Vacillation, Confusion, shouting and a truce:-)

It started at 8:30pm last night when Bryan announced that he has to play a football match and was to reach 'Mcdonalds' at 7am! There were arguments about Mumbai' floods, uncertainty on traffic conditions, reminders that his parents work and would be worried etc etc. He, of course, had his own reasons for first negotiating, then pleading, then shouting; saying that his coach would throw him out of the team if he didn't turn up. I understood his problem; it had to do, not only with his coach' ire but, also with acceptance in a peer group comprising the school team. What if they turn up and he doesn't? They'd call him a "durpoak". The arguments went on till 10pm and since I wanted to do a 1 hr run I was wondering how I would handle reaching him at Andheri station.

I reassured Bryan that if it did not rain heavily, I would drop him at Borivali (the venue of his match) by car and go to office late. He was relieved and called his team to announce that he would turn up. I guess he slept well:-) I woke up about 6 times last night and heard the roar of a heavy downpour. I realized that Bryan would have to miss his match. Heck! maybe his match would be called off. Well, he woke up at 5:30am and sauntered to the window. He asked, "Can I go for the match?". We watched the news which didn't sound very encouraging. Then there was confusion! Monsoon, stated that neither would he go to school nor go for the match in "this heavy rain". Bryan sulked and argued and...God!

Finally, I had this bright idea. I told him that if my driver turns up, he could go with driver and play his match - I would take leave from office. All of the furore settled and there was the truce:-) Well, the driver turned up, Bryan went and played his match, got accepted by his team for turning up and I went for a 13K run with enough time on my hands. Sometime the solution is simple - but it involves giving:-) Dojo was equally delighted to see that I had not worn my office clothes - how these animals understand!

Conversations in the rain

I woke up at 4:40am with a sudden start and realized that, given my chronic insomnia, it would be nigh impossible to catch another 40 winks before 6am, my scheduled wake up time. I decided to enjoy a hot cuppa tea and stare out the window at the falling rain. It was a rainy day alright and I wondered whether Bryan' school bus would make it in this downpour. Even as I watched Bryan getting ready for school, I saw that the rain was now a torrential rush. Time to take a call on whether to send Bryan to school at all. After much agonizing, I thought it best to ask him to stay put at home. He, of course, was delighted with the decision and broached running with me!

Well, that left me to decide as to what I'd like to do about my run:-) I wore my running attire deliberately and began steeling myself for the discomfort of running in this weather. A drizzle is nice; but, giant buckets of water from the sky and a roar of gusty winds? You gotta be kidding, right? Wrong Dan, you just take the lift downstairs and then we'll see. I shook my head as I stared out from the lobby, even as the watchman looked at me with a grin. I said, "one, two, three, here we go!", and I stepped out. There was no turning back now so I jogged along roads that had ankle deep torrents flowing across. I was now soaked to the skin in less than a minute and started feeling the warmth of my exertions counter the cold shower.

It took me a while to cross the JVLR road because there was a huge rush of waves, everytime cars went by - and there were many. I entered the environs of my beloved forest and suddenly I was transported to another world. A world that stood still and silent but for the chirping of birds; full of natural beauty and glistening raindrops and brown coloured rivulets in the mud paths. I grinned with deep satisfaction for having cheated my mind which had taunted me to call off today' run. I jogged the inclines leading to my route and felt liberated as I saw an overcast sky, narry a soul (except for the strays that shivered in the cold & damp) and God' voice in the wind. I finished a gentle 33 mins jog and came home to a yelp of joy from Dojo, who wondered whether this hombre, creating large puddles on the floor, had gone loco:-))))

Thane (Varsha) Marathon

I was well rested in the week of this Marathon but woke up on race morning feeling like I would not be able to eat anything. Due to a real bad experience on running a race with the wrong food in the GI tract, I decided that an empty stomach was a better option. Well, it turned out that it was a decision which was more between 'a rock and a hard place'.

The race had all the confusion at the start and after, typical of political involvement. Meaningless speeches and announcements, runners in disarray, ridiculous requirement of "reporting" to a guy carrying a sheaf of papers and general uncertainty about the start time. Thankfully, they curtailed speeches and the race began at 8:20 instead of 8am. I had decided to run an easy long run in this race and was doing quite well upto the 15K point, when suddenly I found my pace dropping. I realised that this had to be due to low blood sugar, the result of not having eaten something solid that morning. I immediately reached into my pouch and sipped the corn syrup I had carried and which was actually meant to be ingested much later, to get me thru' the 30K mark! The glucose from the syrup had to take time to get into the blood stream and by then I had started walking with Aalok.

Somewhere on the 19K mark I felt a surge of energy which was the glucose making its way into my blood stream. I managed to run the next 2K at almost my tempo pace and crossed the 21K point. I then trudged on towards my objective of doing a 30K but had to negotiate a pot-holed 1K stretch thru' slums. The requirement of spiking my blood sugar with corn syrup again seemed inevitable and I was now walk-running after the 24K mark. When I reached the Nashik highway and the lonely stretch with no one around but pasing trucks spraying slush on me, got me to decide I'd had enough of this race at 27 K and a time of 2:52. I pulled out, walked and found an autorick to return to the start point and thence, home. I stopped at the local wine store and got myself two cold beers which I sipped even as I analysed what went right and wrong for me in this race. Until the next race then.