Yes I can

You might have understood that I have achieved some thing by reading the title. Hmmm not a big achievement but personally I feel very satisfied after reaching it. Last Sunday (November 30th 2008)I participated in the Hyderabad half marathon (21.2 Km) run, and I was able to complete it in 3 hrs 7 min. This is not a great time to finish the run, but the fact remains that I participated in the race with no practice at all but I was still confident that I can achieve it, yes its the self confidence which made it possible. There were very few people who participated in half marathon compared to 10 Km run, less than 300 people. The race has started around 6:25 am, which was suppose to start at 6:00 am, of course not to say we always follow IST. I reached the spot (Necklace road) around 5:40 am and I was all alone, none of my friends were willing to join me. I was accompanied with my mp3 player which I played in the entire race.

The race started and every one started running/jogging, but my initial plan was to walk first and then jog/run at the end if any energy is left, but after seeing everyone I started jogging. After a few minutes, I felt like walking is more safer so started walking fast and found that I was almost at the end, one elder gentle man around 50, I think he is a diabetic patient was encouraging me to run, he was saying to me young man keep jogging don't walk. I listened to him couple of times, then I decided this doesn't work out for me, then I was mostly walking till liberty, between they provided us water at every 1 km from MCH and Kinley (Coca-cola company) , in some places they also distributed orange slices and biscuits. Andhra Bank sponsored a napkin which I lost in the middle.
I reached Basheer bhag fly over it was around 1 hour 20 min, I think I have covered around 9km, was shocked too some folks are already reached Charminar and coming back to the starting point, probably around 4km left in the race for them.
By seeing them I felt a bit energetic and began to jog for some time, felt tired again so thought better to walk if I have to finish the race. And most important thing is that the traffic is stopped at all the places because of the race.

As some of us are running late and slowly some of the traffic police men asked us to run and keep running, I ran every time they asked me to do it, later as usual keep walking. Reached charminar around 8:00 (12 km from starting point), felt a bit relaxed then I should walk back to the starting point (people's plaza necklace road). I have also taken pics of charminar even some of camera men recorded me while I was taking the pictures of charminar. My hamstrings started paining now, so I was trying to relax them by stretching them, walking, jogging, jumping I was doing all the stupid feats to reach the destination.

At the end I was able to reach the destination by 9:30 am, after which I have taken snaps of finish line. I was ranked 121 in general category, overall I think rank is around 200. You can see me how tired I am looking below after finishing the race. Next time I will practice well and then participate the race ;).