Auroville Marathon @ Valentine's day

Hi folks,
After many many months I was travelling to Tamil Nadu again where I had spent 3 years of my life studying. The reason to travel this time was for Auroville marathon on Valentine's day. Crazy it might seem to some but that's how it was. I feel Sena and the RSS won't have a problem with this way of celeberating Valentine's day :-).
Signs were not good for me two weeks before the run as I had developed some pain in my left leg due to which running was not at all possible. One of the worst things that can happen to me is that I do not run on a given day and it really makes a bad day then. 1st week of injury, I tried a 5k run and everything was well apart from the 1st kilometer. That was the only run that week. 2nd week of the injury just before the marathon, I tried a 10 K run and symptoms were similar. After the runs on both occasion I was limping. Now I was not sure to run or not to run. Then decided not to run the Auroville and mailed one guy to get the bib from me. But destiny had something else written as the guy had already gotten one. So did a 10K and decided to run Auroville.
I was joined by 4 other guys from office who were running Auroville and it was great time together with hell lot of banter and leg pulling going on in the train to Pondicherry. Next day morning taught the foreign delegate travelling with us as how to brush teeth the Indian style at a railway station. Reached Pondi on Feb 13th and finally arrived at auroville the same day. We checked into the dorm after collecting the bibs. It was decent arrangement there with 15 mattresses in one room with nice, clean bedsheets and pillows. Got introduced to fellow runners in the room and later went for the customary pre-race Pasta party in the evening. Yhe atmosphere was charged with runners from bangalore, mumbai, chennai, hyderabad, pondi etc. all there, discussing about running. You have to be there to feel the vibes of a running community.
Another sight worth seeing is on the morning of the marathon. I was sitting in the dorm room around 3:45 am and was thinking about the seen in the bathroom. How crazily people had woken up around 3 and queued up there. Everyone looked so happy about what they were going to do after 5 am ( the full marathon race ). We are truly crazy lot to be happy about the gruelling pain which we inflict on our body during the race. I quipped to KP that sir, lag raha hai hum log kisi ki baraat mein jaane ki tayyari kar rahe hain, sab aise khush dikh rahe hain !! Everyone was in splits. But truly that is how it looked like.
We were transported to the starting place in a bus and there got to meet few other running buddies whom I get to meet during runs only. Greetings were exchanged, photos were taken, few people were warming up, some were seen with their families, I love all this. Then the race started at 5 when it was still pretty dark. The run route was pretty scenic trail with trees lined on both sides. Ran first time with Sathish for the first 21k and its really good if you run with someone rather than running alone, which I mostly do, during race or practice. Then it started getting tough and as the saying goes real marathon starts only after 30k mark. With the humidity of Pondi adding to the tough trail, it was a tough job to be done there.
After mumbai marathon I noticed that the runners run the last few kilometers with a limited set of runners who are also equally cramped and short of breath, going through the same pains. One guy overtakes another guy walking and finally comes to stop and starts walking to take a breather and then the first guy starts running and overtakes the second guy. And this goes on among few more runners till the end point. And you start recoginzing fellow runners as the guy with long hair, one with hunched back, other one in blue t-shirt, one whose feet move outwards on landing, the stocky fellow, one with the belly, girl in red t-shirt and shorts etc. etc..
Sathish joined me again for last 6.5 k stretch and kept motivating me. Thanks to him :-). Sprinted the last 200 m of the race to the finish line with the commentator's comment in my ear as " 1102, amul, cream of the race, running to the finish line in all glory." It was funny and then had for the first time in life 3 beautiful ladies waiting for me during the finish. First beautiful lady was my mom's age with the medal and two other ladies were girlfriends of my friends who just ran to me after I finished. We embraced each other and we were so happy after finishing the run. It was a great run, a really well organized one too. Then the pain started shooting again in my left leg and am limping still today. As the saying goes, its part of the game ;-).