Well, that was one heck of a tamasha (and the half-marathon wasn’t bad, either)

And another item on the bucket list gets ticked, though whether or not a mere 6km segment of a half marathon counts is a moot point.

But moot or not, today was great fun.

Not great running but great fun, and we always knew that would be the case.

When you enter a race category which has a reported 18,000+ participants, there is obviously going to be precious little space to run, and that was indeed the case at first, with many, many corporate groups with banners and flags and matching baseball caps and all the attendant hoopla. I have the sneaky feeling that a lot of all this corporate participation is to tick the CSR box, but maybe I am being unduly harsh.

As it was, many of these good folk did, as I had been told, peel off within the first kilometre – some of them way, way before that.

But even so, the road was crowded, people ambled along, they stopped to buy peanuts, or an ice-cream, they stopped to listen to music, they stopped to take a zillion selfies – and we nerdy runners of our brilliant Couch to 6 km group were eager-beaver-ly wending our way through the throng, trying to run, dammit!!

Take a look at the kind of crowd at the start. Lots of chanting, not much space to run :

I had great fun, but the organisation was pretty shambolic.

Instead of having staggered departures, all 18000+ of us set off together, which meant lots of pushing and shoving as we all tried to get down one corridor towards the official start line. Not that I ever actually saw the start line, as we were pushed along by the crowd, me holding tightly onto the hand of the youngest member of our team, 13 year old Shaivi. I was terrified of losing her in the crowd, but we held hands for lots of the time, and ran together, and finished together, the oldest and youngest member of our team, which had a nice symmetry to it.

This was in the holding area before the start, with part of my rowdy gang of girls – all of us first time runners :

This was, I believe, the start line. As you can see, we are virtually at a standstill :

Best moments?

1) Well, the sheer buzz and noise and energy at the Jawarharlal Stadium were pretty amazing.

2) We ran past the Sai Baba temple, where there are always cripples and beggars outside. Always. There was a poor man sitting on the kerbside, no legs (one was non-existent and the other was a withered, mutilated stump) and there he was with his smartphone filming us as we ran past.

3) As Shaivi and I crossed the finishing line, there was definitely a great sense of achievement. Not for the 6km covered, since we run more than that at our Jahapanah training sessions, but the fact that for the first time I ran 5.9km non-stop. We reckon that we both slowed down to a brisk walk 2x 50 metres, tops, so despite the crowded conditions, I ran better than ever before. We gave each other a sweaty hug and then went to find our post-race snack – an apple and a packet of biscuits.

And the bucket list got another tick.

Here are a few moments. First up, group photo :

Below, you have our team Women’s Health logo…

…and this was the male version…

After the race we were treated to a fab lunch by our sponsors at the Ashoka, where we sat on the grass and laughed and wolfed down vast quantities of food.