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)
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)
