Saturday, February 11, 2006

Chennai Marathon 2006

These organisers better go and do something useful. It was the worst kind of marathon that I had ever run. Right from the start, you can tell these guys were acting like clowns with no plans in their heads. It was required of all the runners that we get examined by a doctor. If they had more doctors, it would've worked out ok, but they had only one doctor. Any way, as usual I had my complaining session with the organiser. The organiser grabbed me by the arm quite roughly, he took me to a guy who is some kind of coach who organised the race. The organiser complained that I was shouting at him. It was so funny.

I had a nice chat with the guy, I assume that he was the race director. He let me know go without getting examined by the doctor. I also had three applications for Amri and his friends, they also got the bibs for the race.

The race started at 6:30 a.m. It was much better than starting at 7.45 like at Mumbai. Well, I crossed the 10km mark in 40 minutes, there was no water at all till the 11th Km mark. When I complained to the guys who were part of organising committee, they said that I should learn to run without drinking water. Instead of water, they had offered Glucose powder and peeled oranges. Any way, I didn't really want to run the whole race, so I stopped at the 21km mark. It took me 1:31 hours to complete a half-marathon.

This is great when I consider the fact that I didn't run at all from 15th of Jan till the race on 5th Feb. I was sick with mumps. I had lots of rest and lots of food.

In my opinion, the Rotary Club should stop organising marathons by themselves. They should ask someone who is capable of organising it better or they should employ someone with a little bit of common sense!