An update on this blog is long overdue, and it is just apt to write about the run at Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon last Sunday (17th January 2016), and also look at how the training went last year.
SCMM 2015 experience
To start with, I was battling stiffness in my left ITB and hamastrings post the 12-hr stadium run in July 2014. This flared up during the Hyderabad Marathon in August. This put me into a recovery mode with minimal training. SCMM 2015 was run with the goal not to induce cramps. I teamed up with MurthyRK (MRK) and Kishore Kumar (President) to run a 5:10 pace. The strategy worked well with me reaching the top of Peddar Road feeling very fresh. I went overboard the next few kms to push myself into tired zone. However the better of cramps caught me after a sudden move at 39K. To summarize, stiffness slowed me down very much in the last few kms, however, I finished at a very respectable 3:42:10. I was very happy because of two factors: 1. Felt fresh after 35K into the race, 2. Pushed cramps to almost the end of the race.
Training in 2015
Time constraints becoming a challenge, I had to drop out of Pacemakers training. However, I continued training on my own with a little bit of deviation. Fortunately, I also found a training partner Vijay (who had done a sub 13:00 4K in his school days). Strong runner, however lacking conditioning and experience. Our training paces coincided so well that training became a pleasure.
The other aspect was that, I was training mostly empty stomach to induce fat burning. Together we had done a few 30K+ runs with 500ml of water and electrolyte between the both of us. Like me, Vijay was also facing stiffness issues and at some point of time, we had to stop training because of that. However, few months of consistent training had improved both aerobic base and fat burn capabilities to a very good degree.
I improved my timing for 10K to 41:58 on a very tough course, even though I was bogged down with cramps during the 2nd half. In Spirit of Wipro Run during September, the cramps was so bad that, I ran with pain from the 4th km. Luckily, I wasn't racing. At this time, I decided to go for treatment (active muscle release) for a longer duration with a physio.
This was a challenge as I didn't know of good physios around my place. Traveling everyday for more than a week everyday wasn't an option. I settled for a sub-optimal solution and convinced the physio about the problems by the third day. The treatment was for a whole 9 days, and every day was more painful than the previous. In the end, the treatment yielded great results, give or take a few days.
Post the treatment, running was totally different. It was like using a different set of muscle everytime I ran, akin to learning running for the first time.
Training for SCMM
Ideally I would like to train about 18 weeks for the marathon distance, and in the worst case atleast thirteen weeks. However, the physio treatment didn't allow me so much time. On top of this, most muscles had to be retrained. It was like re-learning running. Till about mid-November, my long runs were terrible, and anything in excess of 25K proved to be a challenge. I lost about of two weeks of training, courtesy, floods in Chennai and a viral infection post that.
Luckily for me, the next two long runs one for 35K and another for 40K went well, as I had planned. To top this up, I had a week long shutdown at work. I did a couple of long rides on my road bike and a few intense workouts. No work meant that I could catch up on sleep and get good recovery.
Tragedy struck again in the form of a folliculitis threatening to a full blown infection. The 1st picture shows my right leg swollen with the infection, just a week before the race.
Though the swelling subsided in a few days, I was on a weeklong antibiotic course with the last pill on morning before race day. The one last pill was promptly skipped considering the proximity to raceday. However, I completed most of my training with the exception of one long run, the week before raceday.
To summarize, I trained only about 30% of what I would have trained for a normal marathon race.
Prerace Preparations
We arrived in Mumbai the previous morning and stayed in a hotel close to the start. I kept my lunch and dinner light given that I usually have GI problems enroute. Strangely, after all that lost training and the infection, I was feeling good before the raceday. However, I was very skeptical about the outcome on raceday. I was in two minds when coach Pani sir asked me to pace a fellow Pacemaker to a 3:40 finish. Personally, I felt that I might let down given the problems I had in the last week. I didn't want to commit to something that I wasn't sure of.
With Suresh S (running HM) sharing my room, the logistical problem of bathroom was partly solved. Despite the light lunch and dinner, I had bowel movements for a record 4 times with all that pre-race anxiety.
I decided to drop all the extra weight that I would need to carry. No cap, no sunglass and not even a water bottle or changeover clothes to be deposited at the baggage counter. Thanks to that, I could get a fast entry into Azad Maidan, while my friends with bags had to wait for a few more minutes.
