Mumbai Marathon 2005

Over 25,000 people - elite and everyday runners from all over the world, and this included Bollywood stars, differently abled people and the man on the street - ran the Mumbai Marathon on the 16th of January. They had their pick of the 7 km 'Dream Run', the 21 k Half-Marathon or the 42 k Full Marathon. The Kenyan athletes took the lion's share of places in the Half and Full Marathons - I think its something in their blood. I ran the Dream Run and did pretty well, if I say so myself - came second out of 21 Nike India employees that participated. Of course it wasn't an easy task - so for those of you who scoff at the achievement, run it first and then come to me to talk :-) 16,000 people pushed, walked, jogged and ran their way through the route. I caught glimpses of Sachin and Anjali Tendulkar (eat your hearts out, cricket fans!), Kapil Dev, Vinod Khanna and Salman Khan prior to the race. I found myself running alongside Javed Jafri (who was also huffing and puffing like me) at certain points. The energy of the place was amazing, the weather however, scorching. In my opinion, a marathon is more a test of mental strength than physical fitness. If you train reasonably well, running will be second nature. But the mental get-up is upto you to pull off. An event I will always remember.