A Search For (My) Life

Many of my friends know that I have a hard time hearing about a race and not entering. Well, the day before last, I found out about the Mumbai Marathon. It will take place this coming January 20th, which is 4 days before I head home. Perfect. And the best part is, the registration fee for Indians (which I will claim to be) is $200INR, or about $5US.

Now, I should also mention that the reviews from last year describe both fanatical crowds and cheering, and also a severe lack of support and water. Couple that with the fact that I’m both very choosy with my water choices here (specific bottled water bought only from reputable shops), and with my food/supplement/hydration during my marathons, and you have an interesting mix.

Now that there is a marathon in the near future, I decided to renew my efforts of running in Bombay. Yesterday I went out in the afternoon, to face the traffic and heat, just to see if it was possible to get in a decent workout. I managed for about 40 minutes before getting sick of it. You can’t really mentally ‘get in the zone’ when you have to dodge traffic every half second. I did come up with a new game though: I call it rickshaw fartlek.

Those of you familiar with track and field terminology will know that ‘fartlek’ means ’speedplay’ in Swedish. It consists of 30 to 3-minute bursts of hard effort, separated by easy running. Now, it turns out that these rickshaws, at max speed, seem to only go about 20-25 mph, maybe a touch faster if they ever hit an open, unobstructed, even road; which never happens. When cruising through the side streets, I can at least keep up with them and sometimes even pass them, as they are constantly slowing and accelerating. So, in order to avoid the throngs of bicycles, cars, pedestrians, and scooters, I started following rickshaws like I was shadowing a runner. They paved the way through the mess of confusion, and I could worry less about the oncoming traffic, and spend more time thinking about the lawn-mower-engine-type exhaust I was sucking in.

I think I confused (or annoyed!) the drivers quite a bit, but it was a lot of fun while it lasted. I always take pleasure in passing lazy cyclists when I’m in the States, and passing actual gas-powered vehicles is just that much more fun.

Mumbai Marathon, here I come.

Tomorrow, I’ll escape to Mahableshwar, a hill station in the mountains, 5 hours outside of Mumbai. It’s my mom’s hometown, and tomorrow is my Grandma’s birthday, so I’m surprising her. It’ll be nice to get away from the city, relax a bit, see my family, and I’ll even get to do some decent running at altitude.

Tags: Bandra, Bombay, mahableshwar, marathon, mumbai, mumbai marathon, rickshaws, Running