Still at crossroads, I carried two pairs of shoes, Nike Flyknit Racers (which have a cramped toebox and you end up with painful feet > 35K) and Vibram Fivefingers (which has less cushioning and hence more pounding on the feet). After Suresh confirmed that the Nikes are lighter, I decided to stick to them. As for carrying the gels and salt caps, I just stuck to my Kalenji waist belt minus the water bottle.
The Race
After we had finished our warm up at Azad Maidan, as we headed to the start line, the A and B corrals were already mixed up. I quickly moved through people to move to the front as much as I can. However, when I got to the start point, it was already a minute after the race had started. Starting so much behind meant that I had to wade through the crowd all along for the next 2 kms. On the positive side, this also helped me warm up slowly. Over these 2kms I would have lost a complete minute.
My strategy was to stick to the 1st 10K for 51 minutes and hit the half time mark at 1:46/1:47. I had to drop down pace if my HR hit 165. Though the minute was lost, I got to the half time mark at around 1:46:30, just as I had planned. I went past coach and gang just around the 9th km mark. They were running steadily. Given the late start, I also met several people en route. Bhasker Sharma, Sandy, Vinit Mehta, Sunil Shetty, Narayan, Sameer, Mani Iyer, Gajendra, Shivnag. This gave a good boost to my confidence.
As I was getting on the sea-link, I was running alongside Roopali Mehta, and I took the winds asking her to stay close and stay behind. I was closing on Neera by this time, and the gap was around 100m.
Both me and Roopali stuck together till the 29th km, with me asking her to move ahead if she wanted as I was stiffening up. At this time, I was feeling great with my HR still in the low 160s, and I was hitting target pace of 5:00 easily.
Just short of the 29th km, I coughed badly because of dry throat and this rippled through my left hamstring resulting in cramp. To add to that, I stopped suddenly. I walked about twenty paces, let the cramp ease up and continued ahead. A quick check on my Garmin, and the pace was 5:15. A back of mind calculation meant that I'll lose about 4 minutes in the remaining distance. By this time, Roopali was ahead by about 150m. Thankfully, this gave me a moving target, as I ran cautiously without aggravating the cramps further.
I would take another 11 km to catch up this 150m distance.
As I reached Peddar road, I was feeling great. I chugged along though the pace dropped to 5:30. As I reached the top, my HR read 168. Phew, this gave me lots of confidence, though I could still feel the cramps. I used the downhill to relax, without pacing up further.
The next thing I remember is that my feet started paining around 36K (as expected), thanks to the cramped shoes. The 39th km and 40th kms never seemed to come, with all that pain.
By this time, I was closing in on both Neera and Roopali. While Roopali had stopped on the route, I quickly gave her a shout, but she was going to take longer. As I passed Neera, I asked her to tag along. In her own style, she asked me to carry on.
The cramps would strike one more time, but I had no room to play with this time. I dropped the pace further and chugged along without stopping.
The usual drama of screaming for the way ahead and weaving through the walkers continued in the last km, till about 500m to go. From here I sprinted all the way to the finish of 3:35:36 (17 seconds better than earlier). Both Neera and Roopali ended up with gold in their respective age categories.
Am I happy?
Dragging me away are ...
1. A week before the race, I wasn't sure if I would race or not, and took antibiotics for a complete week.
2. Most of my training was washed out. I did only about 30% of the required training for the marathon. My long runs weren't on track till about a month to the race.
On the positive side,
1. My weight has been on a steady decline. During the 1st week of January I tipped 60kg on the scales. This is the least I have weighed in over two decades.
2. I had been regular to the gym, and have been building a good aerobic base.
3. Positive attitude through the race. At about 25th km, I was feeling a bit tired. I reminded myself that this is usually the toughest part of the race, and chugged along.
To look at the last four years, 2013 and 2014 were wasted opportunities with cramps ruining my race post 25km. 2015 was an extremely good finish, given that I was recovering from a serious ITB injury. While 2016 is just another year gone by, I have positives to count on.
1. The long nemesis of cramps is being dealth with (professionally).
2. My fat metabolism has improved and my body composition is getting better.
3. A perfectly executed race on the nutrition front.
Did I give a 100%?
Absolutely. As I am writing this blog (three and a half days after the finish), I can still feel the soreness on my glutes and hips. Even after five gels in the race, I felt tired on the race day and the next. And that makes me happier to have given a whole hearted effort.
