I took 3 days leave from office to run from Vashi to Satara a distance of 260 Km for a cause !
Vashi
to Satara.
I
took 3 days leave from office to run from Vashi to Satara a
distance of 260 Km for a cause
13th September 2017 – Vashi to
Lonavala – Total distance covered 75 Km
I woke up at 3 am with heavy thunder,
lighting and it was raining cats and dogs. Like every time , before the race
day I keep my running things ready. Thanks to running, this habit of being
prepared has become a practise for me in my day to day life also. While I was
brushing suddenly the lights went off and the sky got lit up with streaks of lightning,
with great difficulty I managed to shave and got ready. It was still pouring
outside. I booked an Ola to drop myself to a place where Captain Swaminathan my
co runner and our Physio Dr. Madhuram were supposed to meet me. I joined them
and we proceeded towards Vashi , New Mumbai where we were supposed to start our
run . As we reached the spot our runner friends from New Mumbai Srivatsan
, Ashwin Kini, Jeevan Shendre, Milind Pharande, Sundaresan, Anoop Ghoshal were already
waiting for us. Isha meditators were also with them. Suddenly I realised I left
my phone in the Ola. Imagine, we were about to start the run and all my running
plans till Satara , people I need to contact on the way to Satara and many more
details were all in the phone. That showed me how dependent I was on an
electronic gadget.
I was in such a shock, my mind was not working. Frist thing I did was try calling my number, when after the first ring nobody answered I double checked to see if the phone was in my bag. I rang my number one more time and then I heard a voice saying hello , it was the OLA driver , the minute I heard his voice I felt like i was crossing the comrades finish line. He said he was just dropping a client at the International airport and agreed to come to Vashi to return my phone. Srivatsan then suggested that we start our run and somebody would wait back to collect the phone from the driver. After we clicked some photographs and shot a video for the cause we were supporting the “Rally For Rivers” we started with our run.
As
we started the run I was worried about RK Nair who had come all the way from
Silvasa, a day prior to join us for the run, he had only my cell number and
would definitely try to contact me but I had briefed him about the route so I
was convinced that if he couldn’t reach me he could find me on the road..We
took the palm beach road and started running towards Navi Mumbai Mahanagar Palika building where we
shot our first FB live video and bid good bye to Navi Mumbai runner friends. Thankfully
by that time , Dr.Madhuram arrived in the support car and brought along with
her my life line which is my phone J.
We
then proceeded towards Uran road to our
next stop Panvel where we supposed to stop for breakfast . By this time I was
very happy to see KNair and his team who joined us.
As
I was running, I was reminiscing about all the support I received from
Srivatsan , Ashwin Kini and NMR runners with respect to helping to prepare the Google
link for our Vashi Satara route and lending us a Big Cooler box for our journey.
I was also thankful to my comrades buddy Sundaresan who is running his 50
marathons in 50 different location every week for a cause “ Run With A Soldier
Run For A Soldier” for running the first 10 km with us . It was
indeed overwhelming that in spite of heavy down pour my well wishers turned up
to support me. I am really thankful to them.
Now
we were on the Uran road moving towards Mumbai
– Pune old highway. There was heavy traffic on this poorly maintained road,
which was full of potholes filled with rain water. . We reached Panvel and
stopped for breakfast at one of the roadside hotels. After a quick stretching
session we had our breakfast and resumed running
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As
we did not have any dead line to reach lonavala our first night halt, we took
it easy. This gave us a good start to
get used to the harsh running conditions over the next 3 days. We
had to run on the old highway because running on the expressway is not allowed.
After
the heavy thunder storm and down pour in the morning, the weather took a 360 degree turn , it became very hot
and humid and the temperature went up to almost 40 degrees.
The
distance we had to cover on the first day was almost 73 km. We had a plan to keep a buffer time since the
last leg of our first day run was almost 10km up the Khandala Ghat With very few breaks we proceeded towards Kapoli where we stopped for
lunch .
After
placing order for lunch , we proceeded to do a quick stretching session. We managed to rest
a bit on the hotel benches before they served us lunch . After lunch we continued towards lonavala.
