Satara Misal - Stage 3

Homeward bound

All men dream but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible. ~T.E. Lawrence

Umesh is the dreamer of the day. I dreamt of the return trip at night.

Here's the scene at the Satara Hill run endpoint

Umesh : "Let's go back to the room, get fresh and start our return on the bike"
Me: "Hmm .... give me some time. Let me eat something and recover"
Me:  (after sometime) "Umesh, lets use the bike rack and catch a bus or take a lift"
Umesh : "What happened ? Not feeling like it ?"
Me:  I am fine except for the ankle pain which does not come up during cycling. See the weather. No clouds. We will be starting latest by 12:30 / 1:00. There will be headwinds.
Umesh : The weather will be ok. We will start early.  But your call. I will go by your decision (But I could see his heart was bent on going back the way we came - cycling)
Me : "Hmmm ... Let me go get fresh. My mind will be a lot clearer then"
Bhari : (concerned) "Guys, Lets not risk it. The bike rack can be setup for all three bikes. You have already stretched the limit."

12:00 noon : Both of us are ready outside the hotel to return

And thus we embarked on the return. Not before fixing up the rack on Bhari's car with Vijay's bike. That had its own share of trouble as it was the first time I was setting this up. We lost a nut from the strap harness and Vijay biked down to the nearest hardware shop and fetched another one but we did not have anything to tighten it. Finally Bhari and Vijay put the rack into the car went to the same shop got it tightened and were back.

The bike rack and bike all setup for the return

I wrapped the reflector around the bike to be on the safer side and told Bhari to get down and check the rack whenever they stopped or hit some bad road patches.

We also told them to start a couple of hours after we started, in case one of us needed to discontinue.

Typically after I run a marathon I drink water at frequent intervals until I flush out all the toxins. I also eat at regular intervals. This time we were burning fuel as well as needed refuelling. I had filled a litre of Enerzal. Umesh and I had also eaten Upma and Poha after the run at a hotel near the bus-stand.  Bhari had dropped the others to the hotel and come back to pick up to take us back to the hotel. He had been giving us VVIP treatment throught out as well as in the hotel room.

The moment we hit NH4 towards Pune, I told Umesh we will stop at a decent dhaba and eat some solid food.

In 30 min we came across a hotel and refueled with a Roti each. The dal fry was very spicy (for my palatte) and I ordered and Egg bhurji without chillies. Washed this down with cold water and refilled my camelbak with cold water. i felt much better so much better that I told Umesh that I was ready to climb Khambatki now :-)

The road back is all rolling and mostly downhill, except for a steady gradient at at Shindewadi. I kept it easy and  we took turns at leading. We were faced with cross winds all along and the downhills were not all that fast. Umesh was doing strong and if riding alone would have reached home faster. But he slowed his pace with mine and stayed together.

We were passed by a couple of marathoners in their cars who cheered us. This added to the motivation. Soon after another car passed by gave a left indicator and a hand came out with a camera to shoot us. The same car stopped ahead at some distance and continued shooting us as we approached the car. It turned out to be Venkat who took some great snaps and told us we were crazy. He was driving down to Bombay after all the hard work of organising as well as pacing as a 3 hr bus.

Venkat took this snap as he passed us

A selfie was the right thing to do at the moment

We took another break for cold water but this restaurant did not have any. I ordered some sandwiches as we had stopped anyways and a cold drink. I was also stopping by for urinating and was checking on the urine colour. Pale yellow to white was a good sign and I managed to get this in sometime. 

We approached Wai Phata and another 5 kms before we hit Khabatki tunnel which was a beautiful downhill all the way even after the exit. We stopped before the tunnel approach road and fished out our head lamps. Checked our tail lamps and got ready for the dark tunnel ride and the downhill. 

I was leading as we entered the tunnel with the other vehicles noise deafening us and some of the bikers honking all the way and I noticed I could barely see my head light or the road ahead. What was wrong ? !!! Decelerated and slowed down. Dang ! we had forgotten to take our sun glares off. Stopped immediately and Umesh asked me the reason. He too had his glasses on and was wondering the same. We removed it and put it back into our jersey pockets and continued on. There was a missed call from Vijay on Umesh's cell when we were approaching Shirwal after Khambatki. They had started and were also approaching Shirwal. we stopped for them and they reached us in a couple of minutes. 

Shirwal - Meeting our support car

Bhari and the others were concerned and wanted to know whether we wanted to continue. Of course we were in great shape. the sun was now past its worst and the breeze was cool although I would have preferred a better direction. I told them to carry on ahead. Our next stop was the Vitthal's restaurant which I like because of the filter coffee. I wanted some caffeine 

Vitthal's on all highways

We took a long break at Vitthal's with Masala dosa and coffee. Called up home. It was probably 5:30 pm and I anticipated another 2 hrs more

Soon the gradient towards shinde wadi and the Toll naka started and we continued on. And the Katraj hill came in sight, we decided to take the Katraj tunnel by pass instead of the ghat to avoid the city traffic on the Katraj -swargate road. 

the tunnel and the road after was a long downhill and we got paid back for the climb that we had done the previous day morning. We did remember to remove our glares for this tunnel :-)

As we approached the Sinhagad road phata the road turned bad and the traffic worse. This was the Sunday evening city traffic. We had to stop and start quite a few times because of the bad traffic as well as traffic signals. Umesh parted way to go to Pimpri while I stayed on course to reach East street and Camp. Finally home was in sight and knocked the door at 8:00 pm. 

Siddhant is all smiles and beaming on my return

An eight hour ride after a half marathon was like running a full marathon ? Maybe not :-).

Thanks to Umesh for dreaming in the day. Venkat P from youtoocan run for the wonderful pictures and motivation. Bhari (Bharadwaj Keesra) - a friend whose support and care is unconditional.

Vijay Chavan for having the courage to start and stretch his limits and the spirit to stop and take the support for the return and Brijesh, Prashant and Ashish for the company and motivation.

More of our pics from Team PTC are here