Puma Urban Stampede 2014

Have been running 5Km on and off  in the Puma Urban Stampede in Bangalore. I ran in the 1st edition in 2008(in fact the company I worked for, namely, mformation was the title sponsor) as well as in the 2nd edition in 2009 as part of a team from mformation. Then  in 2012 as part of a team from ALU. And this year soon after taking up my new job at Wadhwani Foundation I triggered participation in the event. We had 3 teams participating. This year the event was held in Bharatiya City  on 3rd August 2014.  I did not train specifically for the event - just did a few easy to moderate pace runs in the previous 10 days after taking a 3 weeks break from running due to injury. 

I left in my car from Domlur at 5:35 am after a colleague from Koramangla came over and parked his bike. After picking up 3 others runners at Domlur flyover, CMH road and Kasturi nagar reached the start point by about 6:20am. There were direction signboards from RFL on Hennur road. As we approached the venue we saw runners on the road who had started their 10K run at 6am. After parking the car we were in the starting area by about 6:45am. In my time Mischelle ran first, followed by Austin with myself being the 3rd runner. My goal was to try and run below 25 minutes and if possible between 23 and 24 with the pace per Km of around 4:45..  I am generally not good at short distance intensive pace runs. My 5K PB is 21:51 at the Puma Urban Stampede in 2012. The only other 5K below 23 minutes that I have run is in the duathlon in 2010.

The weather was quite nice when the first runners from nearly 350 runners started at 7am. By the time I grabbed the baton from Austin and took off around 8:05 am it got a little warmer. Nevertheless started off at a pace closer to 4:30. At about half way mark the left  glutes and calf started to hurt a bit -so eased off a bit. Also I knew was on track to do a comfortable sub 25.  Still I managed to push in the last Km at 4:27 pace to finish in 23:33 - my 3rd best time for a 5K! I was satisfied with my performance. After eating the refreshments and taking some photos left for home around 10am. During the return drive my left glutes started to hurt after a few minutes and I suffered from this for the next couple of days making me realise that my glute/hamstrings needed considerably more strengthening.