Monday, January 14, 2008

चलो मुम्बई

Sunday January 13th.
6:00 AM - The alarm went off - shrill and loud, I tried to linger in bed, but the pull of the road was just too much. After my ritual cup of tea, and skimming through the Sunday newsies, I stepped out. Mom asked "आज पण दोन तास का?"
"नाही, आज जास्तच, तीन तास??"

After warming up, I walked to Good Luck Chowk, stretched a bit and hit the road at 7:33 AM. The stopwatch started, I ran towards Jungli Maharaj chowk, passing Kamat's in about 3 minutes just like last Sunday. It was slightly cold, not too nippy.. just the perfect start. I passed all the engineering company folks waiting for their buses to transport them to far flung reaches of the city to their locations, getting bemused smiles. I reached the far end of Jungli Maharaj Road in 12:28, again pretty much like the last time.

Dodging a National Travels bus near COEP hostels, I went to towards Simla Office. The temperature read 16.9 deg C which I thought was a bit warm for January. I came upon the first bridge near Hardikar's hospital at 16:40 and took around 3 minutes to reach the other end near the Mhasoba temple. One bridge down, one to go.....

I started climbing Ganeshkhind Road in right earnest, flagging a bit, dodging motorbikes and cycles going the wrong way. Starting up on the second bridge, I was doing well and mentally calculating whether I wanted to go to Baner and circle up on Aundh Road (which is a steep climb) or keep on my route from last week. At 33:00 minutes, I passed the Senapati Bapat Road intersection choosing to head down my route from last week towards Aundh fire station. At 35:31, I was just past Raj Bhavan, striding down easily. I met up with a guy who was dribbling a football and just past Pichola, we started passing the football back and forth, till the fire station. Made for a nice break in an otherwise solitary run. I had to sprint hard to keep up with the fast moving ball - it was fun. I turned towards Dass, thanking the guy at 52:18, approximately 7.5 K into my run.

Hour one went past in front of Ozone, and I kept at my pace last week hitting the Baner Road turnoff at 66 minutes. This distance is about 9.5 KM, so at this point, I was doing around 8k/min pace. Going into Baner Road, I noticed that most of the road had been completed and was uncluttered - no concrete mixers, or pickaxes or people hanging around. Near Sakal Nagar, I was forced off the small road surface due to traffic. Navigating my way back through the small clear patches of concrete, I reached Yashada in about 78 minutes, approximately 10.5 KM later.

Climbing up the small incline from Yashada to the University Chowk was not as taxing as the last weekend. I turned off into Senapati Bapat Road, traveling on the wrong side of the road - running against traffic so I could at least see the vehicles coming :-). I thought this was a smart idea and I only discovered how "wrong side" it was till I passed the Chaturshringi temple. The road has been dug up till ICC for some road construction work. There is a small narrow lane, permitting only one vehicle to pass at one time. I was off the road again, hopping over small rocks and chunks of road, as I made my way slowly past this hurdle.

Downhill from ICC, I figured I was running behind my target time of 7 minutes to the kilometer. I passed the 14K mark at the NCC grounds, and went past my turn off last week. I hit the 15K mark in front of the Film Institute in 1:50 minutes about 3 minutes or so behind my 15 K time of last week. I turned off Law College Road onto the Canal Road, passing Dashbhuja Ganapati temple and the 16K mark in 1:57:45. Had to literally find my way through the amassed cars, motorbikes and cycles, so I walked for about a minute. Picked up again and as I passed Jog Hospital, I was 2 minutes past 2 hours into my run.

At the Reliance Fresh store turnoff, (the 17K mark), I was timing 2 hours 8 minutes, the last kilometer a general blur and tiresome. The road looked appealing with its canopy of trees and dense branches - that made the running pleasant. An older gent asked me for directions as I turned off towards Bal Shikshan Mandir and I just nodded... only realizing much later where he wanted to go. I am sure he thought I was an idiot :-). I turned off on Karve Road at 2:15 minutes, having covered 18K thus far.

KM 19 was fairly easy except the navigation through dug up roads and traffic snafus - not made easier, by all the folks going the wrong side. I let out a huge sigh of relief as I passed the Dashbhuja Ganapati mandir again, having gotten past the last climb on my route. I ran past Nal Stop, the traffic cops at the intersection looking quizzically at me, past Aditya Hotel and the petrol pump, past Chinese Room and then I stopped. 20 KM on the dot and 2:30:44:90 later, I stopped.

Phew, what a relief. I headed over to a grocery store, got myself a bottle of water and a packet of Parle Glucose biscuits (the breakfast of Champions), stretched to work the kinks out of my legs. I got into a rickshaw and headed on home.

Here's the map

I am quite happy with my run, though it took me 10 minutes more than what I had targeted. (7 mins/km was my target, 7.5 mins/km was my pace when I completed). I am ready for Mumbai now. This week will be my taper - one tempo run and two small runs till Thursday and that's it.
I am a bit worried about Mumbai temperatures - they tend to be higher than Pune for sure, even in January. Hopefully, the 6:45 AM start should help compensate for this.

चलो मुम्बई!!

3 comments:

Tanvir Kazmi said...

Hey Mahesh, what happened at the Mumbai run. We are waiting to hear some updates from you, do keep posted.

Mahesh Narkar said...

Hi Tanvir,
Thanks for visiting. I keep meaning to update my blog for Mumbai, and something crops up :-(. Will write momentarily

Cheers

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