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We
were now nearing the Khandala Ghat . The distance from here to Lonavala was
about 15km including the 10km Ghat. We were exhausted ,so we walked all the way
to the top. The weather was nice and
pleasant on the top. So we relaxed for
some time, took few pics and proceeded towards Lonavala.
When
we reached lonavala we had covered 75km and we were very tired . It was almost 7.30 pm and we were very hungry,
so we had a omelette pav from the road side stall.
KK
Nair who was running with us stopped after 25km which was his personal best .
So he along with Prince Kurien and
Jithen Cherian went ahead to make arrangements for our night stay. It had been a hard but satisfying day for us
and we went to sleep after planning our strategy for the next day.
14th September - Lonavala
to Pune – Distance covered 53 km
Woke
with a alarm at 4 am and it felt as if
we slept for a few minutes. We got ready
and started our second day’s run at 5.30 am towards Pune. We were thankful to
Satish Bhalgat, Captain’s friend, for providing us the bungalow.
Usually
it takes me a few Km’s of run / walk to get rid of the stiffness in my body ,
but Captain did not seem to have this issue. PNB
Metlife had informed us that there was to be a interaction with the media and
staff in pune at 2 pm. So we planned our
run accordingly and we decided to cover maximum distance before sunrise. We
knew that we had to keep a constant pace with very few water stops. It started
drizzling when we started to run and there was slight incline at Kamshet. However
the next leg was nice and flat and we covered good distance. In order to save
more time we sent our support vehicle ahead to order for our breakfast.
We
stopped around 8.30 am for a quick breakfast and stretching. Now the weather had become very hot.
I
realised that with good support for
hydration if you have a strong will power, the weather will never be an
obstacle for you ..
As
per the plan we had covered 53 km by now
and reached the road parallel to Mhatre Bridge on NH 48 to Satara.
RK Nair was close to completing
his first ever 42km and so we ran extra distance to help him to accomplish this milestone .
As
we finished our run, we were briefed by PNB Metalife’s Sakina and Sharan who were
following us about our interaction with
the press. We were told to reach their office by 3 pm. We had lunch at one of the restaurants ,
had a quick wash, changed into clean clothes and headed towards the PNB Metlife
office which was situated near Deccan Gymkhana Pune.
At
the start of the programe, I had the honour of lighting the lamp. We were then
felicitated by PNB Metlife and we shared our running experience with them. Representatives
from The Times of India , few local
newspaper reporters as well as a blogger
was also present And I had the opportunity to interact with them and answer their
questions.
After
meeting the press I had joined my team
at Camp, in Sainik Aram Ghar. This place was organised by Captain and we spend
the night there .
After
hitting the showers , we still had some time for dinner so we sat down and
planned out the next days run . The
dinner at the Army canteen was an excellent experience and hit the bed soon
after ..
15th September – Pune to
Surur - Distance covered 76 km
Day three we started our run at 5.45 am with no pressure
of target time to finish for the day. But at the same time one has to keep in
mind that when you are running multi days, a buffer time and a backup
plan has to be ready.
There was little drizzle when we reached Mhatre
Bridge. I could see my dear friends Amod Bhate an Elite runner and a coach,
Ashish Kasodekar a well known Ultra Marathoner , Kishor Dhankude who
summited Everest twice in 2016 & 2017 May and the following month in
June he ran the Comrades , Sameer Vasant Wagle Comrade ultra-marathon
runner , Sagar Vaidya, Pratima Vidya both my very old friends and a few
of our runner friends from Pune all ready and waiting for us. I was
very happy to see my comrade buddies.
We started our run with another
FB Live broadcast.
Since it was a week day , one by one the runners
left us wishing us good luck . Amod , Ashish and Sameer accompanied us till
NH48 but Kishore followed us with his cycle till Katraj tunnel . It was so nice
of them to join us in spite of rain and it being a week day. We had a great
running with them and they gave us a lot of positive
energy. They also gave us valuable information about the upcoming tunnels,
and terrain on the route.
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It
was a great and different experience running inside Katraj tunnel. . It is
fully lit up 1.5 km Tunnel with a broad
three way road. Our support vehicles stayed behind us to give us cover and
safety as we ran in the front. . The
tunnel is an engineering marvel but it was very hot and suffocating inside. As
soon as we came out the light and fresh air hit us with a blast .
