Midnight marathon -Bangalore (May 19th 2007)

After having run a full marathon last year,I chose to run a half marathon in the Bangalore midnight marathon on May 19th 2007. I wanted to focus on my timing and get that right in 1/2 a marathon. The day before the marathon while talking to my mom over phone on my plans for the weekend I said 'Am running 1/2 a marathon' and she goes 'oh! why? Don't tire yourself.' I thought it was a funny response 'Don't tire yourself'.What she din't say was 'Can't you find anything better to do? Why don't you just do the regular stuff people do?' At the end of the race, while walking about 20 minutes to get to my car at 4am, I really wondered if I was getting obsessed with all this running stuff! I think I am! I set myself a target of doing 21.1km in 2 hours and I did it. Now I am thinking of how I can better my timings.

The midnight marathon was a very unique experience. We din’t have to bother about the sun beating down on us. The arrangements were pretty good and there was no dearth of water in the water stations. There was enough security and I wasn't scared about stray dogs chasing me. The organizers managed to keep the tempo up with a lot of people in costumes, on stilts, playing music and beating drums etc. The running loop was actually totally cordoned off and we din't have to worry about any vehicles running us over etc. (except for the bikes with camera men and videographers who made us feel like celebrities). Things were more professionally organized and each of us had a running chip attached to our shoes which recorded our timings. At the end of the race there was some chilled Minute maid handed out which tasted heavenly. The whole atmosphere was pretty festive with food stalls, music etc. It reminded me of 'Sports day' at school!

As with anything, experience really helps. After having run one full marathon a few months back, I knew I couldn't depend on the organizers for replenishment of essential salts and sugars. I had my energy bar and Electral with me. Also, being part of Runners For life (RFL) really helps. I get to read about all the smart techniques and we get some professional advice from a doctor (sports and exercise medicine consultant) who is himself a very passionate runner. There are some things that scare you as well....like the news about the 22 yr old guy who died after running the London marathon a few weeks back. I would never have guessed that someone could die of drinking excess water! I think the organisers should write in big bold letters in the marathon forms and advertisements 'Running a marathon could be injurious or fatal.' One should really have a good hang of what this is before putting one's body through this. I think I have been really lucky so far. Wonder if I should keep trying my luck or switch to doing some less eccentric things! I have time to think...next Bangalore marathon is only in September. :D

MTR, Bangalore

A few days back, we went to south Bangalore area for some shopping. After shopping, we felt like a snack and thought we would go to MTR, close to Lalbagh gate, since we were in that area. The charm and the hype of the traditional eatery led us to decide to actually take a detour and treat ourselves. Since we were not very familiar with the one-ways etc, we parked the car and walked about a kilometer to get to this place. We walked in with lots of hunger and anticipation with absolutely no inkling that we would have to wait for an hour to get the 'quick' bite we were looking for.

At 6 in the evening, it was jam packed. We saw a couple of free seats and excitedly ran towards them, thinking we were very smart at having noticed them when so many people seemed to be waiting. The waiter serving in that section seemed to figure that we were not regulars and announced 'Ee section only coffee'! Ah-ha!An enlightened trio, we walked out of the 'coffee only' section to the main hall which had just 6 tables and at least 25 people waiting around the tables. We thought the section on the 1st floor might be a little free...but the queue there was worse so we placed our bet on the ground floor hall. We weren't well versed with the etiquette and protocols of the place, and it took us some time to feel ok about standing so close to some one's chair while he/she was eating and pouncing on it as soon as they began to get up! Each of us picked a chair at a different table and started the wait.

In about 15 minutes one of us got lucky and got a chair. Again, in the hope of optimizing and getting to eat ASAP, we thought we would just place the order and the other 2 can just stand around the chair and eat and just get out of the place. There was no luxury of menu or any waiter patiently rattling off the items on the menu so we decided our items by looking around at what everyone was eating. We did all this across the room, signaling to each other, pointing at half eaten stuff on the tables etc. By that time, the time pressure and tension prevalent in the room seemed to get to us and when the waiter came my friend actually stammered a little while placing the order! He was probably scared that the waiter would give him just 3 seconds to place the order and would just walk away with whatever he heard in the 3 seconds! :D But the waiter heard the list, gave a Are-you-really-going-to-eat-all-that-by-yourself look and asked how many people were with him. He declared that he wouldn't take orders for people who hadn't got chairs...so the other 2 losers just had to wait for the damn chairs to free up.

Since we had all the time in the world we just stood and observed people. There was so much tension all around. Small arguments between people betting on the same chair and claiming they were in the vicinity of the chair first, people waiting for their stuff to arrive...hungry children tired of waiting and displaying their impatience. Far from being a place with a nice ambience for your favorite snack the environment seemed conducive enough for mini domestic fights. An elderly couple ended up having a fight there with the husband shouting across the hall to his wife when the wife wasn't fast enough to pounce on a chair that had freed up. The poor lady seemed to have lost all her appetite after that and just looked in the opposite direction after she got shouted at! It was quite amusing. Even the foodie in me din't quite get why anyone would go through all that for a snack. We ended up spending about 1.5 hours for some dosa, khara bhat, rava idli and coffee. There was no doubt that the food was good and quite unique. But the whole experience made it not worth the while. It felt like we really had to earn the food not only with money, but with a lot of time as well. I have heard that the chaos is much more at lunch time. Patience is in short supply and the waiters treat you like they are doing you a favor and serving you free food. I walked out of the place thinking that the name is quite appropriate – MTR – only it shouldn't expand to “Mavalli Tiffin Room”, it should be “Maha Tension Room”!