Delhi Half Marathon 28th Oct

"a half marathon is 21kms do you know that? you cant jus complete it just like that understand.. it requires training for atleast a month. so better start running" well thats what i had told my brother when he said that he'd registered both of our names in delhi half marathon. after a week of getting up early morning in chennai and running i could barely even do 4kms after which i couldnt even walk. 21 jus seemed impossible. after i came to delhi 15 days before the event we went for running only once in morning in which we did about 10kms of which i ran only about 5 and the rest only walked. and then soon they sent an envelope of the route and other race details. my brother just kept staring at the map and said "oh my god are they gonna make us run whole delhi? on top of that a U-turn after that? what the hell? nehru park, india gate, rashtrapati bhawan, and then u-turn again?" but he said he could still do it. and me? amm i wasnt quite sure about completing it. apparently we have to complte it in less than 3 hours or we dont get any certificate. two days before the race we went and collected a goddie bag and timing chip and bib number.
so how did it start? night before the race we go to a mall nearby to buy jogging pants for me :D and then there is a movie going on in theatre which we want to see too. so we get tickets for the 2315 show! we reach home at 0130 on race day and sleep at 0200. amazing arent we? and the race manual thingy said take enough rest before race day. :-p. alarm rings at 0400 i go and take bath and then we both take the car and drive from our home in gurgaon to delhi nehru stadium where we'd reserved parking.. which turned out to be complete waste of money coz the parking had space for atleast a 100 cars but was occupied by only 10. no one cared or asked for our reserved parking ticket. anyways so we reach the race start place at about 0710 after a shuttle service from nehru stadium drops us to the holding area at the start line. the race starts exactly as scheduled at 0740.
the arrangement was just really good. and it started exactly as scheduled. lots and lots of cameras every where and thousands of people running together. even an air force chopper which i guess must have been hired by some tv channel. the event was coming live on national tv and a private sports channel.
first 4 kms were quite easy.. but after that i slowly began to think if i can complete whole 21 kms. there were water stations every 2 kms which turned out to be extremely useful. people handed tiny water bottles with enough water to last another 2 kms. somehow i jus kept going. every few minutes i used to take out my cell phone and see the time. after one hour it was only 8. that way i should be able to complete it in 3hours. but then considering that soon i may get too tired to continue it looked like i was way behind. one and half hours and then it was 12kms. which means if i continued at the same speed i can still make it. it was becoming really hard now. and i had to stop after every 200m to walk for a minute before. i'd calculated that i would need to finish a km every 10 mins to finish it. which seemed not that hard now. but i was reaching my threshold level already. every km was being completed at almost exactly the same time i.e. 10 mins, and sometimes a little earlier than that. soon only 4 km were remaining and the crowd suddenly increased by hundreds as another small race (great delhi run) had started and its finish was planned about the same time as that of the main event (half marathon). after 19km mark i was searchin for 20km mark but never saw it. the place looked very familiar to the starting line and i knew the end wasnt that far. and soon there it was. board saying 500m to the finish. and then there was no looking back there were over 20 mins left and i knew i'll complete it in 3hrs no matter what now. my legs had started to pain a lot now and if i stop now it may become to excrutiating to continue so kept running slowly but steadily and reached the finish line in 2:46 phewww. i completed it wow. never thought i could do that. took the phone and called bhaiya and he said he was waiting in queue in certificate counter.
and that was the worst thing about the whole event. vodafone's arrangement after the race was just pathetic. people had run 21 kms and after that what happens? they're made to wait for 2 hrs in the sun in the queue to get their refunds which they had paid for acailing the timing for the race and collect their certificates. i could barely even stand and only after half an hour did someone even bring water to drink. we were told that we'll be given refreshments after the race.. we have no idea when and where were they given nor were we told by anyone. there aws lot of confusion and people were just too irritated after the race seeing this situation. anyways the medal given by them was quite beautiful and we were told that we can download the timing certificate online and so after collecting the medal and getting 1000rs refund for the timing chip we took an auto to nehru stadium (coz the shuttle service had stopped after 12, and we collected the certificates only at 1230) . its like for the race there was so much arrangement and so much media etc. and as soon as its over no one cares. no proper arrangement for distributing certificates and refunding deposit amount no service to drop people to the parking lot which was 4 or 5 kms from the starting point..jus nothing. we reached home after an hour long drive and we were too tired to do anything but sleep and woke up at night. leaving aside the poor treatment after the race. it really was an amazing seeing people have so much spirit, joy and determination and that too people in so large numbers participating for event like this. pictures i'll upload very soon.