After
few Kms we could see the toll officials waiting to welcome us at the toll. . It
was pleasant surprise when they felicitated me with a Shawl and Coconut. They gave
a bouquet to each one of us along with a crate of water, Banana and plenty of
fruit juices. We spoke to them about our
run and Captain briefed them about Rally for Rivers. We were told that all of their 500 employees would give a
missed call in support of Rally For Rivers. They had made arrangements for breakfast so they requested us to stop around
2 km after the toll.
We
covered the distance to the hotel quickly
, since we were very hungry. You could
say that we had brunch instead of breakfast since it was already past 10 am. We were
joined by Mr.Ranjan Bose who was the
toll inchrge .
We
left with the feeling of gratefulness to Mr. Ranjan Bose and his staff for treatingus like VVIP’s .
On
the way we saw a few statues of animals which caught our eyes so we stopped and
took a few pics .
RK
Nair seemed to be in good rythem now and he was planning to cover back to back
42km today. He said this was possible only because he was targeting us, not
targeting Kms . Since we were running ahead of him, his goal was to always keep
us in sight..
Because we had brunch , we were not very hungry and so we
carried on running beyond 2 pm. We also had been eating dry fruits, sweet
potatoes, water melon, dates etc from our support car throughout.
It was 3 pm when we reached close to Pandurng Pata for lunch.
We finish our lunch leisurely having no target time to finish
the day’s run. However the need to have a a buffer time for the last
leg of the uphill terrain was in our minds. We decided to walk / run
till Shirwad since we had a heavy lunch.
After Shirwad we had come very
close to Khambatki ghat . Here we had two options , one was
safer but longer and the other one was shorter through the tunnel but very
dangerous . We decided to take the harder and longer route, and in
this process we ended up running almost 10 km extra . . It was
around 7 km uphill and 5 km downhill. We decided to walk / jog one bend to
another bend. We walked wherever it was steep and ran / jogged easily on the
rest of the road. This strategy worked for us so within no time we were on top
of the hill. We jogged all the way down the 5 km distance which took
us to the outskirts of Surur and by now it had started getting
darker. KK Nair was way behind us , I advised him to run
only 50 km maximum but instead he decided to do 73km which is again
his another personal record.
Running
Up hill takes your breath away and after running the whole day, when you climb
the hill on your tired legs and then run down the hill it is very painful If
you don’t follow a proper running technic and strong running form . I cautioned RK Nair to be very careful. But at
the end of the day I could see he was not in the best of shape even though he
was enjoying his runs. He is a man with strong will power and a fast learner.
As
we reached the hotel gate, we were very pleased to see two of the officials
were standing with garlands in their hand to welcome us We forgot to take pics because we were very
tired and wanted to have dinner and hit the bed.
The
hotel was brand new and very spacious. After a quick shower we had our dinner. By
then I received a call from Jitesh who is a friend of Dr. Kate, he wanted to
know what time we were going to start our run the next day, so that he could
join us in the morning by bicycle till Satara.
16th September Surur to
Satara – 43km . Started our run at 5.15 am and supposed to
reach the expo by 12 noon.
We
woke up at 4 am. Since we were already in Satara district and Satara is around
43+ km. We all felt like now we were
almost reaching the finish point. Believe me, the thought of the nearing finish
line gives so much of motivation and positive energy. One should learn how to
get this positive energy all the time during the runs.
Road
from Surur to Satara is one of the best roads and safe to run because of the
service road almost till Satara. As we started the run we could see Jitesh already joined us. He left very early morning from Satara to join us. He was a great company through out. I personally learned many things from him. Appreciate his commitment.
After a few kms of our run, we were joined by Sudhir Pawar & Ravindra Jankar, Satara runners who were also official pacers at the Satara Half Marathon. We were chit chatting and running with them for almost 10km. Before leaving us they welcomed us to Satara with flower bouquets. Such a great gesture from them.
After a few kms of our run, we were joined by Sudhir Pawar & Ravindra Jankar, Satara runners who were also official pacers at the Satara Half Marathon. We were chit chatting and running with them for almost 10km. Before leaving us they welcomed us to Satara with flower bouquets. Such a great gesture from them.
