Last month it was Eureka Run 2016 by AID India; today it was TiE Chennai 2016 Marathon at Nehru Stadium. I have probably gone to Nehru Stadium only once that too a decade ago, so I was curious to see how it is now. Surprisingly it’s maintained better than I expected, may be because it’s the home ground for Chennai FC football team. The stadium is behind Chennai Corporation’s Ripon building, next door to Chennai Central Railway station; there is lot of Metro rail digging work around the area with one-way entries in many places, so with the help of Google Maps reached the venue by 6:30AM the time they started the registration.
Chennai FC football team’s home ground – Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Chennai
Organized in support to create 1 million Entrepreneurs, a cause that is dear to me; worldwide many of the TiE Chapters are organizing similar marathons today in solidarity. You had a choice of 3K or 5K runs. Having done the 5K marathon last time I registered for the 5K along with my 13 year old son. Nehru Stadium running track is 400m, so you had to do about 12.5/13 laps to complete 5Kms. The Marathon was flagged off at 7:30AM by Charter members of TiE Chennai including myself. It looked easy on theory, but doing the run (brisk walking in my case) in a windless sultry day like today was not easy. The organizers had done a great job with water stands by Team, hot steaming tea (Lemon Ginger was my favourite out of the varieties they had) from Chai King and at the end they had breakfast for everyone from winners bakery.
Ms.Fathima conducted a quick warm up before the marathon and cool down after the marathon
Yours truly, mistakenly getting ready in running pose
This was during the last lap
For casual runners (walkers) doing a 5K you get tired half-way through and with a bit of determination (and hot lemon tea) you get it done. But the satisfaction of accomplishment you get at the end makes it worth for every drop of sweat.
