Me, Marathon & her

Today was the Marathon Day. Now those who have no idea as to what that is, let me enlighten you. This is a day when South Mumbai's arterial roads are closed to traffic, so that it is easy for the 30K odd people who have registered, to move along them. About the same number show up, Line the streets on a sleepy and foggy morning in January so that they can cheer up the masochists who have decided to run either 42 or 21 Km. The not so brave souls who register for the Dream Marathon (7 Km) are the majority and great fun to watch. Yours truly has been running the Half Marathon, a distance of 21097m for the past two years. The route starts at the historic V.T. Chowk (Even though I am a Maharashtrian, I refuse to call it CST) leading to Nariman Point via Fountain. One then has top run along the Scenic Marine drive, via Kemp's Corner, till Worli and Back. This year they decided to apply a lot of things they had learnt in the past two years, and there were a lot of changes.
Firstly my race was at an unearthly time of 7 in the morning, and I had to be there by at least 6:30, which was all fine except that it meant I would be leaving my house by 5 in the frigid cold morning. I happened to reach the station by about 5:17 and the first person I see on the 5th platform is a fat guy with read colour on his face. He seemed to be holding a yellow coloured Bib, which meant he was out to enjoy the Dream Marathon. Soon I saw a lady holding a blue coloured Bib with the word veteran underscoring her number. Soon the train chugged in & as always I jumped in, along with the red faced dude. After hanging out for sometime, I saw that Khalik and Anurag were there as well, sitting right in front of the red dude. Time was passed by the usual tomfoolery on the part of Khalik.
After we alighted at Churchgate, Anurag disappeared in the quest of some Chick, Leaving me along with Khalik. We managed to reach Azad in once piece, and after depositing my stuff at the counter, we started walking to warm-up. Khalik apparently wasn't too keen on it, and I didn't push him. After a couple of rounds, who should we walk into? Isha and Karan. Apparently they had both planned on participating in the Half Marathon, but due to some unfortunate accident involving a swimming pool, Isha would not, and Karan was going to be the sole one doing so.
Both of us left the couple, in order to answer nature's call before running. By the time we returned, Both of them had disappeared, and we also realised that not much time was left, so we proceeded to the Holding area, and within a couple of minutes, we were left out on Mahanagpalika marg, which was when I lost Khalik.

Congratualtions to Oscar for finishing the full Marathon

P.s. I almost forgot about 'her’. After completing the race, I was drifting back inside Azad, when I remembered to take my Participation Certificate. As I trudged towards the counter, my tired muscles could hardly control my posture. At the counter there was a decent female who was asking names and writing them on the certificates. As My turn came, I leaned on the table, coz my legs were too tired to support my weight. I also was quite dazed, and apparently while giving her my name, I must have also given her one heck of a smile, coz she blushed like hell and turned Beet red. I quickly made my escape, before things escalated.