Gate-crashing

Guess the coolest thing I did in Bangalore was just before I left the city and it was gate crashing a party! It was a party held off the Bangalore Mysore highway. The Saturday evening poker over at Bhaskar’s place lasted past the wee hours of Sunday morning when I excused myself, saying “have to head out in a couple of hours, my friends, I have to go”.

For the record of it, over the evening Mr. Abhinav stacked up enough chips to make a fort of ‘em, and I got a cool photograph of him surveying the wealth, and another that included Mr. Bhaskar in the frame – both joined a few other memorable photos that were lost when later in the year, while back in the city for the Metallica concert my phone was stolen in a BMTC bus. That is different story, included a chase from in front of Christ to a little past NIMHANS, and didn’t lead to me retrieving the phone. Gone, ashtae!

Back to the gate-crashing – Back from the poker, it gave me about one hour and twenty minutes to sleep before heading out with Kishore for the Sunday party crashing. In fact, he was not even crashing it; it was only I who hadn’t registered for it. Missus was so sleepy opening the door and I hoped that the details I would briefly furnish wouldn’t register, and that she would go back to sleep. No such luck! “What!” was pretty much all she said on hearing that I planned to sleep for an hour or so, and head out for the two hour drive to somewhere off the Mysore highway. Of course, it – the plan – could not have pleased her one bit.

This did not, however, stop her from fixing breakfast – bread, jam, tea and water – before seeing me off for the run – this one as unprepared and ill-advised as any.

After picking up Kishore on the way, we followed the usual short cut from Basavanagudi, past DG pump, through Padhmanabhanagar, Rajarajeshwari Nagar (where I shared the broad outline of the famed "consignment" stories) and finally emerged onto the highway near RVCE. Unlike last year, this time we make it just in time it appeared but still, it was no reason to panic. We stopped at the Coffee Day more for use of their toilet than their breakfast. But this year we knew exactly where to park on the Coorg road before walking up to the start line of the Kaveri Trail Marathon – 2011. You could read detailed and useful accounts of the run, although chances are that it would be called a ‘race’ in them.

I am going to skip the timings bit except to tell you that we were both running somewhere between 2:00 and 2:30 pace for the half-marathon, and Kishore ran inside his PB by about 5 minutes.

I was initially worried that somebody at the start was going to notice that I didn’t have the timing chip tied in my shoe laces, or that I didn’t have the chest running number. This made me nervous while walking up to the start zone and tried to keep somebody between me and the left hand side of the trail, where final instruction were being given, and some people were taking a nervous swig at the refreshment stall. They must of set it up for those finishing the race, but why the heck did they set it up so early?! Anyway, I kept glancing furtively to the left and right until Kishore said, “relax, they are not looking out for gate-crashers, it is not a UB City party, remember?”

From that point on I began to relax. He was right, this is after all a good 120 km outside Bangalore, a wonderful early morning drive out but the party consisted for running the choice of one from 10k, 21k or 42k distances, and a party not prone to gate-crashing I guess.

A few of the runners were clearly serious, well-trained, time and running fashion conscious (thank God for that!). Up and down the trail, I didn’t suspect it might be the city just being kind to somebody leaving it, there was a good collection of well toned legs – some of the women lost in their music, some glancing at the watches often, and some just pulling away effortlessly. It would have been a shame if somebody had pulled me out of the run in the middle – but thankfully, that didn’t happen.

At the turn I had only a 100m lead on Kishore, and by sheer fluke the pacing was okay! Anyway, I was soon back to being fairly absent minded through the run except when I saw Mr. Pankaj, Mr. Bhasker and a other luminaries fly past. Then, I would thank them for their encouragement and wonder for a couple of minutes where they got this love for running from, and how they kept it burning. A couple of runners stumbled on the trail and it is on such occasions that this could be tough - as the organizers branded it to be. Mr. Manu’s observation, that humidity of the micro-ecosystem of river irrigation canals was cartoon compared to seaside humidity, came to mind.

Anyway, soon I had entered the arid zone in a half-marathon when you are not fast enough to catch up with the fast pretty women but have pulled past the medium-fast pretty women. That’s when you realize that maybe this is not much of a party.

Burning toes, CNS and other chaffing has you looking for the distance marks – always a bad sign. It was another 3km to go, and this year the sun stayed behind the clouds and except for coming close to a twisted ankle once, it looked like I would make it back – in slow time, but of far more importance, and in one piece. Like any other party I suppose, here is a bunch of people enjoying each other’s company to do crazy things many wouldn’t even remotely associate fun with. There were the usuals who knew the crowd well enough, some slightly strangers, and some gate-crashers.

I could recognize the turn leading up to the finish and I suppressed a smile to myself on the topic that had been oft repeated those past few weeks – "just when you get used to and recognize things, you appear to be packing your bags!" Anyway, challenged a couple ambling up to the finish and the guy responded well enough to overtake me before the finish. Just as well: I needed – I felt – some cover while approaching the finish – what if somebody noticed and found out that I hadn’t registered. The paranoia was back!

Anyway, the kind folks who organize this run (race) came forward and put a finisher’s medal around my neck. Amidst the typical milling about in the finish zone I finally recognized Kishore strolling about. We decided to join the many folks who put their feet into the cool Kaveri canal water. It is a nice soothing thing to do after running for more than a couple of hours. It is a nice spot for a picnic too.

Maybe next time I’d give it a shot after catching some decent sleep. Maybe Kishore will go even faster next time. Maybe I’ll train for a decent period of time, and give the KTM 2012 a good shot, maybe I will even register. Maybe, to the contrary, this is a party best enjoyed by crashing it! One thing is for sure, I slept like a log in the car on our way back to Bangalore.

With or without revolution