What Next?

After completing 12 marathons in 12 months I have registered to run the 13th one. This is the Hyderabad marathon on 30th August where I started the series in August 2008. It was a wonderfully organised road race last year and this year's edition is expected to be even better. After this I plan to take a couple of months off from marathon running till the Bangalore ultra in November 2009. My focus is then going to shift from quantity of marathons to quality that is do fewer marathons and look at steadily improving my timings. I intend to run maximum of 4 FMs per year and focus on being able to do sub 4 FMs consistently – I have done only one so far and never in India. I see this as a much bigger challenge than running 12 FMs than 12 months – it is far easier to do more number of slower long runs than to do faster and faster runs. Running faster also increases the chances of injury, especially at my age. My goal is to do a sub 4:10 in Mumbai 2010 , sub 4 in Hyderabad 2010 and Mumbai 2011. And then shave 5 minutes each year in 2012 an 2013 to get to 3:45 for Boston qualification!!