2017 - Trail to Trail.

2017 has been surprisingly different compared to other years. It had been full of happenings , misses , sadness, joy.

Glancing back I see meeting wonderful people, miserable people and so on. Its been said by elders that we should look into the good and ignore the bad or the evil. I am putting down highlights of year which is of course anyone's guess Running and few of the people I met during this year due to Running. I am trying to recall the first instances and impressions, hoping they will not beat me up in this year.

Rahul photobombs my selfie @ Kokata Trails 

Rewind to Jan 2017, I started off the year with Kolkata Trails 10KM run. This was in the wetland in Salt Lake and  had to run through the trail. Quite scenic landscape from normal road running. I injured myself at 7KM mark and managed to finish. In this trail I met Rahul Gupta, I was sitting nursing my injury, when he introduced himself. He seemed a nice guy and later in coming months found him so. I met him next time at the first collaboration run hosted by Kolkata Running Squad, he was walking down the last km. He again introduced himself. In this event met Sourav Kashyap who was with Rahul. The next event  where I met Rahul was Gulal Run at Lakes. Like always he again introduced himself.  Rahul in the year climbed mountain literally and physically as well as he ran Kalimpong half marathon. Starting from Trail 10k to Full marathon at Hyderabad, he came long way in terms of achievements in running. Towards the year he became a pacer in Airtel RFE  (10k) and TSK25 (25k) which is recognition of his capabilities. And at the, time of going press ( I loved using this line) he is selected as a pacer for FM. Nevertheless there  exists a child in him which comes out whenever you mention running or anything related to it. He has been face of Salt Lake Runners with Pramil aka Pam..

                                             

Gulal Run in March was with Milind Soman and a promo run for the Pinkathon. This event I met quite a few people Devender Singh, Arvind, Alivia. Those days I was just into running and hardly knew people or had friends. While coming down to the event I saw Arunji, and called him for a lift to the start point. For people who don't know him, he is master international athlete having won  gold overseas. This was beginning of interaction.with him.

Coming back to Devender, I was standing buy awkwardly alone. I saw him standing  alone as well in front of Milind poster.. Whenever I see a Sadarji, I always feel like speaking with them. I went up and spoke to him . after briefest introduction (brief is grammatically short, nothing called briefest exists), he asked me do you know Sudheer Ahuja. The salesman in me woke up not wanting to acknowledge said I think I have heard of him without faintest idea. Anyway that was the beginning of friendshi with this guy.One of the cool head guy in Salt Lake Runners, who always try to find out solution and he introduced me to Salt Lake Runners in April.

If memory does not fail me, Rahul Pam Devender all met in this event as well.  This probably set up the stage for Salt Lake Runners faces 

SALT LAKE RUNNERS

I met another guy in this one and whose name came to know after next month's collaboration run.  One thing was Milind Soman with his Salt and pepper look still had a strong female following. Being a promo event, there were people with camera. As I had finished my run of the Lakes, i was walking down the the event centre stage , I saw a young guy (disclaimer this is literally only) with camera as long as badminton racket in an Orange t-shirt taking pics. I signalled to him to take mine as well, he called out SMILE and again smile till I had actually smiled. After the event I though good photo must have been taken, unfortunately will not have it. Bit fast forward to 2nd week of April, i was running in Collaboration run hosted by Kolkata Ultra, saw this guy in orange again. He was again was welding the humongous camera and taking pics. This time I was part of Salt lake Runners, and came to know hus name Sayantan Dasgupta. For my non running friends most of the amazingly good pics of mine on FB has been shot by him.  His photography along with Suman Dasgupta helped popularising running, collaboration run. In fact, many of the Runners started running because Sayantan would taking pictures in the collaboration run. So I don't need to mention the huge fans he has. Additionally he is pretty good runner. This unfortunately does not help our cause.of getting good pictures. Lastly, he is naughty as well. The reason is for me(you) to know and others to find out and Aao kabhi haveli pe are his favourite pet phrases.

                                          Guess which one is Sayantan?

Trying to weave of continuity through the events is pretty hard. People are overlapping so are the events. Then putting stress on my grey cells gives me headaches. 

