Pete98: Mumbai Marathon RR (Old) (Read 431 times)

well, Pete98 asked:

..I'd like to hear more about them (races), particularly the Mumbai Marathon...

So I found my old RR from last year. CR evacuees might have already read it. It's one of my favorites: Mumbai is a city of over 12 million located on a peninsula on the west coast of India. Better known by its former name of "Bombay", it is the business center of India and is an incredibly crowded, diverse, hectic place where black limousines share the roads with oxcarts and legless beggars on wheeled carts. It is the site of the world's largest slum and some of the most valuable real estate in the world, and is located in the tropics, which means that it is warm and humid year-round, as would become very clear during the race. Once I realized that I had the opportunity to run the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon on 21 January, I jumped at it. It was only my third race outside the USA, and I was ready for anything. I contacted a fellow Marathon Maniac who lives in New Delhi, Dr. Ashis Roy, and he decided to come and run the marathon with me. It just happens that Dr. Roy was, at 74, the oldest runner in the marathon, holds age-group marathon records in India and is quite well known there. This would be his 73rd marathon and we decided to run together, at least for a while. Since I had just run the Tiberias Marathon in Israel two weeks earlier I was planning on taking it easy anyway. Online registration was easy, and it was only $25.00 (Indians only paid $5.00!). Once I arrived in Mumbai and got to packet pickup with the help of my friend Narsi, who lives in Mumbai and would be running his first marathon, I found out one reason why--there was no T-shirt included with the race fee. There was a booth where I could have bought a race logo shirt, but it was basically what looked like a random pile of recycled shirts from a thrift shop, and they would iron on a race logo while you waited. No thanks. The race started at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus. This railway station, built in 1888, is almost certainly the most beautiful railway station in the world. The start was scheduled for 7:40, far too late in the day for this climate. Race organizers said that the 7:40 start was necessary because the TV cameras needed the light of day to record the start. Dr. Roy said that it was because the celebrities who had been invited to watch didn't want to get up early on a Sunday Narsi picked me up at my hotel and we headed out to the start area very early. There have been a number of terrorist bombings in Mumbai in recent years, and security was tight. There were barricades and heavily armed Indian Army soldiers everywhere and evidently they had not been instructed that people in running outfits with race bibs should be allowed into the area. Even once Narsi and I had found our way into the fenced-off area, it was confusing, with no signs indicating where we should go for the start. The half marathon started at 7:00, and 20 minutes later there were still hundreds of runners wearing half-marathon bibs wandering around in disarray. After a half hour wandering around the area we finally found the start corral for the marathon. I could not find Dr. Roy, who was starting in the VIP area. What struck me while waiting for the start was the diversity of the runners--many in long pants, some barefoot, some with turbans, even one woman in a veil. CHHATRAPATI SHIVAJI TERMINUS Precisely at 7:40 the gun sounded, and we were off. The sun had just risen and the temperature was quite pleasant, though it was very humid. In the first kilometer I caught Dr. Roy and we ran together, at about a 4:40 pace, pretty good for a 74-year-old, I thought. He had run this race in 2003, and had a pretty good pace going until the heat got to him in the last part and he barely managed to finish, staggering across the finish at 5:45. The first part of the race ran through Mumbai's central business district, past a huge statue of Mahatma Gandhi to the coast, turned briefly south, then north along the waterfront. This scenic stretch is known as the "Queen's Necklace", because at night the streetlights along the curving coastline are reminiscent of a string of pearls. It's a beautiful sight in a city that has few. I soon realized that I was running with a celebrity, as people were yelling "Dr. Roy!" all along the way, and before long we had picked up a police motorcycle escort who would remain with us for the remainder of the race. I was really enjoying the race at this point. We were running a nice, easy pace, the temperature was comfortable, the scenery along the coast was nice, and spectator support was great. There were crowds lining the route, clapping and cheering in many languages, and bands playing. This race is a big part of Mumbai's strategy of becoming a world-class sports venue, and the Mumbaikans were out in force to support it. We ran along Chowpatty Beach, which is pretty but since the city's sewers empty into it, doesn't smell so good, and is not a place for swimming or clamming! After passing Chowpatty Beach we turned inland and ran through another business district, which included the only hill in the race (actually an overpass), a hill we would again encounter at km 35 under much different conditions. It was still comfortable and shaded along this portion and lined with spectators from all strata of the city's society--from well-dressed