The deeper you dig...

Here's my experience of the Hyderabad Marathon I finished last Sunday.

Just to set the context correctly, I had done a 12-hr run covering 95kms in Bangalore Kanteerava stadium three weeks earlier. I had also done a marathon distance at the hilly TRORT course the previous week. (I have done two 100K+ runs over the last two years). I have run the same course last year as a four and a half hour pacer. Having said that, (I expected) the challenge this time around would be to see how much I have recovered from the 12-hr run. And I haven't run anything at all in the interceding three weeks.

My plan (otherwise without the 12-hr run in the equation) was to run a competitive timing and to push for a 3:30-3:45 finish based on the feel and the conditions. When I started or planned for the run, I just couldn't predict my capacity. The plan was changed to a easy run with some of the Chennai runners (including my college buddy Manivannan Vangalur), aiming for a 4-hour finish.

I started the run slowly and did the first few kms at a 5:25 pace, allowing time for water. For the first loop around Hussain Sagar lake, I stuck with Naresh & Sridhar. At the end of the loop, I fell behind to attend a nature call. I joined the Chennai runner gang of Manivannan, Praveen Giriya and Arvind Kumar, allowing them to catch up for a few seconds. The first 10K was finished in around 55 mins.

The next 10K was a chatty run with the gang, and all of us were maintaining a good pace. As the day broke, I started to notice that my HR was unusually high for the effort being put in. (It was in the 170s, while at TRORT it was sub-150 for three-fourths the distance). Life continued on despite the higher heart rate till the 20th km.

Briefly after the 20th km marker, I felt a slight twitch on my right ankle. (This was just one aspect I was unprepared for the race. I had forgotten to pack my salt tablets). Quite thankfully, Arvind had a bunch and I borrowed one from him. The next few water stops, I was screaming for salt till I felt that it was brought under control.

Through this ordeal, the gang managed to build a lead of 200-300m. At 28th km, the dreaded Gachibowli flyover wasn't diffcult, but I took a longish walk break at the peak, not wanting to push the HR higher. This was the slowest km clocked till then. My 4-hour target had gone for a toss by now, and I mentally adjusted the target by 5 mins.

Suresh (fellow-Pacemaker) was standing near the fork-point, where the half-marathoners split, and cheered me up. After the turn, I realized that Manivannan and Arvind had slowed down, and were walking. I gave a shout to Manivannan and caught up with him. Arvind had realized that 4-hr target is dead, and was going to walk the rest of the course. I too joined them, and the next few minutes was spent chatting and maintaining a run-walk strategy.

We hit the 32nd km marker at 3:30. A quick mental calculation and I suggested to Mani, "Let us do run-walk and tartget 7:30/km, we'll still finish sub 4:30". Arvind must have been too tired by then, he joined and then dropped off. Mani too fell behind to stay with him. As I started to run, my right ITB had become very stiff, and was very difficult for me even to lift up the right leg.

The option of walking was ruled out. I was condemned to running the next ten kms as whatever pace I could manage. I have run-walked many marathons. The comfort factor is that if you get too tired, you take a little break, give rest to your running muscles, and walk. But today, that life support had been removed. Either I run to the finish or DNF.

I have run in Hyderabad for the last two years. The first year, I did a half-marathon, and it rained toward the finish. Last year, it had rained the previous day, and the temperature was cooler. The Sun God, having missed the race for the last two years, blessed AHM amply compensating for those years as well.

As I chugged on, my pace would sometimes droop to 7:30/km, the danger line for the 4:30 target. I was expecting a bit of shade after entering the Hyderabad Central University campus. But the terrain was completely parched. One of the volunteers commented that we didn't have any rains this year during the monsoons.

Each km marker I crossed, I would check against the time left for me to cover the remaining distance. The markers were about 600m off initially, but that difference was made up in the last few kms up till 41st km. The 42nd km was again off. Each of those markers, I calculated my target pace and it was a close call to the 4:30 finish.

I am accustomed to walking at aid stations to aid water intake. But today was different. I had to invent a new style of walking mimicking the running motion, not to engage the ITB muscles. Sure, the volunteers at the aid stations must have a field day just watching me.

As I reached the 41st, just at the gate for the stadium, there was a pleasant surprise. The entry gate had been switched from the farther one to the nearer one. There were runners all along the place walking in droves. Unable to raise my voice, I just kept signalling to them to give way. To my surprise, the 42nd km marker was short by atleast 400m (with the 41st km seemingly in place).

