up against it now. Lots of fear that I will break down on race day but at the same time, I am not going to let 5 months of hard work be forgotten because of pain. No game of cricket I ever played did I approach like this. I am so pumped.

START and FINISH opposite Chhatrapati Shivaji Railway Terminus junction.

Dr. D.N. Road past Fountain to Veer Nariman Road; Left on to Marine Drive towards The Oberoi hotel; Round The Oberoi hotel and back on to Marine Drive up to Chowpatty; Right to Babulnath Marg and left past N.S. Patkar Marg over Kemps Corner Flyover to Haji Ali junction; Left on to Lala Lajpat sRai Marg to Dr. Annie Besant Road and left under Love Grove Flyover/Mela Restaurant; Straight down till end of Worli Seaface; Turnaround at the INS TRATA Round-about; Left towards Thadani Marg; Left on to Dr. Annie Besant Road (Podar Hospital); Straight past Glaxo, Ceat Mahal, Siddhivinayak Temple; Straight along Cadell Road passing Shivaji Park, Hinduja Hospital, Mahim Church Junction; Straight on S.V. Road (i.e. Mahim Causeway); Left towards Bandra Reclamation; Straight till the end of the Bandra-Worli Sea-face link; Turnaround back toward Mahim Church Junction using same carriageway; Right towards Cadell Road; Right on to Thadani Marg; Left on to Worli Sea-face heading towards the Love Grove flyover; Back on to same route up to Veer Nariman Road; Left towards Fountain and back to the Finish.

Injury

Almost right on cue, 3 weeks before Bombay, I develop a serious niggle on my left heel. I attribute this completely to my own stupidity of course. Us humans are gifted with a resilience not common to any other species but that resilience is offset with an ego that can undo anything good.

After a fantastic, near perfect run on Sunday, I went into the gym on Tuesday. That was mistake number 1. Idiot.

Mistake number 2 was continuing to run despite feeling something wasn't right. That too for some reason I decided to put in some uphill. Compounded stupidity.

Result: a swollen left front heel. Lots of Voveran and ice and a large dose of fear. Real fear right now. There's not much pain but the swelling is still very real. Rest, ice, more rest. Pray.

Why I run - reason no. 47

This is after the preface to "The Myth of Sisyphus" by Camus:

"O my soul, do not aspire to immortal life, but exhaust the limits of the possible."

- Pindar, Pythian iii

Overwhelmed

If I've said this once, I've said this a hundred times. But I still can't come to terms with the overwhelming response a simple email or note gets. I was trying to explain this to a friend the other day, how everyone wants to contribute and share their success, how deep down all of us people are actually good and kind and caring. It's hard to imagine but I still feel it's true. I sent out my 2nd round of notes to people on Facebook, talking about my run for a cause and within 30 minutes I had 4 people coming forward to contribute. Just like that. It's unexplainable, humbling and all in all a delightful feeling.

I've raised Rs. 62,000 so far and I hope to touch the 100,000 mark again like last year. I think I will.

Ready

I think I've peaked as far as training for this marathon goes. I completed about 33 K yesterday and although I almost lost it around the 25 K mark, some bananas and water did the trick: I was going strong when I pulled up at 09:45 AM...I'd been on the road for exactly 3:30 minutes with no stops save to buy the water.

I had various pains and scares along the way but I was able to set each of them aside, ignore them and hope they went away which they did.

I think I'll put in one more long run next Sunday before tapering off till Race Day. Good news too on the fund raising front. I've raised about Rs. 60 K and am hoping to bring in another Rs. 40 K in the next month.

Q over Q

I didn't go through with my planned long run this Sunday as I had to be out late on Saturday night. However I decided to put myself through a decent run later on Sunday. I started off very easy and picked up the pace after 5 K or so. I put in a decent 14 K in 1 Hr 30. Again what I was pleased with was the ease and comfort which I felt throughout the run.

I have just about 30 days left before I board that plane to Bombay. The focus now is not on quantity but quality. No matter how fast or how far I run now, it will only improve my Bombay time by not more than a fraction. The important thing now is to experience 3 near-marathon runs before Bombay. Mentally I need to really capture the moments when my knees begin to hurt, to know exactly when my soles or ankles show signs of giving up, when my body is crying out for fluid, when my hamstrings begin to freeze. And I need to acknowledge all of these pains and neatly set them aside and continue running. That really is the key I feel to completing this race.

There is so much possibility I can feel once this first race is behind me. But that's looking too far ahead and right now I need to keep my eyes on the ball. Much like SRT & Yuvi did today. Inspiring stuff that.

The plan for the next 4 weeks is clear: short bursts during the week with the next 3 Sundays really being the dress rehearsals for the big day. If this pantomime had a theme song, it would be Collective Soul in the background, " Have I got a long way to run....Yeah I run..."

Already ready for the next try

Fittingly I write this on Jim Morrison's birthday, or rather how fitting it might have been. For about 15 glorious minutes speeding through Cubbon Park yesterday, I felt that this was the day I would break on through to the other side. I already knew this was my strongest ever pace at the 15 K mark and I should have held back right there and then! But I chose not to and continued to let the endorphins get the better of me. The result: I started feeling the cramp around 20 K and couldn't feel both my hamstrings by 28 K. I could have sat on the jogging strip and beaten my fists on the floor...I didn't know what was making me wince more: the frustration of hitting the wall again or the pain of it. Both were very real.