businessmen to ragged street children who scurried to collect the water bottles being discarded by the runners. They were all really enjoying the race. At one point I was almost run over by an ox crossing the route! That's something you won't encounter in New York. Something else you will not see in NYC--aid stations offering mosquito spray (malaria is still present in this part of the world). Also, huge signs every km or so: NO SPITTING. It didn't say anything about snotrockets. I just had one complaint at this point, and it was the water stations. The water was in small 250 ml (8 oz.) bottles provided by Kingfisher, a popular Indian beer. This was very important as tap water is not sanitary there and it was good to not have to worry about where the aid stations were getting their water. Good enough, but the "sports drink" was made by the volunteers dumping some powder into these bottles and mixing them up. Trouble was, it was colorless, and you could not tell what was in the bottle you had been handed without tasting it (or pouring it over your head--ick!), and the volunteers were often wrong when asked. Plus, it was just nasty tasting. I could not stand the taste of it, and relied on a couple of packs of Clif Blok Shots and Sport Beans, and a bottle of homemade sportsdrink I had prepared, that had lots of electrolytes. Good thing I had them, as I would learn later. Things went well until about 22km (13.7 miles) when we turned out onto an exposed stretch leading to the turnaround at the Bandra Reclamation, when it suddenly got ugly. It was in the sun, and there was neither wind nor shade. That area is landfill, and is basically an open sewer, and the stench was almost unbearable. Dr. Roy remarked how hot it was, and while we maintained our pace I noticed that my heart rate which had been steady at about 150 until then had jumped in just a few minutes to 165. I knew then that it would be a tough second half. Dr. Roy is a retired cardiologist, so he knew it too. Still, we kept up a 4:45 pace as it got hotter. We began the second half knowing it would be an ordeal. The shade that we had enjoyed on our outbound pass through the business district had disappeared as the sun was high overhead by this time, and it was getting hot. The enthusiastic crowds shouting, "Dr Roy"! really helped at this point. I had a very brief moment of elation when I spotted the "26" distance marker (Whoo-hoo!)...uh, that's 26 kilometers (D'OH!). Around 30km we were given bags of ice, which were really appreciated. I dumped the cubes into my hat and put it back on, and it really helped. Great idea! I almost popped some cubes into my mouth but then remembered that ice is made from tapwater and is not safe to drink. All I needed was to get dysentery! Just another thing that you don't usually worry about in a race. We passed Malabar Hill, where deceased Parsees are left atop platforms to be devoured by vultures. That's what I call recycling. The public area is actually a beautiful garden and park, the deceased are kept out of sight. Inevitably our pace slowed, although we were still on a sub-5 hour pace at 35 km, we hit the dreaded hill which was now under the direct sun. From then on it was a test of perseverance, as temperatures were approaching 33°c/92°F, very humid, no wind, and no shade. By this time the locals were growing tired of having the route cordoned off and were starting to retake the streets, so we had to dodge them too. We were both drinking as much water as we could stand, I had finished off my homemade sportsdrink, and could not tolerate the thought of eating another sweet gel or sportsbean, even though I knew I needed the energy and electrolytes. While I could have picked up the pace a bit and gone ahead I was not having an easy time by any means. Dr. Roy was reduced to a slow, painful shuffle, and I had already decided to stay with him the rest of the way, so I became the mule, carrying water/ice/electrolyte and handing them to him when he needed them. At this point he had a towel on his head and was dumping water on it. The last 6 km or so along the "Queen's Necklace" which had been such a pleasure at the start was now an ordeal, but at last we could see the last section off in the distance, shimmering in the hot, hazy air. Finally in the last 1500m, still with our motorcycle escort, we turned away from the beach toward the finish. Dr. Roy said I should run ahead to the finish. My time was 5:08:30 or so, a personal worst by a long way, but It meant a lot more than if I had run a mediocre time by myself. Finish line food was...a pack of crackers! Yep, a pack of crackers, which I declined. I had not picked up a timing chip as I knew I would run a slow time, and it was a good thing, as the chip return line (to get back a $25 deposit) was over an hour long! Unbelieveable. Some days later I heard from my friend Narsi, who had finished the marathon in a little over 4 hours. He had gone to the medical tent right after the finish with dizziness, headache and nausea. It turned out to be hyponatremia--too much water, not enough sodium. As you might know this is a very dangerous condition and a number of people have died from it, most recently at the London Marathon. Not only that but he also tore the meniscus in his knee, which will require surgery. He is OK now (except for the knee) but I'm sorry to say that Narsi did not enjoy his first marathon. All in all, this was certainly one of my most memorable marathons.