Auroville returns !!

The auroville marathon lived up to its expectation. After missing out on the Mumbai marathon - I was intent on going for it and all the planning paid off. A wonderful run and my best in a longtime. Our Original plan was to go by train but the return options from Podi to bangalore had dried up. No trains on Sunday and no buses available.

Packed our selves up in our beatup Santro and off we went leaving home at 2:15 pm. The drive was our first on this route and I had not planned on the night driving on a 2 lane road with no dividers . It was a tough experience driving at 9:oo pm on such a stretch. Luckily in the Thiruvannamalai - Tindivanam stretch I latched on to a Maruti who drove at a manageable speed and just followed him . From Tindivanam it was just another 40 kms and its was done in as many minutes. By the time we checked in it was 10:45pm . 8:30 hours we were at it except for a brief stopover for dinner at Tiruvannamalai. Now that was another experience - food was great absolute home made food except that the restaurent turned out to be a single bedroom house. Sudarshan A/c had one small room 10ft by 10 , with two tables and an aircon.
But we were not complaining as the food was great and had it not been for the fact that we were entirely out of change we might have tipped the waiter luxuriously ( by thiruvannamalai standards).

We straightaway crashed and were still asleep at 8:00AM when my sis called to say that were on the way from chennai and would be reaching by 9:30. After a quick break at Nallas and brief stopover at our room were we placed sis and families' luggage we were off to brief visit to Pondicherry town and then to Auroville to collect the bib.

Auroville Marathon

You can't have a better experience running a Marathon than you would at Auroville.I can vouch for that.
Had a mind blowing experience yesterday running in this mini forest at Auroville.

You could call it a one of a kind experience. Away from anything to do with the city life. Running almost entirely amongst trees of different kinds, on tracks which were totally dug out at certain stretches and at some they were just or maybe less than a foot wide.
The trees or shrubs almost brushed your head as you ran.
The whole event was well organized. I had made a visit the previous evening to collect the number and Bibs. Since there is no organized transport here one depends on the good will of the Auroville residents, which, generally overflows in abundance.
On the event day,though, I did not want to test the Good will too much , so played safe by taking an Auto.
Reached the venue at 5:45 AM sharp. Hung around for a while, answered to the roll call, stretched a bit - peed and was ready.
At around 6:05 we were off. The route was well marked so no problems with that,absolutely.
All one had to do was put the head down and jog. 10 kms per hour must qualify as a jog. A marathon Jog. By the 3 km mark each was on his own.
I followed someone who wore only socks.I did that for quite some distance assuming him to be good runner if can do a long distance run without shoes.
After a while, felt I could loosen a bit and overtook him. From then on I was on my own for long stretches. I went past some and some runners overtook me. My guess about the sox runner came right as he overtook me, about five kms before finish line, at a mighty good clip.
I was enjoying myself running, listening to the birds - I could make out at least 4 different varieties. Even heard a peacock(what sound does a peacock make?).
Around the 6 km mark there was a good bit of revelry in the form of Drum beating a la Pune-Marathon.
Till around the 12-13 kms mark there were no problems. At that point I was feeling fit for another 20. But the pain started building up just around that time.
Tried walking for sometime as my legs felt heavy and a couple of times I had banged against stones jutting out - losing my balance in the process.
On a 1km stretch which was particularly trackless I decided to walk it. As I walked quite a few runners went past.
Well, that kind of re-motivated me to start running again. Which I did- again putting my head down and just looking at my shoes.
It was quite satisfying to see the ground move under my feet. Otherwise, when you looked up you saw the next closest guy was a good 300 meters ahead of you , well that can be demoralizing.
Around 3 kms from finish a pretty lady in a cycle egged me on telling me it was very close adding that there were only beautiful paths ahead.
Soon enough the path became very narrow and enclosed with low hanging branches - at times I was running between the bambooed fences on the backyards of tiny huts.
Further down it opened out into a field and I was onto a metalled road and I knew it was close.
I just made a dash for it.

Next year I am sure to be there.

Planning on bringing the entire family along.


Recently added a video of the event

Image courtesy - Ram Viswanathan