Delhi marathon and all that

Yo maan! So I ran my second half-marathon (Delhi) and pretty much lived up to my expectation. My expectation was a sub two hours run. The exact timing shall be issued (and so would the pictures) in a coupla days but from what I noted, it took me somewhere between 1 hour 55 minutes and 1 hour 56 minutes to finish the race (21k).

The sweetheart that Neelabh is, he accompanied me (even when that meant getting up in the morning at a bloody insanely time of 4:30 AM) with a tripod and his Nikon to which was attached his latest baby – a Sigma 70-300mm lens. He got this super cool zoom lens only the day before. I picked up a lens myself for my 450D – a Canon 50mm f1.8. Yeah, alright, I don’t really intend to freak out all ya is-there-anything-more-to-a-camera-than-the-click-button folks. So no more lens talk. I shall let the pictures speak.

Bloody 8000+ people ran the half marathon but I doubt more than 500 did it in less than 2 hours. Once again, I shall get back to ya guys when I have the results. I really am curious to know where I stood. Real kick-ass frenzy prevailed all through the run-route! Dilli-vaale kept cheering the runners throughout and flocked the entire route, standing on both sides of the road. In comparison, the Hyderabad run had been so dry. Here in Delhi, they had rock-performers, bhangra dancers, dholaks, a multitude of still and video cameramen and Shahrukh Khan. Happiness was in the air and I loved every breath that I took that morning.

Later in the evening (after the race), I had some amazing time having pasta and beer and conversations and laughs and sparks with a beautiful lady. The nice little dinner, no wait, candle light dinner ( 😛 ), with her in CP pretty much made my day. I was the ‘knight’ in the castle.

For the first time I noticed how much do the metro stations and the metro train-coaches here in Delhi look like carbon copies of their brethren in London. If there was any difference that I observed, it was in the number of passengers. In London, it hardly got crowded while here in Delhi, it was always stuffed. LoL – kick me in my ass if I sound like an ass-hole trying to tell the world how pathetic India is. I like Delhi 100 times better than London man. But more on that later. Some other time. There’s some news here for ya folks here.

The news is: I have been moved out from Bhuabneswar, at least for a while. Miss short-story had her budday the very day I had to leave for Delhi. I was informed about this moving away thing only the day before. So when I called up Miss short-story to wish her happy budday, I could not gather the heart to tell her that I wasn’t going to come back after my Delhi marathon. I couldn’t tell her that I was flying straight to Ahmedabad. So I left her a mail later, telling her about my new plans. I think I should have at least met her before leaving.

Anyway, off to Ahmedabad tomorrow. New place. New work. New life. Crazy life man. Crazy life.

PS: link to pictures clicked by Neelabh on the half-marathon day