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!!