national aquatic championship Bhopal India 2012

National Aquatic Championship 2012

“Did you know that the government is sponsoring all kinds of sports for older people? Swimming , throws , running, jumps?”

That was my daughter the journalist.

The government’s definition of “old age” seemed a little different from mine. You qualified to  enter master’s events at the ripe old age of 25!

I was intrigued and decided to go to  “The National Aquatic Championship 2012” to be held in the beautiful lake city of Bhopal.

There was a lot of planning involved, travel, hotel stay , closing the clinic, making caretaker arrangements for my father etc.”

After everything was arranged I got  cold feet.

“Bhopal is very far away. There are murders there. Who will hold my belongings when I swim?”

“What belongings? “asked my husband.

“My cell phone, money etc.”

The children finally bullied my husband into coming with me.

“Tell me the exact schedule of your events so I can plan and coordinate with my other travels. I don’t want to stand around all day.”

The government did not issue the sequence of events. (They even changed the sequence of the printed list on the notice board.) They had a defunct web site where last year’s results were posted and that was it. There were several instructions though—

“Swim suits should not be transparent.  Two piece swim suits should have enough material to cover the number bib. Changing in public is not allowed.!!”

Once at the hotel my fears seem well founded. One of the people having lunch had a machine gun toting bodyguard seated slightly to the side.

On the plus side the hotel was situated on a hill overlooking the city. There were lakes all around with plenty of water  and best of all there were no power cuts.

800 people turned up for the meet from all over India. It looked like a nudist mela.

There was a bronze medal winner from the 1961 diving competition in Italy. He was now in his 70’s but he won the gold medal here as well.

There  was  an amputee who came fourth, but was planning to swim all the way to srilanka after 6 months. There was a woman with a crutch who swam 400 meters. Their spirit and enthusiasm was really to be admired.

My husband was fascinated. “Look at that woman, she must be at least 80. She is so fat. I am going to stay here in  case she has a heart attack.”

(She was just a fat forty!)

There were no doctors on duty so my husband doubled up. There was a woman who forgot her inhaler, a man who cramped up severely and had to be hauled out of the pool.

One gentleman said “you know I can still do underwater turns.” Most of us could not . We had to touch the wall and turn. This meant we lost precious seconds. He soaked up the  admiration  from the bystanders. He dived  in for his race. As he reached the wall and turned, he went into the next lane. He had a head on collision with the other swimmer. He was disqualified. Winded, the other swimmer had to be hauled out of the pool.

One of our contingent (young woman 25-29 age group our best swimmer) got beaten by the woman from Karnataka. She was very upset.

“How can I compete against her? She’s not human! She looks like  bionic woman!”

She sort of did in a synthetic snakeskin swim suit.

K was a great believer in all kinds of supplement. She had a knapsack with “prerace gel, post race recovery gel and protein shakes.” She spent a great deal of her time squeezing brown semi solids and strange liquids into her mouth. They did not seem to improve her performance overly. A muscly tough looking fit swimmer from Maharashtra regularly beat her. By day three she had jitters and was giddy. We had to withdraw from the relay because she was too giddy to swim. (Wonder what is in these tubes?)

Medal distribution was chaos compounded. The certificates weren’t ready and the officials were harassed. My friend V and I caught an official.

“Sir,” we have to fly back to Chennai. Can we have our medals?”

“Can you wait 15 minutes?”

A volunteer came around with hot samosas for the officials. V looked at it longingly. The official was embarrassed.

“Madam, would you like my samosa?”

“Yes,” she said and grabbed it.

“V, “ I protested, “now he won’t help us!”

“I was hungry, I just finished a race , he is just sitting there! I need the samosa more than he does.”

No argument there!

(Photographs of the event are on Facebook.

I got three medals, 1 gold 2 silver, V got one.)

Dr. Gita Mathai

The writer is a paediatrician with a family practice at Vellore.

If you have any questions on health issues please write to

yourhealthgm@yahoo.co.in

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Chittoor CMC Marathon report

Chitoor Marathon report

Marathons (I run half’s ) are a passion with me ever since running took off in India . I have run around 14 in the last 3 years.

