On Saturday, after picking up my bib at the CTM expo, my husband, Dom and I made one last attempt at finding the race venue before hand. At the expo we confirmed the location given in the updated link google maps link and we were all set to go. Guess what? That pin was wrong as well! We got to a point where google asked us to turn right and there was a big blue locked gate and no discernible path behind it either. Luckily we could ask for directions and some people pointed us in the right way. It was a relief to find the place finally and figure out the start point. While heading back, we took another route which took us right past Dom's parent's place which was a lot closer to the venue than ours so we quickly made the decision to camp out there for the night which gave us an additional half an hour of sleep time in the morning.
Getting ready in an different place threw me off my usual pre-run rituals. I forgot to eat my homemade pre-run granola snack even though I had remembered to bring it from home. But I was just grateful for the extra bit of sleep and the shorter ride to the race venue. (Did remember to have a banana though.)
Got to the venue perfectly in time. (Thank you, Dom!) The flag-off for my batch was at 5:50. I knew I would be finishing around 8:50 and expecting it to be sunny post 8:00, I had carried my shades and cap along. The sun had already risen by the time we started and it was rather bright right from the onset so the accessories came in good use pretty much from the start.
Five seconds into the run, I felt unprepared for the trail. Even on the flat-ish parts of the terrain, the path was so uneven that I just couldn't find my rhythm and pace. It felt like a trekking trail. The place as such was beautiful and it felt great to be running in nature. For the first half an hour or so, the weather was pleasant. It was breezy and the morning was just light. I even managed to take a few pictures en route. Then the sun came up in all its glory and the temperature and humidity started creeping up. There were several steep sections along the route and while running up them was completely zapping, running down them was death-defying (I exaggerate for effect!:-)). There were also small sections of road and it was such a relief to run on them albeit for a short while.
I was pretty much exhausted by the 12k mark which took me an hour and thirty two minutes. Somehow, I just kept pushing through. The worst part was that most of the trail had no green cover. It was just the land, the sky and all of us running through it. I daresay it would have made for a wonderful experience had the run been during pleasanter weather conditions. But as it stood, it was pretty torturous. Between the 12K and the 18.5k mark I made sure I walked up the incline sections and ran only the flat-ish sections to conserve what energy was left.
The 18.5k mark had the last aid station of the route. It was around 8:30 by this time and I knew I had atleast another 20 minutes of running to do. I looked around the place - flat, grassy grounds dotted with some 50 odd ponds and the sun shining merrily on the whole scene. I could see the path to the finish line winding away in front of me with not a scrap of shade anywhere along it. I attempted running - and I am not sure if it was the actual heat or if it was in my head but I felt faint within 10 seconds. I decided I would be better off walking to the finish line. Several times after that I attempted resuming running and each time I just could not.
In what seemed like eternity I finally came to the turning where I could see the finish line. I could vaguely hear the announcements at the finish desk as they called out the bib number of each of the finishers. I still could not bring myself to run. Finally when I knew I was about a 100 meters away I just had to draw on every tiny drop of energy left and make a dash for it. 2:52 something was the time shown on my app. (Still awaiting the official time).
Done! Thrilled that I did it. Glad that it is over. :-)
Only one more to go.
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