SCMM 2015
These are some really long notes about SCMM and running.
Sometimes I think in my perfect world I would never register for races. Nor would I travel to different places just to be able to run in an organized fashion. Its not my perfect world, and hence for above reasons I take decisions from time to time to register for racing events and train for them with experts.
Before every outstation event I go through this :
i. make travel plans a month/15 days in advance
ii. plan my clothes (its a big part of how you fare at any run!) well in advance. Shop if required and practice in them.
iii. Excitement starts building up in the race week.
iv. The Friday before the race is full of travel anxiety.No productive work gets done. I still go to office (Must thank my stars that no one bothers me with important work on such fridays!)
v. Dream about things that may go wrong. For eg. What if I do not reach the venue on time and they disqualify me. Such positive thinking makes me full of nerves. I am *this* short of outbirsts.
vi. Travel. Travel. Travel.
vii. Meet friends to keep mind off d-day. If possible shop, eat out.
viii. Try to get minimum 6 hours of sleep. Though my brain clock wakes me up at ungodly hours like 2.30 am, 3.30 am and then finally 4.30 am.
Till now (this was my 4th half marathon), I have not missed out on showing up at any event. Things haven't gone as worse as I play the what-if scenarios in my head. But all this has somewhere made me a better human being.
I look at the positives. I make plan A-G to be executed during any run. My failover scenarios are ready. And I feel as if I am raring to go. Exactly 2 years ago when I started running, I would not have been able to say a single word about all this, of course for lack of experience. These stretch-your-limits experiences have taught me to be prepared and not prepared for elements of life. I am also not sure if I am conveying any meaning out of the words I just typed.
Anywho, the point is this is my way of tackling pointlessness which loves making its presence felt in my head from time to time. After every race pointlessness takes a backseat and I gain one point. You see the point I am making ?
So if you are a runner in India then SCMM marks the official end of running season here. Its one of the oldest, well organized and prestigious events here!
I signed up for SCMM to nicely seal off my training plan for the year and later to serve as a marker to analyze running performance over the year. I had a good amount of rest in the race week, showed up well before flag off at start point, clicked selfies with friends, ate almonds, calmed my nerves by remembering favorite bollywood songs. Somewhere I was not feeling that strong, but I had following goals laid out :
A. Target the 2.15 hour bus, wherever the pacers were. Run my own race as all the 5 pacers of the 2.15 bus had weird pacing strategies. If I finished 9.5 km in one hour then I would be able to finish in 2.15 hours by staying strong in the last segment i.e. post 18km.
B. Do a personal best.
C. Run my own race. Did I say this already ?
I started really slow as planned, gained pace over the majestic worli sea link, got steady with every passing kilometer. Surprisingly, I did not have to take a single walking break till 17th km, even for drinking water. Even during the infamous steep Pedder Road incline. *humble brag* I could not run a single kilometer without walking breaks 2 years ago and in my last half marathon I took 10 seconds walking breaks just to gulp water. A huge shoutout to RP and their training!
I was taking 2-3 sips of water every 5-7 minutes to compensate for the humidity in Mumbai. My body showed first sign of weakness in the form of salt loss at 16 km with cramps in lower left abdomen. I immediately switched to sipping enerzal from a nearby aid station. They went away fairly quickly. The next event happened post 17km. Lower right abdomen started cramping. This time I walked for 10 seconds, sipped good amount of enerzal and water. Willed it to go away. Bugger did not. It kept on making its presence felt even if my body took a slight bend or tried to do something different to steer my brain away from the pain. I let the body take over the brain which was in such a good controlling position till now. In a way I knew my race was over specially goal A. I walked a bit more. Let time slip by. Post the 18th km marker, I decided I would walk every 20 seconds. But. But. But. The mumbai crowd and excellent support system in the form of bands playing live music, dance troupes, motivational songs, showed up. Damn! How could I even imagine to walk when so many unknown faces were cheering all of us weirdos for no particular reason to keep going. So I kept going. At a slow and steady pace. The pain went away. I crossed the finish line with a timing of 2:21:25. And fainted. This is what real electrolyte loss feels like, I told myself. I steadied and made way to the amazing and special recovery area for women athletes (if I may call myself so without any pretense).
Sometimes I think in my perfect world I would never register for races. Nor would I travel to different places just to be able to run in an organized fashion. Its not my perfect world, and hence for above reasons I take decisions from time to time to register for racing events and train for them with experts.
