Sunfeast 10K 2009

I had a great 10K run on 31st May 2009 comfortably meeting my goal of completing under 50 minutes. My finish time of 48 minutes 24 seconds gave me a 4rth place in the age category and 107th overall among those who ran with the timing chip. Details of the results are here. (The Split timings at the 4K and 8.5K mark are incorrect - these timings are actually for the 4.5K and 9K points). We(myself, my son Rahul, my brother Chandru, and his son Akshay) drove in Partha’s car and after parking at the UB city parking lot reached Kanteerva stadium by 730am. After a quick group photo, we got inside just in time to see the top elite runners enter the stadium and make a dash to the finish line. Winning time of 28:13 by Ethiopia’s Deriba Merga was slower than last year’s winning time of 27:51 set by Eritrea’s Zersenay Tadesse. The open 10K runners were let onto the track at about 8:05am. The race started on the dot at 8:10 under fairly cool conditions thanks to the showers of the previous night. I consciously started off quite fast to avoid getting stuck with the crowds. I reached the 2Km mark in just under 9:30 and the 5Km mark in about 24 minutes. Having got off to a good start and a steady rhythm I stayed focused on the run. Of course, with a lot of familiar runners on the course there was a fair bit of waving and calling out of names. But I did not chat for long with anyone. While my pace dropped a bit in the second half I was very confident of a sub 50 finish by the time I got to the 6K mark. I slowed down at water stops only a couple of times. The period between the 6K and 9K marks was the toughest. One got second wind while running through the familiar Cubbon Park territory and made a dash into Kanteerva stadium with the Garmin showing 48:39. Surprisingly, for a race that was well organised , the digital clock at the finish line was not working. My brother Chandru finished in 1:06 - he had to slow down in the last 4K due to a stomach cramp. Partha finished in 58 minutes.

Soon after finishing and exchanging Congratulations and timings with a few RFL runners I went inside the VIP invitee lounge looking for my daughter Ritika. We had nice breakfast there and were also fortunate enough to bump into Maurice Green, Milind Soman and Deepika Padukone – the last one being the brand ambassador for the event.

Rahul and Akshay finished the Majja run comfortably in under 40 minutes – the only sour note of the morning was that it took us nearly an hour to locate each other as the place got overcrowded and chaotic once the colourful and noisy Majja run participants started streaming in droves. Nevertheless, it was nice to see so many Bangaloreans pounding the streets on a Sunday morning. Running as a sport in Bangalore has certainly come a long way in the last few years.