Voice of the Cynic: Run Fatty Run.

Running is the mere act of placement of ones legs subsequently one ahead of the other in order to propel himself forward; an action that can be distinguished from walking based on the pace of motion. I believe it is the basic action that leads to the survival of the mankind from cave dweller to the present day fatty sitting in from of a laptop. Back in the not so good old days, when you want to eat you need to run and catch that rabbit or run and pluck that pear before the neighbor gets there. More importantly you need to run faster and longer to avoid being eaten by a saber tooth. You need not have to run faster than the big cat but you just need to out race your neighbor. As time progressed, it was girlfriends, money, bus, prizes and fame that we were running towards and wives, responsibilities, Maneka's pets and insurance agents we were running from. Thought the stimuli changes, the one fact remained same, we were running, we are running and we will be running. Dusting off the philosophy, today I will share my experience on running my first half marathon.

Dr Louis shaking conventional nutrition advice at Tracs Expo

I was always a fatty. I weighed a scale shattering 110Kg not far away and today i weigh a scale cracking 85Kg. To a BMI fanatic, I am an overweight moron, but dear expert can you run a half marathon? Well I can. I was that kid in school who was often picked after the sick and handicapped for any sporting event. I was the one who found solace in books, chess board, road rash (the game), TV and a bag of potato chips rather than haul my ass to the playground. This lethargic life continued all the way from my KG to my PG. It was then one of my friends bought a cycle. I was amused as how someone who could well be my twin possibly ride a bicycle? The damn thing will break when he sits on it. As I ridiculed him somewhere in my mind I wanted to ride it. So i subtly went and purchased one for me. One year, two new bikes and around 5000km later, ta-da, Me version 2. I dropped three dress sizes and was brimming with energy.

During my rides, I have often seen the dudes running around the city and wondered why does someone run when he can bike? After all biking is much easier, more fun and it takes you places. Still out of curiosity I participated in a 5K event at Kochi last year, it was a cake walk. Then I started running little bit and managed a decent finish at another 10K event at Trivandrum. In between I had to change my job schedule and finding time for long rides became impossible. With despair I noticed my scale creep back to the nineties. Donning my running apparel, tighten the laces and took on the roads. I lumbered each mile while the fellow cyclists went far and wide. Slowly I stated to love running as I loved cycling. Incidentally Tracs 21K was open for registration then and I jumped in for it.

I did more or less of a structured training program and was comfortably clocking 15K's with my buddy Sujit and was feeling confident about the HM. As always shit happens and I went down with a fever. Luckily the marathon was postponed for a week due to the local body elections and I had a week to recuperate. On the day of the event it was raining cats, dogs, pigs ~~and cows~~. I don't want to run for my life so strike that. I was totally drenched by the time I reached the university stadium and found a bunch of miserable fellows shivering. Good, let them all suffer, it’s not just me. Found Sujit at the counter and manged to get his bib which he could not collect yesterday. Trying to shield us from the rain and the onslaught of the event anchors voice, we discussed the strategy for the race. It was simple; run when you can, walk then and finally crawl but make sure to finish the damn race. You will start at 5.30AM and the course is open till around 10AM, so ample time. We met the fellow runners, our fanatic cyclist turned runner Doc Kiran who was complaining a HM is too short; Mr Poland who conveniently opted for a corporate relay, bunch of soles from Kochi and a lot of Tracs runners. I saw myriad of people anticipating for the flag off. Fellows who competed in the event, people who wanted to complete the event, to prove or improve them, kids who wanted to experience the event and then there was us, grinning like idiots.

Zumba session

Stretching session

Couple guys from the Talwalkers gym, who was one of the event spongers, took the stage for a session of Zumba dance to warm us up. No, I didn't dance, but i thoroughly enjoyed the event, way better than the warm up we had back in the PT class from school days. Then we had a few uber fit fellows showing up how to warm up with stretches and stuff. I wanted to do that but doing those feats may drain me off the juice which i needed to run so skipped that too, which later on I found was a huge mistake.

The event was flagged off by 5.45 after a 15 minute delay in the rain and Sujit took off ahead of me. In a few minutes I was among the tail. It was not because I was too slow but it was my master plan. I am a narcissistic guy and cannot bear the thought of someone overtaking me. So I will run as the last person so no one will overtake me. Duh ! The plan worked brilliantly for an hour or so, but then the fellows in the lead completed a loop and over took me in their second loop. So much for the plan! Just after a few KM, I made conversation to a co runner Parvathi. She too was a novice and it was her first HM. So was Ajith. From then on we mostly ran together, rested at the hydration points, chatted, joked and laughed harder than we ran. I saw many of my friends and acquaintances during the run, waved and high fived them and wished them all a strong finish. K7 & Kutty were on their bikes as pilots for lead runners and Santosh on his Enfield as a moving time board. I begged all these morons to lend me their rides so that I could finish in ease, but none obliged. During cycling when attacking a significant elevation I constantly chatted the mantra ‘low gear, high cadence, low gear high’ cadence under my breath; today my manthra was ‘Run fatty run; run fatty run’. Finally when I reached the final marker and lumbered my way into the stadium almost spent. Santosh out of nowhere joined me and stared urging to sprint, infusing some of his energy, I mad a last dash to the finish line and went horizontal on the track near to Sujit. Lying down there attempting some stretches, I waved at the other finishers who came jogging in and joining us. Few minutes later we went to collect the finisher’s medals and the race Tee's. It was a beautiful medal but unfortunately, there were no medium or large sized tees and i had to settle for a small sized one. Maybe they want me to lose my flab and get inside the small size as the Doc told. We went to the food pavilion and wolfed down idillies and omelets like there is no tomorrow. Later on took a few snaps and before we parted I said 'Well see you at Spice Coast Marathon next Sunday'.

The finishers medal

The running company

Running company with Parvathi

Last time when I did a 5K in Kochi, I got lucky as my photograph came in the TOI, this time a couple days after the race one of my friends sent me a watsapp image. Once again I featured in a TOI article. Looks like someone in TOI loves me a lot.