Before every outstation event I go through this :
i. make travel plans a month/15 days in advance
ii. plan my clothes (its a big part of how you fare at any run!) well in advance. Shop if required and practice in them.
iii. Excitement starts building up in the race week.
iv. The Friday before the race is full of travel anxiety.No productive work gets done. I still go to office (Must thank my stars that no one bothers me with important work on such fridays!)
v. Dream about things that may go wrong. For eg. What if I do not reach the venue on time and they disqualify me. Such positive thinking makes me full of nerves. I am *this* short of outbirsts.
vi. Travel. Travel. Travel.
vii. Meet friends to keep mind off d-day. If possible shop, eat out.
viii. Try to get minimum 6 hours of sleep. Though my brain clock wakes me up at ungodly hours like 2.30 am, 3.30 am and then finally 4.30 am.
Till now (this was my 4th half marathon), I have not missed out on showing up at any event. Things haven't gone as worse as I play the what-if scenarios in my head. But all this has somewhere made me a better human being.
I look at the positives. I make plan A-G to be executed during any run. My failover scenarios are ready. And I feel as if I am raring to go. Exactly 2 years ago when I started running, I would not have been able to say a single word about all this, of course for lack of experience. These stretch-your-limits experiences have taught me to be prepared and not prepared for elements of life. I am also not sure if I am conveying any meaning out of the words I just typed.
Anywho, the point is this is my way of tackling pointlessness which loves making its presence felt in my head from time to time. After every race pointlessness takes a backseat and I gain one point. You see the point I am making ?
So if you are a runner in India then SCMM marks the official end of running season here. Its one of the oldest, well organized and prestigious events here!
I signed up for SCMM to nicely seal off my training plan for the year and later to serve as a marker to analyze running performance over the year. I had a good amount of rest in the race week, showed up well before flag off at start point, clicked selfies with friends, ate almonds, calmed my nerves by remembering favorite bollywood songs. Somewhere I was not feeling that strong, but I had following goals laid out :
A. Target the 2.15 hour bus, wherever the pacers were. Run my own race as all the 5 pacers of the 2.15 bus had weird pacing strategies. If I finished 9.5 km in one hour then I would be able to finish in 2.15 hours by staying strong in the last segment i.e. post 18km.
B. Do a personal best.
C. Run my own race. Did I say this already ?
I started really slow as planned, gained pace over the majestic worli sea link, got steady with every passing kilometer. Surprisingly, I did not have to take a single walking break till 17th km, even for drinking water. Even during the infamous steep Pedder Road incline. *humble brag* I could not run a single kilometer without walking breaks 2 years ago and in my last half marathon I took 10 seconds walking breaks just to gulp water. A huge shoutout to RP and their training!
I was taking 2-3 sips of water every 5-7 minutes to compensate for the humidity in Mumbai. My body showed first sign of weakness in the form of salt loss at 16 km with cramps in lower left abdomen. I immediately switched to sipping enerzal from a nearby aid station. They went away fairly quickly. The next event happened post 17km. Lower right abdomen started cramping. This time I walked for 10 seconds, sipped good amount of enerzal and water. Willed it to go away. Bugger did not. It kept on making its presence felt even if my body took a slight bend or tried to do something different to steer my brain away from the pain. I let the body take over the brain which was in such a good controlling position till now. In a way I knew my race was over specially goal A. I walked a bit more. Let time slip by. Post the 18th km marker, I decided I would walk every 20 seconds. But. But. But. The mumbai crowd and excellent support system in the form of bands playing live music, dance troupes, motivational songs, showed up. Damn! How could I even imagine to walk when so many unknown faces were cheering all of us weirdos for no particular reason to keep going. So I kept going. At a slow and steady pace. The pain went away. I crossed the finish line with a timing of 2:21:25. And fainted. This is what real electrolyte loss feels like, I told myself. I steadied and made way to the amazing and special recovery area for women athletes (if I may call myself so without any pretense).
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| #scmm2015 memories |
SCMM is a really well organized event. Water and aid stations are plenty and well placed. If you have studied your race route well, you would find water/aid stations exactly where you were supposed to find them. In addition locals setup stalls to help poor, thirsty and hungry runners.
But this year's race felt too crowded for my taste. There was not a stretch where you could have the patch of a street to yourself. That's my only grouch. I can imagine how tough it can be to organize an event on such a massive scale so my only plea to the organizers is to cut down on entries. Pretty please!
So what am I up to now ?
I am still recovering from the race. I have showed up at work. I have achieved my personal best timing. And I have learnt to run my own race and enjoy what I can by planning what I can plan for during a run. I am also grateful to the support my friends and family give and sometimes plan their life around my running schedule. I am now going through marathon events in India this year and listing down interesting ones. I'll plan a part of my year around them. Because as I mentioned at the beginning, in my perfect world I would never register for or run races.