While, I wasn't able to stretch myself and sprint, I had enough juice left in me to up my cadence. I picked up a little pace, and moved faster towards the finish. A few more seconds must have passed before I realized and stopped by stop-watch. It read 4:26:15.

I tell my friends that long distance running is like a sand-pit. The deeper you dig, the deeper it becomes, and more it holds. Not even in any of those three ~100km runs, I had to dig in deeper as I had to do today. My back pushed to wall, I had to keep running with the sun beating down brutally. To my luck, this run was capped at the 42nd km.

Two marathons and a 12-hour run in the last four weeks, and I cannot ask for more. I will not, for sure. My next step is recover well, before taking on another big race.

As I had mentioned earlier, the weather was brutal today. Some of the fellow runners didn't have kind words for the organizers. But here's my honest opinion. "If you think that the weather is tough, you should be sitting indoors than running. The organizers and volunteers did their best to support the runners. Hydration support on the course was excellent, with the volunteers holding water bottles, electrolyte and other refreshments every two kms, and more often in the final kms."

Mysore Bangalore Run - The Genesis

Having finished the TCS10K in May 2013, albeit in flying colors, I was preparing for the next event. After considerable thought and deliberation I let go of the training for Hyderabad Marathon, as I couldn't afford to mix the training with ultra-distance runs. It is during this time, I was in constant touch with Shreyas for planning ultra runs though none of them materialized. Shreyas had indicated that he wanted to do an ultra distance run, preferably Bangalore to Mysore. 

My plans for the rest of the year were scuttled by a long-pending US trip, both for work and personal purposes. I decided not to register for Bhatti Lakes last minute, as I had to travel the week before that. The much anticipated Bangalore Ultra was also missed.

Having missed Ultra distance runs in 2013, it was always in the back of my mind to run an ultra distance nearing 100 miles in the coming months. However, the plans were put-off till SCMM. 

A month after SCMM, when I approached Shreyas, he had many ideas, but we couldn't conclude on how we could make the run practical.

I had known earlier that Shreyas was trying to arrange a ultra-run with Vishwanathan Jayaraman, a barefoot popularly known as the Hubli Express. When I approached him, he readily said yes, and that he could affort only a single day run, which led us to finalize on Bangalore to Mysore.

When I approached Dharmendra, he readily agreed. However, he had some constraints with the dates as he was involved in organizing many events on behalf of his group Proton Runners. The only date he had in mind, March 9th, seemed to work with all the three of us.

Kieren, is the no-problem man. As long as it didn't clash with this exams, he was ready to do any distance, any where, any time. Shreyas had some constraints with the dates, with some upcoming family events conflicting with our date. However, with the four of us opting, we had critical mass, and I decided to start planning. 

Dharmendra had another constraint that he wanted to participate in the Bangalore Unity Run which was scheduled on March 9th. So we tweaked the event around, and changed the start point to Mysore, that would enable him to attend the Unity Run.

With the date finalized, I approached Giridhar Kamath, (who is like a Eveready battery, always full of energy, and always ready), who readily agreed. He had been the backbone of the support team, committing the first support car for the whole duration of the race. Brijesh had once mentioned that he would crew me for my next Ultra, and I used this opportunity. He was the trainer-cum-coach, who kept us fit through the run with his stretches.

Sakthi joined in after I posted the event on facebook.

While Saroja wanted to join in, she wasn't sure how to. With Dileepan opting in two days before the race, that brought in new strength to the team. The second support car had been very valuable. It is like oxygen. We only notice it, when we dont have it. 

Kieren filled in his share with the two volunteers he brought in. Andrew Teron, cycled and ran through the course, and was with Kieren for the duration of his run. Joshua Fernandes, who stuck to Vishy, for a major part, and with me during the last part. Like Andrew, he also spent time on the whole course either on his feet or on his wheels.

Patrick had been planning to run a longer distance run, and joined in to fulfill his marathon for his birthday. Patrick and Shaiju started along with the Ultra runners, and completed a marathon. This was Shaiju's first marathon ever.

Dharmendra brought in Jen Chocken, who finished 42K on feet and another 8K on wheels, to complete 50K for the day.

We would have been happier if we had someone who was medically trained, either a qualified doctor, or a physiotherapist. That didn't materialize till the last minute. We decided to carry on, without any medical support.

Another year, still more to learn

The preparations for Mumbai marathon were going full steam in September, with the coach preparing us for longer and longer runs. The first setback happened in Mysore Marathon, when I was feeling stiffness in the left hamstring. This pain apparently disappeared after ten minutes of warm up. A visit to a local physio followed, and came up with nothing.

