It was with great relief, joy and gratitude that I crossed the finish line at Mumbai on 19th January 2025 for the 20th consecutive year. Relief that I was able to maintain the streak at Mumbai(2 HMs, 17 FMs and HM), joy to be able to run in the iconic event just 7m after the achilles tendon surgery and gratitude for the recovery post surgery and the support and encouragement from family and friends. I have been extremely fortunate to be able to get back to running just 3.5m post surgery. It is not unusal for folks to not be able to run for 6-8m after such a surgery. It has been a real roller coaster since I sustained the ankle/calf injury during the HM at the Avenue of Giants marathon on 5th May. Did not realise the severity of the injury till a few weeks later and also the long rehab and recovery time required . While Procam allowed for race category change till Nov 29th I realised once I restarted running that it was going to be able to scale beyond 21K for the race in January. My sports doc Dr. G also strongly adviced against it.Given all this I am extremely happy to have met my goal finishing in just under 2:44 with about 55%running and 45% walking every Km.
Flew to Mumbai on Fri(17th Jan) evening due to the felicitation function at the expo on 18th morning. Having planned a holiday post the run A accompanied me to Mumbai. On 18th morning we reached the expo around 11:30am just as procam was finishing up an interview with Sir Mo Farah. Contrary to expectations Procam decided to honor all the runners who had run at least 10 full marathons since the event started in 2004. Of these they decided to felicitate on stage the 'two star' runners- those that had run 15 or more full mrathons. It was nice to get a cap, plaque and a scroll handed over by Mo Farah and also to see the wall of TMM legends displayed in the bib collection area. Though I felt sad that my streak of 17 FMs was ended I was delighted to learn that I am among the 10 runners from across the country(and the only one from Bangalore ) to have run 15 or more full marathons out of the 20 so far.
After an early dinner at home lay down by 945pm. It was a little noisy and was unable to sleep much. Woke up with the alarm just before 2am and was ready and out of the house after a few photos by 2:45am. After walking for about 10m got into the special local from Borivili starting at 3:05. By then Nitin's gang had swelled to over 20 runners. The train was anyway full of runners . Got off at Mahim around 3:45am and reached the holding area ground after a 10m brisk walk. Bumped into old friend and wonderful runner Bhasker Desai on the way. The entry was quite quick and smooth - the volunteers scanned the bib to verify that bibs were not being misused- dont recollect this being done in the previous years. The holding area was a bit small for the over 13K runners. After using the loo a couple of times headed to the start line for Wave C(met NS Partha warming up ). While waiting for the start talked to Amrita who was targeting about 2:15. The race for wave C started at 5:05 . After running slowing the first 100m or so I went into a brisk walk and pretty much stuck to my strategy of 400-500m walk and the rest run every Km. It was very crowded and one had to make a lot of effort to weave through runners and not bump into anyone. The weather was on the warmer side (22c at the start and 24c at the finish 3 hrs later) though a bit humid specially as one hit the sealink n the 4th km. I had a very comfortable run reaching half way in just under 1:20 resisting the temptation to increase the quantum of running. The 2nd half was about 4m slower . It was good to see Naina on and off the course. Could have shaved about 30s in the last 2Kms - but was unable to do so partly due to the density of runners cris crossing my path. Ran them steady at under 8m pace to cross the finish line around 7:50am.
After collecting the medal and refreshment waited for Nitin to come. Asha and Niyati had taken the train and come to CST but were unable to enter the finish area so they took the train back to Borivili after meeting Nitin. The latter took a bunch of us into the TCS booth which was very loud and crowded. Took a few pictures there, ate some more snacks and then rode in a car back to Borivili reaching home around 12:30 - tired but very happy and thankful.
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