Pune Marathon 09' - Get a Life, Run through Streets!
Lately, haven’t been blogging much. Sorry to keep guys waiting! Well, this time around after loads of work, decided to participate in Marathon, for the first time. Though running has always been my favourite but never practiced it seriously. Still just to give it a shot, I registered for 10kms slot and pulled off two friends along with.
Many of you might have heard about the whole mismanagement of the oldest marathon in the country-Pune marathon. Yes, I did observe all that be it registration procedures (no online registrations! :( ), or no direction boards, or be it the marathon jerseys (simply sick baniyans! :( ). I guess most of this was due to lack of marketing and thereby, no major sponsors, so obviously less of glam value! Well, keeping apart all these organizational mismanagement, the event was still well received. Kudos to the Pune citizens and Marathon runners and some corporate participants! :)
Getting back to the day of marathon, i.e the historic 6th of Dec’09, we started off from Alka talkies. Obviously, the great dignitaries(or whatever) including the bollywood star Neha Dhupia were present to inaugurate the event. We started off easy with the hordes of marathon enthusiasts - young kids to marathon veterans, all at same platform vying to complete the marathon. Indeed it was great and different experience to run along with the crowd all together. First and foremost this brings about, the health quotient of the city. I say this with no doubt that Pune has always been and is a budding healthy city with so many enthusiasts bringing in their energies to keep up with moral of the city.The route was from Tilak road to Jawaharlal Nehru road, then over to MG road reaching Pune cantonment and to Hotel Taj through Bund garden road. Running continuously for 10kms at constant pace may seem like monotonous but the fact that you are running along with the so many enthusiasts of city while hordes of city dwellers cheering across is what makes the event so special apart from the joy of running! Still remember the last patch of 300m, when I sped up to ravishing speeds and what a wonder feeling it was! :) Took less than hour for 10kms, not that bad without practice!
At the end point, you could actually see the crowned faces with utter content. Awesome moment really! :) Couple of omelette makers could be spotted, doing their brisk business, feeding the hungry souls at the site. Well, some not so normal people-handicap person as well completed the whole route on his hand operated vehicle.Cheers to his passion!
No doubt, the energy and passion in the atmosphere was so infectious that makes you feel do more and more and more..... :)