It took me 20 minutes to walk back home...a walk of about 800 metres. I just could not feel my legs. The pain was excruciating. It took me until 5 PM to be able to hobble about again. I think it was a combination of not drinking enough water and of pushing myself too much too soon. If I had held back around the 15 K mark, it would have resulted in less pain, more distance. I broke a fundamental rule in distance running and paid for it. Sitting here right now it all seems so clear but how can I explain that feeling of complete control when pride & strength (albeit momentary) obscure reason and logic?

This is a classic example of what marathons teach you: humility, understanding & accepting your limitations and pushing yourself to achieve more little by little, bit by painful bit. There really is no substitute for perseverance and hard work. And there really are no short cuts. Momentary, fleeting impressions of power & supremacy are just that. Fleeting. They only serve to make you drunk and then send you crashing back down. This is true for everything we do in life. I think I am going through a self-improvement overload.

But all this is irrelevant. The goal is as distant as it ever was. I have 3 more tries at cracking the 35 K mark. I can't wait for next Sunday.

Counting down

I spent the better part of this week in Delhi and consequently missed out 4 days of training. Of course this is inevitable and I had planned for this to happen several times. Getting back to home base today I look at the calendar with a slight tremor which begins at the base of my spine and somehow works its way all the way up to make my lips curl into a determined smile.

I have 2 Sundays in January where I am going to do light, easy runs of 10 K to stay fresh. Which leaves me with 4 Sundays this month. Looking at things as they stand, it is clear I am physically nowhere close to running a strong marathon and thoughts of negative splits (running the 2nd half quicker than the 1st) are but pipe dreams. I can think of a 100 things I should have done and another 50 I should have done differently over the last 6 months. But it's too late for recriminations. The 4 Sundays in December have to be used for 30 K plus runs. That much is clear. If I were brutally honest what is also crystal is that I need to touch the 37 K mark. 37 K...damn. :-)

Vamos.

My Cause - Support it

This is the email I sent out a few days back to most of my friends living in India. Last year I had raised close to 1 lakh INR towards my cause. This year to date I have only managed to raise Rs. 10,000. A big thank you: Abhinav, Archy, Chitra and Indranil for your contributions.

I have time until January 17th 2009 to raise as much as possible to support Dream A Dream.

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Hi Folks,

I'm not really sure how to begin, even whether I should be sending this out in the first place but I thought about it for a while and I'm going to give it a stab anyway.

Like so many of you, I too felt quite deflated over the last few days. Empty. Numb. I felt all those emotions ranging from shock to anger & rage to a sense of helplessness. I think above all, we want answers. We want to know why and we want to do something. That's what got me thinking...

That's how all this began for me too. A few years back I too felt a sense of helplessness. I felt numb. I couldn't keep ignoring those hands that kept knocking on the window of my car. I couldn't keep driving away. I couldn't keep pretending to see through people, especially when they were children. So finally I changed track. How much that has helped or how much that will help in the larger sense is open to debate and question. Maybe in some indirect way what I do now will benefit those more in need. Maybe it won't. My work isn't unique nor would it probably be missed. But I still try and do what I can in the hope that it will help.

All our problems suddenly seem interconnected: education - jobless youth - social unrest - terrorism - greed - apathy - corruption ....the list goes on. But I think we can all help even by focusing on one small part of one of these issues. We can help either by getting involved or by helping those who are already in the thick of things. And that's the basic plea in this email. I am convinced that increasingly so many of the issues that plague us today are interconnected and by eliminating one we increase the chances of changing the bigger picture.

I recently attended a talk by Subroto Bagchi, a co-founder at Mindtree Consulting. He opined that transformational social change takes time...a lot of time. But also that such change has, throughout human history, been brought about by average people using simple tools. What I took away from that afternoon is the belief that we all can make a difference in ways big and small. I'm trying to make a change, albeit small. I feel Dream A Dream, an organisation very close to my heart, is slowly but surely changing the lives of some of Bangalore's most neglected children. These are children without much of a future, without much of a chance. But every day that they benefit from Dream A Dream's work, these children move another step away from the horror of life on the street or life without a chance to a life of independence, dignity and self-respect. This much I have seen myself, I have experienced to my own surprise and pleasure.

I intend running a full marathon on January 18th, 2009 in Bombay. The fact that I'll be starting from VT and then down Marine Drive in itself is going to mean a lot to me this time around. But what would give me a lot more satisfaction is if I knew that by doing these 42 kilometres, over 1000 children in Bangalore would have more of a chance of one day themselves drafting out such emails and sending it to their friends. That they too one day will sit at desks, in front of computers, have bank accounts, drive cars, eat in restaurants, see the world. Impossible some might say...but let's give it a try. Too much is at stake for us not to care. Not least of all because the smiles on those children's faces makes one forget all the strife, all our problems, all the reasons we fight about. It really is the most pure thing in the world. Let's try to ensure those smiles never fade.

You can contribute by going here. Only Indian rupee donations can be accepted. Please do forward this to your friends and family. If you want to write out a cheque, please address it in favour of "Dream A Dream". Contact me in case you want to know more or get involved yourself.

http://www.giveindia.org/give/pledgepage/abhimehta

Thanks for reading.

Abhijeet

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