Chronicles of Chennai Marathon 2012

Why I named this post 'Chronicles of Chennai Marathon 2012' will explain in sometime. 

Well, having run 2 half marathons I was aiming at finishing the year 2012 with three half marathons. After Hyderabad Marathon in August, I started planning for my first Himalayan trek. I did most of treks in Karnataka and was planning at something bigger. When I proposed my plan to my adventure friend Vijay, he instantly agreed. Plan was to go in first week of October, trek to Gaumukh and Tapovan, visit Rishikesh, Haridwar, Delhi and return. Planning things went fine, except some last minute hitches on getting my leaves approved. I was off for a week and completed the amazing trek to Himalayas.

Back to the main story, running Chennai marathon was back of my mind. As soon as I was back from the trek, I registered in Half Marathon category. Chennai marathon was scheduled on 2nd December 2012. I continued my practices runs on weekdays and long runs during the weekends. By this time, I got allocated to a new project and my work was at peak. More to add on that I was asked to work on a release that falls on 1st December.. holy cow. Although I skipped few runs over the week but I was pretty much on track for the run. Question to me was, if at all I am running on 2nd December, how would I collect running number, timing chip and other stuff for the run?? With not much hopes, it was definite I was going to miss the Chennai Marathon.

On Friday 31st November, I was checking my Facebook account and saw Chennai Runner had put up the final list of runners in all the categories. I downloaded the excel and started going through the list. I noticed a name which looked familiar. I forgot to mention that in September, Infosys running group had arranged 'Infosys September Run [ISR]', I had participated in the 10 kms category. Among the organizers group I did remember some of the member who were runners too. That name I saw in the list was one of the person who was in the organizing group. Next thing was to confirm if he was the same person, I opened up the telephone directory and searched for Romel Dutta. Luckily I got it right, immediately I called him and explained things. He was kind enough to help me. I sent authorization mail to Chennai Runners copying him to collect running stuff on my behalf. Such a relief, but still there was chance of missing the marathon if my work extends beyond a time where I could not make it.

As expected, on 1st December I assumed to finish things by 12 pm and leave to Chennai but my work extended till 4 pm. Travel to Chennai would take anywhere between 6-7 hrs. In the meantime, Romel called me to update he had collected my running stuff. Being very skeptic on leaving to Chennai by 5 or 6 pm I called up my mother and explained everything. Since I had already practiced and put in some hard work for the run she suggested to go ahead and run the marathon. This was a bit of motivation I needed to go and run. I left by 5.30 pm and caught a bus to Chennai. Bus took an extra hour to reach Chennai around 2.00 am. My fellow passenger helped me to catch bus to IIT Madras, which was starting point for the marathon. I was there in campus around 2.45 am and went to Mechanical Department, only there I could see lights were on. Went directly to washroom and got fresh, changed to my running gear. I could already see volunteers gathering at the venue. I took a small nap at a desk, thanks to the good roads, I was able to get a good nap in the bus.

Race was starting at 5.15 am. I called up Romel, he was on his way to the venue. He was there by 4.30 am. I collected the running stuff, thanked him for helping me out and wished him a good run. After all the drama, I just wanted to complete the race without worrying about PR [Personal Record]. I started the race with slow pace, weather was awesome. Initial 4 kms was inside the campus, around 13 kms of run was outside campus and rest 4-5 kms was again inside the campus. Overall my run was good, I cracked time of 2 hr 12 mins to complete the race. Well, that was my best timing so far.

Overall Rank	Bib	Name	Gender Rank	Split @7.25	Split @16.55	Net Time
243	2439	PRASHANT PATIL	231	00:42:33	01:41:30	02:12:06

                                                                    Timing Splits

Later I called up Venky,  he was my buddy and previous company colleague, who lives in Chennai. He came and picked me, we went to a nearby beach, I don't remember the beach name now. We talked about our days in Pune and in Bangalore. I left Chennai that afternoon and reached Bangalore by evening. I hugged my bed for a good sleep later. That's my chronicles of Chennai Marathon.

Timing Certificate

After the event, many runners complained about the running distance was less than 21.1 kms. Chennai Runners team came with justification after couple of days, race distance was less by 700 meters. I was not very happy to hear that but overall it was very good running experience with lots of drama in it.