“After all “, one of my friends said, “when you are old what else can you do? Tennis  and badminton require a partner,  golf a course and swimming a pool! This just needs a road. “

Apparently even footwear is optional as barefoot running has caught on in a big way.(Some athletes pay upwards of Rs 5000 to buy a shoe to give them that barefoot feel.)

So I was thrilled when CMC  (where I have lived since 1969) decided to organize a half marathon. They wanted to popularize their new campus in Chitoor.

The development department invited many people for their first meeting. There were professors in various disciplines, people of stature in the town, all kinds of knowledgeable individuals. None of them had ever run a marathon or even witnessed one.

“Perhaps”, I suggested, “some of you can run? The Bangalore TCS 10 K is coming up. Why don’t you register? You will know what it is all about.”

Two people registered. They decided to reach the venue “on time.”

Roads were blocked, they reached late and were finally allowed to run after much pleading.

This was not going to work.

“Perhaps you need a consultant. I suggested various groups and they settled on “Running and Living.”

They fixed the marathon for a Saturday with bib collection on Thursday. There were howls of protests, from the runners.

“We cannot take off Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Why can’t it be on a Sunday?”

“CMC has no official functions on Sunday.” My statement was met with disbelief.

“Look, “ I said just email me. I will pick up the racing kits for all of you.”

A few responded ,but many  people dropped out as the date approached.

The night before the marathon, it rained heavily in Chitoor. They organized some earth moving machinery to clear a path for the runners. It made matters worse. There were potholes filled with water and slushy slippery areas. The direction signs had slipped and some now faced heaven wards.

We reached the venue in semi darkness. We looked at the path designated. It was full of rocks, boulders and slush. The scenery was breath-taking but the path ( in the places where there was a path) a nightmare. Volunteers and water stations were few and far between. (I had confidently told my friends not to carry water!). Some volunteers did not know where we were supposed to go. If asked for directions they vaguely waved their arms around.

 A few of us wandered around an area with slush and no path. A runner clapped to get my attention. “Where to? “ He asked.

“I don’t know” I said.

“Wait I will come to you.”

He crossed a treacherous looking boggy area. “Oh God,” he said my shoes are full of water. Maybe I should remove them?”

“Don’t” I said, “look at the thorns and rocks.”

We both headed in what we thought was the general direction. There was not a human being (read volunteer) in sight.

Finally we could see the roof of the CMC clinic. “Aha” I said with a sigh of relief, “there it is.”

As we headed down hill, I skidded in the slush and went down. My foot got stuck. I pulled it out only to lose my shoe. I groped in the mud and pulled out a brown mess. That was my shoe- my expensive imported trail runner. There was no way I could negotiate the path with thorns and rocks without a shoe. I put it back on. It squished as I walked. My running pants were soaked in mud and blood. I thought of the years the area I was running through had been vacant and probably used as a public toilet. My whole body started to itch.

Apparently we had to do a second round of the same circuit (how on earth?) after reaching the CMC clinic.

The route led through the parking lot.  My nice clean car was there with the driver seated inside.

“Madam” he said “what happened to you?”

“I fell,” I said “lets go home.”

As I entered the car I heard a shout behind me. “Wait up! “Where are you going?” It was the runner with the wet shoes.

“Home ,”I said, “I can’t bear it.”

“Can you drop me off in Vellore?” I can’t bear it either. My car is parked there.”

I have never not completed a run except this one. Ditto for the wet shoe man.  This certainly was the toughest run I ever attempted.

Hats off and congratulations to all who finished.  

Perhaps we will see you all there next year.

 Dr. Gita Mathai

The writer is a paediatrician with a family practice at Vellore.

If you have any questions on health issues please write to

yourhealthgm@yahoo.co.in

running slow reaching there

Running Slow

A great deal has been written about athletes who come in the first 10 for a marathon .What about the pathetic stragglers who need every ounce of strength and determination to make it to the final mat?

3:45 for my first half marathon. Not too bad I thought. I finished way ahead of some people and since I already  knew that I was a slow runner it did not bother me too  much. After all, I was 58 and was terribly overweight. All I wanted to do was reach the finish line.

In the Hyderabad marathon two years later, I could see the finish line  in the distance – but we had to go another 500m around the stadium before we could actually cross the mat. Pure torture! I though that I would never make it.