Every half-marathon has been a painful experience for me, with me having energy during the last few kms, but couldn't push, running on the brink of cramps. This year was no different. I ran two HMs, DRHM in July and Mysore Celebration HM in October. In both cases, the experience was the same. The stiffness that occured in Mysore pushed me on the backfoot for two weeks.

A long pending trip to the United States materialized. I was thrilled at first, at the opportunity of running on traffic-free roads. And I trained after arriving in US, but only for two weeks. My hectic travel schedule soon caught up. With sleep and rest taking precedence over workouts, meant that a better part of the training was missed.

As I arrived in December 1st week, I had seven weeks to go for SCMM, which was just sufficient to prepare for the distance. As I would soon find out, I had lost a considerable amount of training base. A quick discussion with the coach led to reworking the plans. I needed to boost my core strength which had always been my weakness.

The next setback came in the form of a weeklong vacation to Goa. Although I didn't miss any training, this one came in the form of good food. And with it, extra weight. At the end of the vacation, with two weeks to go the race, I was 3kg more than my preferred racing weight.

And hence the preparations began. I went on a special diet, which will be revealed after patenting it. I kept tracking my weight everyday,  doing my core workouts. Two everyday, each of twenty minutes, the core workouts, were aimed at taking me to the startline with just sufficient strength. And thus, was my preparation for the greatest organized marathon in India.

Prerace:
As luck would have it, we were spared from the massive traffic jams after arriving in Mumbai. With all the expected delays at the expo, and a late lunch, Dipankar (the Ironman) and myself checked into our room at 4pm on the previous evening. With the race next day, the next two hours were wisely spent sleeping.

With the group leaving us to catch up for dinner, we spent an hour walking to each and every Kamat restaurant in the Fort area, only to find that they had finished dinner already. We must have walked for atleast an hour. I kept reminding Dipankar that it will take only a short hard sprint to make the pre-race carb-load effective. With him declining to join for the sprint, dinner was finished in the restaurant downstairs.

Missing dinner also meant that I couldn't catch up with the rest  of the team for race planning. A short discussion with the coach left me confused. While I was confident of running a target of 3:30, his plan meant that I would have a deficit of 4 minutes into 32nd km, and it would tough to catch that up in the rest of the race.

The start:
Come morning, butterflies kept flying in my stomach. An extra visit to the toilet meant that I missed the group starting from the hotel. I was worried if the stomach would bother me again in the race like last year, when I had to hit one of the toilets on the course. All roads in Mumbai led to the marathon start at that hour.  I was pleasantly surprised to enter the subway station before we were led into Azad maidan.  I didn't miss much as I caught up with the team for the warm-up. I would manage to miss the team once again and finally catch up with them at the start line. Finally, all was well at the startline.

At the start, I had an half-hearted plan to join coach, atleast for the first ten kms. However, I tagged along  Rama(krishna), another member of our group, expecting the others to catch up. Rama is a 1st time marathoner, but a strong 10K runner. My expectation was that he would finish the target time comfortably. The first 10K was done in 48 minutes, about two minutes faster than what I was expecting. Rama would have run much faster if I had not held him and slowed him down.

I kept watching my heart rate, and never allowed it to exceed beyond 165. On uphills, it went over to 170s, but was soon brought down.

With Rama shooting off after 10kms, I caught up with Suresh Seshadhri, who was running strong, than what we have known. A brief chat followed, and he whispered that he was trying to BQ, conserving all the energy. I kept up to him and assured him that I'll lead him to the finish.

I was feeling strong headwinds as we reached the sea link. My immediate reaction was to tuck along behind somebody to escape the winds and conserve energy. With Suresh ahead, I offered to shield him from the wind and asked him to draft me. He lost patience after a while and moved ahead. I would notice later that this was the steepest stretch on the sea-link. I was tagging along with him for the next five or so kms.

As the kms passed one by one, flashback of last year's memories caught up. This was the same stretch I was running double faster last year to catch up with the rest of the team. As the 25th km passed, I was a bit happier. That's where I caught cramps first last year. I suddenly remembered that I had forgotten one of the salt pills and took them.

Suresh was running ahead of me, pushing the pace higher. I was catching up with him, not wanting to push it. And then, it occured, a sharp shoot in the left hamstring. This had been my weakness all along for this year. Knowing the routine, I walked and stretched the hamstring for a few seconds and took off. Having lost about a minute in the process, and the next kms, coming in at 5:05-5:10, I wasn't worried much. I still had a bank of a minute and a half.