Since
we had a time limit to reach to Satara, instead of having breakfast at the
restaurant, Nair and team went ahead and got us some breakfast which we had at
a small hut near the highway.
Normally
in these kind of runs, more time gets wasted, when one stop for water or stops
to have breakfast / lunch.
The
Expo was around 7 to 8 km away in the outskirts of Satara town. As we were coming closer to the expo, we got
super motivated as many runners stopped by and congratulated us and took our pictures.
The
Frist lady pacer who was going to pace at Satara hill marathon joined us and
ran almost one km
Ekta
Awachar and Vinit Vilas Patil also met us on our way to expo and welcomed us
with garlands and Atul Sangamnekkar and his friends stopped by on their way to
the expo to congratulate us.
At
the back of our mind we knew that, we had to reach the expo by 12 noon. Accordingly
we paced ourselves. Now we were few meters away from the Expo and it was almost
11.40 am or so. Many runners joined us as we approached the entrance of the
expo.
At the entrance we were all welcomed by the
Satara Marathon Association officials who took us inside the expo. After we finished our lunch, we were called
on the stage to share our experience and we were felicitated by the PNB Metlife
and Satara Marathon Association.
17th September - PNB Metlife Satara Half Hill Marathon – 21
km
Next
day we woke up at 4 am the marathon was going to flag off at 6 am. As we reached the starting point there was
huge crowd of runners. Almost 6000 runners running this year’s event. So the
starting point was jam packed. Runners were directed to their respective seeding. . On the gun shot the race started, race is gun to mat
finish. Initially for few kilometres me, captain and KK Nair were running
together after a few kilometres I lost them in the crowd. Because of constant
stretching throughout our Vashi – Satara run and also as we took 4 days to
finish the run there was not much stiffness in my legs. As I was running I met
Kirti and I started chit chatting and running, we were joined by Ruchi. I
carried on running with them and then decided to pace them till the top of the
hill for 11 km or so. As we were running
we were joined by Dolly, Aditi and a few more runners. As I was pacing I was
loudly giving the instructions so that other runners would also get motivated.
I made them run / walk all the way to the 11 km mark, We took a few selfies in
between, which was fun. I saw a Lot of familiar faces and exchanged high-fives and
cheers , it was like a carnival . All the support stations were very well
managed and also the crowd support throughout the route was amazing. That’s one
of the reasons runners enjoy this run. As I took a turn I left Kirti and team
and came sprinting all the way down. Later on me and my vashi – satara team were
called on the stage to share our experiences.
Even though there was a huge
crowd but still the event was managed very well . Hats of to PNB Metlife,
Marathon Association of Satara and most importantly the people of Satara and
their enthusiasm. Congratulations to each and every one who participated in the
run . That was a huge grand celebration of Running.
We
walked down to the flat which belong to KK Nair’s friend. We are grateful to his friend to lend his
flat to us. We left for Mumbai as soon
as we finished bathing and on our way we had lunch. RK Nair and team dropped me
near Easter Express Highway Mulund east from where they left for Silvasa .
Next
day I went to office … Life as usual ….
I would love to do an intercity run someday, it is tough but experiences are worth it.
ReplyDeleteI also want to slowly graduate into ultra running in 2018,have run a couple of 42.2km,
Thanks for sharing your experiences, Congratulations to all of you..... You inspire!
Thank you Mansoor Mirza
DeleteAwesome Satish Sir... HATS OFF 🙏🙏🙏
ReplyDeleteThank you Prajna
DeleteSir #Huge Respect.# God of running Keep guiding us ..Kudos to your grand effort for social cause...Very comprehensive n detailed write up.👏👏🙏🙏
ReplyDeleteThank you for your kind words Sandeep. Thank you for your support .
DeleteThis was truly inspirational. Thank you for sharing your experiences.
ReplyDeleteMost welcome Sir
DeleteWow...terrific account of your awesome achievement but in your typical understated style :) . Thanks for inspiring us !!
ReplyDeleteThank you for turning up inspite of rain on 13th Sept & giving us a perfect start . Enjoyed running with you .
DeleteSuperrb Satish ...you are powerhouse of energy & grit . Godbless
ReplyDeleteThank you Moiz Bhai
Delete