As I run  more half’s my timing is becoming an embarrassment. How on earth was I supposed to improve my timing?

I was unable to train as per any schedule--- Hal Higdon, Macmillan etc. I have to run in a very restricted time  window. I have a choice of two routes—paddy fields, villages with cows, men with  sickles and iron rods ( like in the KVT) –or the highway with speeding vehicles! The sun comes up by 5:45. If I run in the paddy fields near my house in the dark, there are snakes. I cannot run on the highway because of trucks. I have to get to work by 8 am. In the evening the same problem occurs in reverse—I reach home by 6:30, and it is dark.

So no long runs, split times, fartleks, or tempos. No matter what I think I am doing, or try to do, I wind up just doing the same distance at the same steady pathetic pace of 17-18 minutes per mile.

Then one day I realized  that I finished the half marathon in the same time that it took fitter athletes to finish the full! That was why there was always a crowd around when I finished.  Some actually (in the Kaveri trail marathon) actually reached before me! True, they started a half hour before I did, but that is really not an excuse. It is after all double the distance.

It became positively embarrassing. The worst part was that I ran every day or thought I did.

One day one of my daughter’s friends said “We all really admire the way your mother signs up for half marathons persists and walks 21 km.

“Walks?” said my daughter, “She thinks she is sprinting!”

I subscribed to a website which helped to run half marathons. It had several days off (3 per week) 2 days of XT (I think that means  cross train) and one long run.

I was doing more  (3-4 ) miles a day when I trained on my own.  The more  followed the schedule the less I ran. I never made it for long runs. The only consistent feature was a feeling of relief for a rest day! I put on another 3 kilos and became slower than ever.

I have a friend, a thin  vegetarian who runs full marathons. “The only way,” he said is to lose weight. Eat just one meal a day. I stopped eating and I lost weight. Now I am fast. “

He was too. He ran a full marathon in 3 hours.

I ate oats for breakfast, had a dosai and 2 vegetables for lunch, I ate two fruits at 4 o’clock. I then went home by 6:30 and devoured everything I could get my hands on like a maniac. Another week of this and my weight went up another kilo.

This was not going to work.

I have self control in every field. I exercise regularly, I never miss a day of work n my clinic , nor do I miss my newspaper deadline.

Food—That is another story. There is absolutely no self control there!

Do speed drills advised a cousin. They were available on the internet. It involved running fast for 100 meters, then normal pace, running at your 10 k pace , running at 5 k pace. All  I know is that that all pace for me is the same. 5 k , 10 k, makes little difference. I run them all at  to 17 -18 minutes a mile!

I wrote desperately to the runner’s world forum. “please help! Cannot improve my pace.”

“Try getting on a treadmill and pacing yourself” .

I did. There was something different about the treadmill. My feet seem to move oddly. The pace worked out to 18:40 minutes a mile.

I wrote back to the forum.

“Dude cane the prompt reply, “I think your treadmill is broken. I walk faster than that !”

Now that he mentioned it, I do get overtaken by walkers when I am “sprinting along.”

Depressed and dejected, I kept reading the forums. No one seemed to have any practical applicable advice for what to do when legs don't move!

For XT I went back to swimming. I found that they had master’s meets in Chennai.

I signed up and found there were very few participants in 60-65 women.  Despite the paunch and a tendency to land flat in the water for the diving start I got 4 golds and 1 silver! (photo attached). In the individual medley (50X4)  I did not even have any competition!

Perhaps I should change sports?

Dr. Gita Mathai

The writer is a paediatrician with a family practice at Vellore.

If you have any questions on health issues please write to

yourhealthgm@yahoo.co.in

going for surgery

Going for Surgery

My husband had repeated episodes of discharge from his left ear.

“I have some sort of allergy” he announced “that is why the discharge is intermittent.”

I protested, “It has to come from some where, so go to an ENT surgeon. There has to be a reason. In children it is usually a hole in the ear drum.”

“That is in children. It is a different age group. I know how to look after my health.”

He is a professor of medicine and infectious diseases while I am only a paediatrician.

This went on for the next five years. Finally when he was due to retire, nagging from everyone drove him to the ENT surgeon.