I ran the next few kms, looking ahead for Suresh. I couldn't find him anywhere. He must have gone fast. As I continued along the stretch of Marine drive, the faster runners were crossing in the opposite direction. Our pack of lead runners Bobby and Brijesh passed. While Brijesh was looking ok, Bobby was dying. He has had a minor issue in the last week, and that must be taking its toll. Soon, I spotted other faster runners including Manoj.

Cramps stuck in the 32nd km again and the routine followed. And this would cost me the remaining 90 seconds. I was starting to be worried about the target now. Just then, Coach Kothandapani Sir and Neera passed me. That gave me a morale boost, and I continued along with both of them. Neera, having already pushed till then, was very tired. She was holding on to the second position in the women's category. I cheered her up and continued with them.


My agonies continued and I soon left them to go. I gathered all the energy that I had and focussed firmly on coach, who was running ahead of me, and pulled myself. Then came the dreaded Peddar road uphill. My pace dropped as I continued along. I kept telling myself, that there is a gradual slop all the way to the finish.

Apart from this dreaded uphill, Peddar road is also known for the numerous residents coming onto the streets to support the marathoners. You would see them as early as 6:15am during the starting leg of the race. In general, crowd support in Mumbai is far better and would lose only to the active running community in Chennai. There will be people at all places. But in Peddar Road, they'll be in droves.

I make it a point to cheer the kids in the Peddar road, when I pass along. I happened to encounter two kids, the first who couldn't let go of the water bottle. The second got a "Thank you, Chotu" in the hindi I knew.

Soon, I caught up with coach. By this time, Neera had gone ahead. Worried of a hamstring pull that happened last year, coach was holding himself. He was still in lead for a podium position in the Senior Veteran's category.

As the race progressed, the kms were hard to comeby. My feet were feeling cramped in the Flyknit racers, and was causing lots of discomfort. I wasn't feeling tired. However, missing to notice a few of the km markers, brought some of the morale down. As we were running the 39th km, I was running along with coach, and I had pull in my left calf once again. I had so much of strength left in me, but couldn't stretch long enough for a good stride.

Walking at a brisk pace, I stretched the left hamstring hoping that this would be for the last time in this race. Once again, with coach ahead of me, I caught up pace, and was running pulling my left leg along. The streets were flooded with the late half marathon finishers who were walking blocking the way for running. I kept screaming at the top of my voice for them to move away.

Five hundred metres to go, I was screaming at the top of my voice. Both of us were running in tandem, one behind the other.

Four hundered metres to go, I told coach to carry on, as he could sprint to the finish. I knew, if I pushed harder, I would cramp again.

Three hundred metres to go...., weaving through the sea of half-marathoners, ...

Two hundred metres to go...,

One hundred metres to go....

At last I got the courage to sprint to the finish, and ran within the limits of my cramps. I finished a couple of seconds behind coach. As I stopped my Garmin, it showed 3:35:56. This is two and a half minutes better than my last year's record.

The top runners in our group had a wonderful race, with both Brijesh (3:18) and Bobby (3:19) finishing below 3:20, and Brojen (3:29) finishing below 3:30.

Neera had finished almost a minute ahead of me. 

 As I see in my Garmin log, my heart rate was the highest at the finish.

PostRace Thoughts:
As I look back into the race, a lot of things worked well for me in the race. I tried a mix of Accel Gel and Gu Roctane, and it went down well. The salt capsules worked with the cramps limited to only the left hamstring and left calf muscles. I knew this to be a limitation.

As for the shoes, I took a big risk running in the Nike Flyknit racers. While these are lightweight, the toebox is narrow causing discomfort. I didn't have a good experience in the half marathon I ran last October.

The cramps also meant that I got enough rest periodically in the race, and wasn't tired at the finish. Much of the slowness in the second half was due to the constrained movement of legs than to tiredness.

After missing much of training this season, it was a good experience, getting myself ready for the race. Discipline in both diet and exercise helped. I did have a better base, but the machine wasn't well oiled and was ready for a breakdown. Training runs (especially long ones) didn't go very well, with me bonking on a 35K run two weeks into the race.

Considering all of that, this is a race performance to be happy with.

The goal for next year is to overcome these cramps and have a strong race of 42 kms. Till that day next year, the dreams will continue.

5K Splits: 23:55, 24:06. 23:48, 24:45, 24:19, 26:43, 27:25, 28:20, 12:35 (for 2.4K as per Garmin)