SCMM 2015 experience
To start with, I was battling stiffness in my left ITB and hamastrings post the 12-hr stadium run in July 2014. This flared up during the Hyderabad Marathon in August. This put me into a recovery mode with minimal training. SCMM 2015 was run with the goal not to induce cramps. I teamed up with MurthyRK (MRK) and Kishore Kumar (President) to run a 5:10 pace. The strategy worked well with me reaching the top of Peddar Road feeling very fresh. I went overboard the next few kms to push myself into tired zone. However the better of cramps caught me after a sudden move at 39K. To summarize, stiffness slowed me down very much in the last few kms, however, I finished at a very respectable 3:42:10. I was very happy because of two factors: 1. Felt fresh after 35K into the race, 2. Pushed cramps to almost the end of the race.
Training in 2015
Time constraints becoming a challenge, I had to drop out of Pacemakers training. However, I continued training on my own with a little bit of deviation. Fortunately, I also found a training partner Vijay (who had done a sub 13:00 4K in his school days). Strong runner, however lacking conditioning and experience. Our training paces coincided so well that training became a pleasure.
The other aspect was that, I was training mostly empty stomach to induce fat burning. Together we had done a few 30K+ runs with 500ml of water and electrolyte between the both of us. Like me, Vijay was also facing stiffness issues and at some point of time, we had to stop training because of that. However, few months of consistent training had improved both aerobic base and fat burn capabilities to a very good degree.
I improved my timing for 10K to 41:58 on a very tough course, even though I was bogged down with cramps during the 2nd half. In Spirit of Wipro Run during September, the cramps was so bad that, I ran with pain from the 4th km. Luckily, I wasn't racing. At this time, I decided to go for treatment (active muscle release) for a longer duration with a physio.
This was a challenge as I didn't know of good physios around my place. Traveling everyday for more than a week everyday wasn't an option. I settled for a sub-optimal solution and convinced the physio about the problems by the third day. The treatment was for a whole 9 days, and every day was more painful than the previous. In the end, the treatment yielded great results, give or take a few days.
Post the treatment, running was totally different. It was like using a different set of muscle everytime I ran, akin to learning running for the first time.
Training for SCMM
Ideally I would like to train about 18 weeks for the marathon distance, and in the worst case atleast thirteen weeks. However, the physio treatment didn't allow me so much time. On top of this, most muscles had to be retrained. It was like re-learning running. Till about mid-November, my long runs were terrible, and anything in excess of 25K proved to be a challenge. I lost about of two weeks of training, courtesy, floods in Chennai and a viral infection post that.
Luckily for me, the next two long runs one for 35K and another for 40K went well, as I had planned. To top this up, I had a week long shutdown at work. I did a couple of long rides on my road bike and a few intense workouts. No work meant that I could catch up on sleep and get good recovery.
Tragedy struck again in the form of a folliculitis threatening to a full blown infection. The 1st picture shows my right leg swollen with the infection, just a week before the race.
Though the swelling subsided in a few days, I was on a weeklong antibiotic course with the last pill on morning before race day. The one last pill was promptly skipped considering the proximity to raceday. However, I completed most of my training with the exception of one long run, the week before raceday.
To summarize, I trained only about 30% of what I would have trained for a normal marathon race.
Prerace Preparations
We arrived in Mumbai the previous morning and stayed in a hotel close to the start. I kept my lunch and dinner light given that I usually have GI problems enroute. Strangely, after all that lost training and the infection, I was feeling good before the raceday. However, I was very skeptical about the outcome on raceday. I was in two minds when coach Pani sir asked me to pace a fellow Pacemaker to a 3:40 finish. Personally, I felt that I might let down given the problems I had in the last week. I didn't want to commit to something that I wasn't sure of.
With Suresh S (running HM) sharing my room, the logistical problem of bathroom was partly solved. Despite the light lunch and dinner, I had bowel movements for a record 4 times with all that pre-race anxiety.
I decided to drop all the extra weight that I would need to carry. No cap, no sunglass and not even a water bottle or changeover clothes to be deposited at the baggage counter. Thanks to that, I could get a fast entry into Azad Maidan, while my friends with bags had to wait for a few more minutes.