In May, there was event -Wings for life. Before coming to that, let me tell something before that. If people had read my racelogue- Airtel Hyderabad Marathon, they will recall that AHM registration had begun in April. Nowadays whatsapp group is the first thing we have before we do something in reality. So Salt lake Runners had a main group and also there was a volunteers group which was to het things done. One fine day in April, Rahul added me to it. Here there were many people about 20 if I am correct at that point of time. Only Rahul and Devender were the two people whom I actually met. So there were runners here who were going to AHM. One day one of the Runners wrote can anyone help her friend  who didn't have a certificate as prerequisite for AHM 21k. They were not accepting her application. All give some some suggestions. One of the Runners gave her suggestion load your Pinkathon certificate and put timing which get you qualified. I protested as it was not right way. We went into war of words as the people who asked for help seeing the situation , went into hibernation. The best of the lines was Do you know what Pinkathon is and to incite him I asked sure tell me. Anyway it got finished. Debjani Choubey was runner looking for help for Monalisa De and Sudip Ghosh was the most helpful guy. Its real fun recalling the incident. Sudip had joined Sketchers with me during that time

                                          ME, SUDIP, DEBJANI AND VIVEK @ ADHM

Debjani Choubey known as DJ in the running circle. I in fact met her first time on Wings of life event and didn't know her. I remember her telling Sudip that Tar ke jhar pe chadane, and later understood/learnt the lady does talk good. A tall Lady who is Journalist by profession, for one of the Hindi channel. She ran the AHM better to say danced though as she made pit stops whereever music was being played. To her credit she was not medically fit, her doctor had advised her to avoid running the event.  She continues to amaze people around her. Quite intolerant to any injustice.

Now  Sourav - Sbro. A sweet guy (stealing from someone's words), met him in my first collaboration run. He joined with me at Sketchers. Few memories at Sketechers, we used to have hurdles and he would always get into trouble with the. April end started 100 days running , this was the event that changed him completely, his passion, desire all blossomed. He did 2500km in 100 days event and was rechristened as  SBro. In between he was down with dengue . He came back quite strongly after that and did his first FM. Also, in December he He flew down to Chennai for  helping his elder brother Abhinav complete his maiden FM.

I mentioned Abhinav, he is based in B'lore and the guy has done mirror runs than any one. A mirror run is run person does in support of run on same day and time, distance also. He is integral part of Salt Lake Runners and has blog unclescrooge.com. I got to meet him first time in AHM.Without being on Kolkata is very much part of Kolkata Runners and is pacing 3.15 on Kolkata Police Safe Drive Save Life HM. He started the year with 5km and did a FM. Finance guy by profession, blogger by interest and runner by passion.

Probably this year I had made so many friends, became part of running family and it gets difficult to pick up people. Writing about them and not mentioning Yashovardhan Kanodia would be crime. I saw the name in DOF short for Dose of Fitness an whatsapp group by Prema Rajaram. First memory of him is he was inquiring any one coming down for Narcotics Run  from Park Street. In this run, I met him first time. Introducing the bare-chested runner of Kolkata and pretty fast as well. He is anti vegeterian, makes  most of the non veg dishes available around. And another great talker and human being. He coined one of most popular GMNB- Great Marathoners Need Backing. He is as well a brilliant cricket and banker by profession. Meet him to more, he is like eclairs. 

I saw Nikhil Pilania first time in Narcotics Run in June end. He was struggling in the race, not in smooth flow. Interaction with him began when he was trying to get registered for AHM. He did not have a valid timing certificate and was not being confirmed for HM. He had history of sprinting and was gold medalist for 400m. In end, Hyderabad Runners confirmed him for AHM. And he did finish the race pretty well in 2:12. He completed his FM in October. He did improved in leaps and bounds. He continues to amaze.

Prema Rajaram, one who runs DOF whatsapp group , journalist by profession, fitness enthusiast and runner.  I met her at Sketchers and we started interacting from there to AHM. What happens in DOF stays in DOF. Full credit to her to manage 200 people, where people are leaving  due to chitchat. (Chuckle). Writing about DOF will take pages.