“I cannot hear too well in my left ear. I think perhaps it is from listening to my wife for the last 45 years.”

The surgeon burst out laughing. “Even of that is the case we have to have a look.”

As he examined the ear, he announced, “Your ear canal is congenitally deformed, there is a hole in the ear drum and the infection has spread to the bone behind.”

My husband looked at him in horror. ”What are you planning?”

“Surgery”.

There seemed to be hundred reasons for postponing  surgery.

“I have to go to XX, YY, ZZ to conduct exams. My surgeon is travelling. My grandson is coming for the holidays.”

Finally I put my foot down.

“I am going to be 60 years old. Please do the surgery before that.”

The date was fixed and we packed to go to hospital.

“Why are you taking your gym clothes?” I asked.

“I want  to wear them for surgery.”

“You can’t “ I said they make you wear hospital pyjamas.”

He always prided himself on the fact that he worked in the institution 35years without being admitted into the hospital even once. He did not have a clue about nursing procedures. I, on the other hand was a veteran. Admissions for the delivery of two children, and later, as I grew older ,for tackling various glitches in my aging reproductive system.

“I am sure they won’t  ask ME to wear hospital pyjamas,“ he said.

The morning of the surgery, he attired himself in his latest running outfit and sat down on the bed.

He looked longingly at the cup of coffee I was drinking. ‘Get me a cup of coffee.”

“No,” I said, “you are supposed to be starving from midnight.”

“The emptying time for the stomach is one and a half hours. They will never know. The surgery is still two hours away.”

I had mental visions of him vomiting during anaesthesia and developing aspiration pneumonia.

“No.” I went and sat outside with my coffee.

The  nurse arrived with  a set of oversized hospital pyjamas. He disappeared into the bathroom to put them on. He reappeared with the pyjamas  on top of his gym clothes.

“No,” said the nurse, “you have to remove your clothes.”

He disappeared into the bathroom again. This time when he emerged, she said “you have to remove your innerwear also.”

One more long trip to the bathroom. They compromised and he kept his underpants on under the pyjamas. After the nurse left he said, “look at these awful over sized pyjamas.”

“Be grateful they have buttons in the front, in labour room and in the gynaecology wards we have backless gowns with nothing for our legs.”

“I don’t believe it.” He said.

 The surgery took longer than anticipated.

A junior doctor came out and said, “his neck is stiff, cannot be hyperextended and his mouth won’t open. The anaesthetist had a tough time intubating him. ” I listened in silence.

Once we reached the ward the nurse said “nothing by mouth till 3:30pm. After that clear liquids for another 3 hours.”

As  soon as she left he said, “get me a Pepsi.”

I was not sure that it falls in the category of  “clear liquids.”

Anyway I was too tired to argue.

General anaesthesia apparently produces a ravenous appetite. The Pepsi was followed by 600 ml of lime juice, two  coffees, a “kitcdi,” a hot and spicy chicken soup, a rava dosai and an apple.

The next morning  a junior doctor came to remove the ear dressing.

She repeated the litany about the stiff neck. “you have to remember this in case you have anaesthesia elsewhere”.

After she left, “What nonsense”, said my husband, “ I can move my neck and open my mouth. See.” He made some violent movements.

“I am sure you can, but don’t till you have the sutures removed.”

He got fully dressed. “Can we go now?” he asked the nurse.

“Well the chief has to come for grand rounds to see you  first.”

The nurse brought some tablets. “You have to take these.”

“Just leave them here I will take them later. “No,” said the nurse,” take them now!”

He sheepishly swallowed the pills.

 “I want to be dropped at the gym after discharge, I feel a lot less groggy now.”

I think he wanted to exercise his neck and jaw.

“I don’t think you can” I feebly protested.

“I had surgery to my ear, not my abdomen.”

There was no arguing with that.

The unit  finally came on grand rounds an hour later. “No head bath, no weight lifting and no jogging for a week.”

I sure am  glad they were so explicit!  Perhaps they overheard?

We headed silently home for a week of house arrest.

Dr. Gita Mathai

The writer is a paediatrician with a family practice at Vellore.

If you have any questions on health issues please write to

yourhealthgm@yahoo.co.in