Still at crossroads, I carried two pairs of shoes, Nike Flyknit Racers (which have a cramped toebox and you end up with painful feet > 35K) and Vibram Fivefingers (which has less cushioning and hence more pounding on the feet). After Suresh confirmed that the Nikes are lighter, I decided to stick to them. As for carrying the gels and salt caps, I just stuck to my Kalenji waist belt minus the water bottle.
The Race
After we had finished our warm up at Azad Maidan, as we headed to the start line, the A and B corrals were already mixed up. I quickly moved through people to move to the front as much as I can. However, when I got to the start point, it was already a minute after the race had started. Starting so much behind meant that I had to wade through the crowd all along for the next 2 kms. On the positive side, this also helped me warm up slowly. Over these 2kms I would have lost a complete minute.
My strategy was to stick to the 1st 10K for 51 minutes and hit the half time mark at 1:46/1:47. I had to drop down pace if my HR hit 165. Though the minute was lost, I got to the half time mark at around 1:46:30, just as I had planned. I went past coach and gang just around the 9th km mark. They were running steadily. Given the late start, I also met several people en route. Bhasker Sharma, Sandy, Vinit Mehta, Sunil Shetty, Narayan, Sameer, Mani Iyer, Gajendra, Shivnag. This gave a good boost to my confidence.
As I was getting on the sea-link, I was running alongside Roopali Mehta, and I took the winds asking her to stay close and stay behind. I was closing on Neera by this time, and the gap was around 100m.
Both me and Roopali stuck together till the 29th km, with me asking her to move ahead if she wanted as I was stiffening up. At this time, I was feeling great with my HR still in the low 160s, and I was hitting target pace of 5:00 easily.
Just short of the 29th km, I coughed badly because of dry throat and this rippled through my left hamstring resulting in cramp. To add to that, I stopped suddenly. I walked about twenty paces, let the cramp ease up and continued ahead. A quick check on my Garmin, and the pace was 5:15. A back of mind calculation meant that I'll lose about 4 minutes in the remaining distance. By this time, Roopali was ahead by about 150m. Thankfully, this gave me a moving target, as I ran cautiously without aggravating the cramps further.
I would take another 11 km to catch up this 150m distance.
As I reached Peddar road, I was feeling great. I chugged along though the pace dropped to 5:30. As I reached the top, my HR read 168. Phew, this gave me lots of confidence, though I could still feel the cramps. I used the downhill to relax, without pacing up further.
The next thing I remember is that my feet started paining around 36K (as expected), thanks to the cramped shoes. The 39th km and 40th kms never seemed to come, with all that pain.
By this time, I was closing in on both Neera and Roopali. While Roopali had stopped on the route, I quickly gave her a shout, but she was going to take longer. As I passed Neera, I asked her to tag along. In her own style, she asked me to carry on.
The cramps would strike one more time, but I had no room to play with this time. I dropped the pace further and chugged along without stopping.
The usual drama of screaming for the way ahead and weaving through the walkers continued in the last km, till about 500m to go. From here I sprinted all the way to the finish of 3:35:36 (17 seconds better than earlier). Both Neera and Roopali ended up with gold in their respective age categories.
 |
| With Roopali Mehta (Picture courtesy: Prasad Naik) |
Am I happy?
Dragging me away are ...
1. A week before the race, I wasn't sure if I would race or not, and took antibiotics for a complete week.
2. Most of my training was washed out. I did only about 30% of the required training for the marathon. My long runs weren't on track till about a month to the race.
On the positive side,
1. My weight has been on a steady decline. During the 1st week of January I tipped 60kg on the scales. This is the least I have weighed in over two decades.
2. I had been regular to the gym, and have been building a good aerobic base.
3. Positive attitude through the race. At about 25th km, I was feeling a bit tired. I reminded myself that this is usually the toughest part of the race, and chugged along.
To look at the last four years, 2013 and 2014 were wasted opportunities with cramps ruining my race post 25km. 2015 was an extremely good finish, given that I was recovering from a serious ITB injury. While 2016 is just another year gone by, I have positives to count on.
1. The long nemesis of cramps is being dealth with (professionally).
2. My fat metabolism has improved and my body composition is getting better.
3. A perfectly executed race on the nutrition front.
Did I give a 100%?
Absolutely. As I am writing this blog (three and a half days after the finish), I can still feel the soreness on my glutes and hips. Even after five gels in the race, I felt tired on the race day and the next. And that makes me happier to have given a whole hearted effort.
