The Chennai Marathon Round-Up

Over 28,000 runners participated in the marathon today. There were good and bad points to the marathon. Here’s taking you on a photo journey of the Chennai Marathon.

After waking up at 5:00 a.m today, I had to get a few things prepared. The first was to pin up my race bib to the the Tshirt that I collected from the Nehru statdium yesterday.

Uncut nails can be a source of unnecessary pain if not trimmed. I’ve learnt this from the practice runs.

That’s me taping my finger tips with plasters. During my practice runs, I would end up with blisters on a few fingers. I’ve seen some professional runners do this and decided to try this out. I reliase that this is real effective.

I got in extra cushion soles from Dr.Scholls.

The night before, I bought some of the things from a pharmacy that I’d be needing during the marathon. The two important ones that I found useful during the run was the sunscreen cream and vaseline.

The vaseline was for the crotch and nipples. There can be quite a friction and it can start to get pretty painful after a while. The vaseline did wonders.

The sunscreen cream also came in very handy. I have never run with a sleeveless tshirt before. So the shoulder area quickly began to redden and show irritation as the sun began to climb up. The irritation was quickly gone after I applied the sunscreen. Very effective.

I strapped my iPod Nano on my arm. I knew I had to have music to give me company during the difficult stages of run. But last year, I took along an MP3 players and that conked out from all the sweat. I didn’t think it was wise to lose an iPod. After convincing protests from my wife, I decided against taking it along with me.

Ok, here’s going to be a disconnect in the photo journey. I didn’t click any snap from the time I reached the venue to the beginning of the run. I joined the race just in time. Infact, I ran straight from the parking lot and joined in the race directly! Didn’t have time to do any stretching.

But one crazy thing that I saw was chairs placed right in the midde of the roads as dividers. When the race started, I nearly missed seeing one of the chairs amidst the teeming mass of runners and nearly crashed into one of them.

The beautiful Marina beach view with kids playing cricket on the lawns.

I saw this inspiring hoarding on the way and definitely induced the much needed motivation.

The mandatory self portrait snap!

See the runner with the yellow jersey next to a motorcycle escort? No, not the guy with the red jersery. Look further down the road. That’s the kenyan who finished in second. The beauty is that he finished the full marathon a little earlier than I finished my half marathon distance. !

Ah! What a joyful sight. That’s the finish line in sight. This time, I ran only the half marathon. The heat go to me and could’t push myself to go the distance.

Huge ice bars placed on the road near the finish point. A guy with hammer would smash the bars and hand over small chuncks of ice to rub on your battered legs.

The Rotary guys also had beds laid out for guys who collapsed after finishing. They had doctors from Apollo hospital who attended to these guys.

This guy’s grimmacing face tells the state of most of the guys around. !

This guy ran barefoot the entire distance and his feet were badly blistered. I asked him why he ran barefoot and he told me that he didn’t have money to buy a decent pair of shoes! Aww shucks!

The entire marathon was telecast live on DD. My folks at home were kinda dissapointed that I didn’t tell them in advance, for they could have caught the program on TV. I only came to know about it *after* I finished the race!

The commentators doing the live broadcast.

The antiquated equipments of DD. Look at their cooling mechanism!

Ambulances from Apollo ready to go pick up the fainted ones. The heat was pretty stiff.

That’s me at the finish. Check out the professional looking tshirt which the organisers had given.

The awards ceremony at the finish. As soon as the prize distribution ceremony was over, some of the volunteers along the road went home leaving the rest of the runners in a lurch. Havning no water points can get to your psyche easily.

More shockingly, some of the runners were stopped by the police from running after 3.5 hours. Read Ram Vishwanathan’s detailed recount. I know for sure that there are many amateur runners who crave to finish the full marathon. Not all of us are professioals and we will tend to take more time to finish the race. Devoiding us of the change clearly cheats us off the opportunity. Police stopping runners is definitely not pardonable

Here are two girls who used to be my students when I was teaching at Anna University. They recognised me and caught up with me. Good to know that they are doing the coverage of the marathon for their university inhouse magazine.

That’s the new bike from TVS. It’s called Apache. Almost a copy of Bajaj Pulsar’s design. TVS was the cosponsor of the marathon.