The Puma Urban Stampede Mumbai 2013

On your feet (14th April 2013)

The Men, The Feet, The Run

          When was the last time you ran? Not from your spouse, I mean!

          Not for the psychopathic madness to catch a seat in the train, nor to get away from the maddening crowd, just ran as in RAN RAN??

          Well some of us do jog regularly, others run marathons. Some even aspire to run the Comrades Marathon (79 kms crossing 5 hills - sounds crazy, isn't it!).

Well, we just ran 20 kms between the 4 of us. Got up at 4 am to be there at the MMRDA grounds in Bandra Kurla Complex at 6 am as the event was to start at 7 am! What a waste of a Sunday morning, most

would say.

Those who danced were thought as insane

by those who could not hear the music!

          The Puma Urban Stampede made its presence felt for the first time in Mumbai. The event has been held 4 times in Bangalore before but Mumbaikars gave them a reason to awe at the high spirit of Mumbai – it got itself the fastest team and the fastest runners in this race! It is a relay race of 20 kms, with 5 kms being run by each of the 4 runners belonging to the same organization. The race was well attended by teams of almost 150 organizations.

          Amidst a lot of hullabaloo and blaring music, the race started as the A runners made a dash with their batons. Our A runner i.e. first runner was Tejas Mehta. Tejas M, who is a marathon runner, completed his 5 kms in 32 minutes and handed the baton to Tejas part II, and Tejas C took off.

          It was blazingly hot and was getting hotter as time progressed. The last 2 kms were without any shade and you felt the heat of the moment as invisible fumes fumed out of your body with the rising temperature. It is only when you participate in such events, can you truly recognize the greatness of other runners and the level of effort and discipline involved. You get a glimpse of the lack of fitness as I did! As Tejas C appeared after 34 minutes, Soumen Das Choudhury (me) took the baton and sprinted off, only to appear after 38 minutes, truly feeling his heart BEAT and almost leap out of his mouth! Anand Sharma was the last runner and he being a seasoned runner, completed his stretch in 27 minutes.

          How I longed to get a foot massage at the massage counter (Yep, there was one too!) but the heat was getting to us and we decided to head back home soon. As we celebrated getting our photographs clicked and having our breakfast, we got our medals of completion. It felt proud to be part of the event and run as a team. The prizes were swept by the Mumbai Police, both the men and women teams and they got gift hampers worth INR 40,000 each. The mens' runners up was won by the American Consulate of Mumbai and each of them were around 50 years old - talk about fitness! An excellently managed event and we thoroughly enjoyed it!

Run, run, run,

run when you hear the gun,

if you fall and scrape your knee,

just smile, get up and run

coz it is so much fun,

there just might be a surprise at the next turn!

Run, run, run

Gearing up

Look Mom what I won!!

Hamaari kadi tapasya ka fal