A Moderately Fit , Certainly Overweight Citizen of Mumbai

Yours truly hefting Antara when she was 10 months old

I AM OVERWEIGHT. Not sure what the TallBoys achieve, but I figured I’d take a leaf out of the AA playbook, and start by making an admission of what I know to be true. I just came off a low carb diet in 09, in which I lost a few kegs, but I’ve gained most of it back. Not the stuff marathon legends are made of …

I’m what you might call a generalist sportsman. I once played ball sports reasonably well, in fact you might say I was pretty good as an engster [a nugget from my time with NRN]. But I was never exceptional at any one sport. Looking at me now, even the “reasonably well” requires a sizeable leap of faith.

Running to me has always been synonymous with getting to the ball. Running for running’s sake, or for the joy of running (I’m rolling my eyes right now just thinking of it) was never a consideration. To add to my running handicaps, I’m a smoker. I drink occasionally (although I’ve been on more than a few benders back in the day) and recently had a surgery for a breathing disorder, which had me worried for a bit.

The truly tricky bit for me is that I have a weakish right leg, which I don’t quite know how to deal with. When I’m playing, my Achilles heel is my Achilles heel. On occasion my ankle will swell up, making it impossible to put more weight on the foot, forcing me to take evasive action. The other issue I have is that my shins occasionally start to hurt like crazy mid-game, preventing further running of any kind. Both I’m told are a direct result of being overweight and shortchanging my warm-up, but I’m not so sure.

Why am I telling you all this? I guess so you’ll appreciate that running the Half is not going to be a slam dunk. But then if it was, I probably wouldn’t do it!! I did mention I don’t really love running … at least not yet.