Running in Chennai - Run in Rain

Even a small amount of rain is enough to make Chennai a city of million ponds.  They appear from no where as the water has got no place to go.   With water having no place to go, you have no place to run unless of course one is brave enough to run right the middle of the road playing 'chicken' with the vehicles coming at you from both directions.

So, running is rain in Chennai is not advisable.  To be clear, rain the not the issue here, but what it does to the city is the issue.  The road conditions, water logging, fallen trees and crazy drivers make the running (in rain) really a hazardous job.

Less than 10% of Chennai perhaps has storm sewer and 1% of that might be working.  Given that, why million even zillion ponds can appear at the slightest inkling of rain. 

Take the case of Abhiramapuram, one of the 'desirable' localities to live in Chennai.  City has been re-building the storm sewer for close to two years and it is still far from complete.  what we now have in my neighborhood are dug up streets and miserable driving conditions.. 

Hari (can) narrated a story of how he had to literally jump for cover as two cars were 'racing' the other day in CP Ramaswamy Road and appeared 'ready' to mow down anything that stood in their way, including humans.  Given drivers like this and rain clogging the roads, there is literally no place to run in rain.

But you if you really really have the urge to run when it is pouring outside, go to a Gym and run on a treadmill assuming there no power outage. :-) 

Now, here is the rest of the story.  It rained heavily today (Oct 18, 2012) and I did venture out for a run in Chennai Roads.. here is that story from my Daily Mile log.

Three Idiots run in rain..It was pouring cats & dogs creating mini ponds everywhere.. starting from my street corner. But being the last day of my 10x10, I ventured out in to the heavy rain much against the wishes of Sita. Within minutes, I got fully drenched and looking at the water puddles everywhere, I developed cold feet and decided to head to the Gym instead of running outside. But that's when I saw the other two idiots running and decided to join them to run our usual course to Elliots Beach.

After a while, rain didn't bother us as much as the water logging and the crazy drivers driving like a maniac with their headlights at 'high beams'. But some interesting conversation abou life in Muscat kept us going and rain stopped for a while giving us some breather. Yet, we had water puddles to contend with, so we walked, talked and ran wherever possible to complete our course and my 5th 10x10 for the year.

Question of the day - If there were no constraints, which city would you want to live? My answer - Palo Alto, CA.

Rain picked us back up on our return and I decided to skip my usual Prithvi Ave loop and headed home got an earful from Sita, while the other two 'loosu' runners continued to their odyssey to their home and perhaps got an earful from Krithika..

Thanks Hari & Dhamanna for company.. you guys helped me complete my 10x10 today.