Last, barefoot baba- Sandip Mojumder. He started barefooted this year, and had met him in collaboration runs. But interaction began when the project for Kolkata Runners t-shirt began in end June. He cam forward to start this project which was and is quite troublesome. T-shirt sizes, name , design - all needed to be in line and he coordinated with the vendor to see it though. Great person, always ready to come forward to help anybody. Actually, T-shirt project  introduced me lot of more runners as well and continues to do so.

I met so many great people and it's a injustice to leave someone out. But then I am writing a blog, writing about all of them would make a good paperback. Year had been amazing ran 4 10k - Kolkata Trail, IDBI FM, TCSW10k, Anti drug Narcotics Run,; 4 HM - AHM, BSF, ADHM, Airtel RFE and 1 25K- TSK25. Ran over 1000km. I became the brand ambassador for Kolkata Trail, thanks to Nishant Mahesawari and Sportiz for the honour. In my dreams I would have thought how things would have turn out. I just hope things would remains as such, but keeping fingers crossed after all life is greatest leveller.

Thanks to all the Runners being part of Trail(2017) to Trail(2018), life would have been same without you. I wanted to finish this before th next trail run to do justice to the heading as I missed new year deadline and had to change the name. 

Disclaimers : Any resemblance to any person living or dead maybe co incidental.

Racelogue: TSK25 Diary

A race is a work of art that people can look at and be affected in as many ways they're capable of understanding.

Steve Prefontaine.

As 2017 came into the home stretch, and 2018 waiting at the door. TSK25 2017 was the last race of year and this time it became the first international race in Kolkata bringing in big names like Bekele. Last year, I ran the 10KM and this year I had registered for 25K when the registration began in October.


Planning for this race was quite sketchy. I was running ADHM just a month before this and my training plan was to go for PB there ( http://samudrajeetghosh.blogspot.in/2017/12/racelogue-adhm-saga.html ). Moreover, I had never ran more than 21KM and guessed it was going to be hard as usual. Running HM is never a easy job, it challenges me at least.

Post 19th Nov, coming back to Kolkata with soreness in my calf muscles, I took rest for 5 days and decided to run 5KM on 25th Nov to check how the legs are after the last race as I was running AIRTEL RFE on 26th Nov- 21K. This was to test if I could complete the race next day.


Now coming to 26th Nov, the weather was fine and perfect for getting an PB. However, I was not fit, I started running cautiously and got injured at 4KM mark. I struggled for next 5KM's just thinking whether to quit or not to quit. Somehow, I decided to take it KM by KM and managed it finish it. And that's another story, which maybe someday will pen it down.

Fast forward to TSK25K, rested for a 5 days. On December 2nd, ran 3KM on red road and running was not smooth. Next day ran in Eco park, and didn't feel upto it, did 5km instead of 10km. It was obvious that my recovery was not complete.

I tried running again on 8th Dec , as it felt healed. But while returning back, got injured again. It seemed that injury didn't wanted to leave me.

With a week left, I decided to do a complete stretching routine hoping the niggling pain goes away. And it helped I felt good. I did a tempo training on Tuesday, and I could feel the niggle. The perfect description of situation was hide and seek by the niggle.

The whole week went on doing stretching and kept my fingers crossed. The day before the race, I was not feeling sure how the race would go. I again did stretching in the night hoping to overcome the niggle and bad news was that niggle had not taken leave.

D-Day, Sunday 17th Dec- Woke up early in the morning despite TSK25 being a late start (6.55am). I reached the event start point with Anjani, Lakshmi and Lalit. The weather appeared pretty good, reminded me of last year The northerly winds were blowing and it was foggy.

TSK25 being a home event, all the fellow runners were there and met Shibsankarda from Mumbai. We did our routine warm up and got ready to move into holding area. I moved up to A holding area, which was close to starting point.



m                      



We slowly moved out and we could see the elite men/women before us at the starting line. At 6.40 they were off and a loud cheer came from the runners. We were slowly moved little by little to the starting line. All the runners were charged up and determine to run well. As 6.55 showed in the clock above the starting line, we pushed off for 25 KM. As I moved forward and I found Ritesh beside me. Ritesh had been my running mate in the AHM post 10 KM which was my first HM. We started running together and I kept an eye on the pace on my TomTom. Running is an important part for tough races.

