Marathon before Marathon.

With full of excitement and thrill, I went to collect my chest number and the T-shirt for Chennai marathon. When I reached Nehru stadium there were already big queues being formed. It was very sunny and quite hot, but there was no shade to stand. There wasn’t any separate sign board for full marathon runners and I joined the queue standing for “Chennaites men” thinking that they are also issuing the numbers for marathon runners. The queue hardly moved and only one person received his chest number after standing for nearly 40 mins. The organizers were referring to a list of runners registered and the names in the list weren’t sorted in alphabetical order. For every person they have to run through all the 20-25 pages and then issue the chest numbers. Everyone was losing their patience and people started to join the queue from middle. Police constables started their job with lathis in their hand. It was utter chaos everywhere. Is this the way such a big event is organized? After waiting for nearly 1 ½ hrs my turn came to collect the chest number. When I showed the printout of my online registration, they said “Oh, its full marathon!! We are not issuing the chest numbers today, you have to come tomorrow”.

After waiting for nearly two hours, I was really furious and agitated to hear such a ridiculous response from them. Trying to keep myself cool, I called one of the organizers and spoke to her. She told that she will get back to me and vanished. Meanwhile instead of wasting more time, I thought to complete my medical checkup. Apollo hospitals have volunteered to do the medical check up and there were couple of doctors and nurses. One of the nurses checked my weight and height and made an entry in the Medical sheet. Weight 74.6 Kgs and height 163 cms. What the crap is this, how come its 163 cms? Last time I measured it was 178 cms and all of a sudden have I become short? I asked the nurse to tell my height in ft. She said it should be 5ft 5inches. I asked her “Do you think I am 5 ½ ft?”. “Well sir, that’s what its showing”. I didn’t take any effort to correct or argue with her. Then they checked my blood pressure. With all these happenings, I thought my blood would be boiling by now and the mercury is going to burst. But she made the entry as 130/90. I visited the doctor and he gave the clearance to participate in the race. Finally atleast something has gone through fine today. When I came out of the room, I found the lady who told me to wait. When I met her, she redirected me to some other person. I told him that I have been waiting here for nearly 2 ½ hours and I am yet to receive my chest number. He said “Sorry sir, we don’t have the chest numbers and the T-shirts to issue for the full marathon runners. You have to come tomorrow”. Well.. what else can I do, I came back to my office.

Today morning I again went to the Nehru stadium to collect the chest number and T-shirt. I reached there at around 10:30 AM. The T-shirts arrived at around 11:15 AM. Gosh, they have got the chest numbers and T-shirts. I was the first person to stand in the queue and collect my chest number (number 138) and t-shirt. The worst part is its mandatory to wear the T-shirt provided by them. It’s a new T-shirt and more over its very ordinary cotton which just sticks to the body when it becomes wet. I have my own reebok dry fit T-shirt and I am not supposed to wear that. What a stupidity? When I asked the organizer, he said, it’s done to avoid brand advertisements (they don’t want to have logos in T-shirt). Till now everything was badly organized and the organizers are shameless to give harsh replies. I have to wait and see what happens on the race day tomorrow. It was really a marathon effort to register myself before the actual marathon.