At 2 KM coming to Strand road, I remarked we were going too fast and need to keep an check as weather was expected to become hotter in mid race and we have to complete 25 Km.

Crossing 1 KM mark, we were joined by Sourav aka SBro. We continued till 4 KM after which SBro went ahead. After Prinsep Ghat, Ritesh accelerated and I told him go ahead, I will catch up.

Again Hasting onward I was alone and could see Ritesh ahead. I kept running at a steady pace and moved as usual. I crossed the Zoological Gardens then Bhabani Bhavan to Alipore judges court road. There was U turn here, as I was running towards the turn near the 8Km mark, I saw the 2.15 Bus pacers running towards Hazra, and behind them about a minute or less Ritesh and Sro together. I continued running and took the u turn and moved towards Kalighat Bridge. Now before reaching Gopal Nagar corssing, on the other side I met 2.30 pacers- Chao and Alok. 2.40 pacer - Anant & Lal, behind them 2.50 - Rahul with his band baaja. I saw Ranjanda once again. While Crossing Kalighat Bridge, I caught up with Sbro and Ritesh, we again started running together.
We moved right from Hazra towards Tollygunge. At the 10km mark, I told my running buddies we have done 10KM in 58 mins. As we were taking u-turn at Tollygunge , Alok overtook us and Sbro moved up with him. I told Ritesh, keep running , Chao should not overtake us if we need to finish in 2.30. At 15KM mark, we again caught up with Alok who was encouraging all the runners up/down. Here Ritesh decided to continue with Alok and I decided to move up. My calculation was that I needed to be before Alok I had to finish in 2.30, so I kept a distance ahead of him.  In this stretch met Ranjanda, Devender, Pam, Tam, Lakshmi on the other side towards Tollygunge. 

As I was crossed Taj bengal on my right and Zoological garden on my right at km 19, I was feeling the strain of running a 27 Km as I needed to complete 6 more km. As I came down to AJC Bose road, and took left towards Hastings, Surendraji overtook me. And just before Hastings crossing , Chao overtook me. After a minute or so, I could see Chao stopping and showing some stretching to Surendraji and I joined for the last few seconds with them. The moved out fast, I was following them and lost them before I could reach Queensway crossing.



I had crossed 20km and still more 5km to go. This felt torturous. Later looking into my Tomtom data, I saw 20-23 km were the slowest and I had felt the same. I kept going unsure what time I was going to finish and stopped looking at my watch. As I neared 24th Km mark, I could hear Alok's voice. He had been quite vocal throughout the race. He crossed me in few seconds and told we have 5 mins to finish for 2.30.


At that moment I felt like strangling him, I don't run at 5 min/km pace and he expects me to finish the last km in a 25 KM run in 5 mins/ 1.2 km. Nevertheless, I grabbed a Bisleri bottle and gave whatever was left in me for the final push. As I switched off my Tomtom crossing the finishing mat, and then I saw the time it was 2.32:16. Not bad considering the physical condition I started with and I was quite unsure which bus I wanted to be in.

Finishing the race, I went to the recovery zone. I got my calves, quadraceps, IT band stretched. Recovery zones have been always a night mare for me, got injured there more than the race. 

Moving out of recovery zone , collected my medal and food packet. Finished off the food and then saw Ranjanda at the entrance. I went to him and spent about hour with him. Spending time with Ranjanda was like in old days time well spent.

Lessons learnt from TSK25, its mind game how you tackle your niggles/injury. Most disturbing things was that the niggle which was there about a 3 weeks had disappeared after the race. Full and Proper Stretching should be done once a week at least which I had somehow had forgotten. The biggest thing is how your run the race on the day is all that matters, it can be bad and good. Taking it KM by KM always works out best. Nothing is perfect in life, and accepting that is more important in the end. And biggest thing is writing down the race after finish is more challenging.


Next is Tata Mumbai Marathon on my list. I hope that I will be  able to weave up something for people to read.


#TSK25 #MARATHON #KOLKATARUNNERS #RUNNING