2:14:18 at SPBM 2015

The 2nd year of HM pacing at Shriram Properties Bangalore Marathon 2015 on 18th October 2015 went well as I finished with a chip time of 2:14:18 vis-a-vis the target of 2:15. The timing of a pacer should not  exceed the target time by even one second and should be within a minute of the same. That is, the ideal completion time range for a 2:15 pacer is 2:14:01 to 2:14:59. During the run and post completion one debate that has been raging in my mind is should the pacer run as per chip time(that is, the time that he/she crosses the start line) or as per gun time(that is the time that the race starts). The night before the race I read in the pacer's  manual (written by Venkat of Youtoocanrun - an experienced pacer and involved in organising pacers for various races) that pacing should be done by gun time. I did not agree with this and ignored it for this race. However, during the run I realised the advantage of doing so. The gun time serves as a reference point irrespective of when runners cross the start line. This helps runners who do not start with a pacing bus and  rather join it during the course of the race. On the other hand if the difference between gun time and chip time is more than a couple of minutes then it could be a challenge for many runners in the bus. Ideally all the runners targeting a certain time should start from the same coral together in which case the chip time should be fine.  Based on what is being followed in other races it looks like either gun time or chip time is fine as long as it is communicated up front to runners.

I left home at about 4:35am with RK to pick up RV from 80 ft road in Indiranagar. Portions of the 100 ft road was already blocked for traffic and we had to take an alternate route. After parking the car in UB city we reached the stadium by 5:20 am. After belting up the pacer flagpole with the help of Venkat I entered the stadium 10 minutes later. The area was , of course, flooded with runners- apparently nearly 8000 runners had registered for the HM making it one of the largest races in the country (after Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon and Airtel Delhi Half marathon). Several runners - some familiar and most not known to me - expressed interest in running with the 2:15 pacing bus. Once the gates opened and runners rushed to the stadium tracks towards the start point I lost most of these runners. 

The race was flagged off just after 5:45am and I crossed the start line couple of minutes after that. It was quite slow going till we got out of the Kanteerva stadium. The route for this year's race was different from last year. The first 4 and the last 4 Kms of the race was inside Cubbon Park. Plus the MG road/Trinity circle/old airport road stretch was completely  avoided. This was done to optimise traffic control which was a huge challenge in 2014. 

Plus it is fantastic to run inside Cubbon anyway.Nice early morning weather, adrenaline of the race start and the ambiance in Cubbon Park meant that runners tend to have a faster first few Kms than they should.  I had factored this in. After a 6:30 1st Km, Kms 2 thru 4 were run at about 6:09/Km pace . Thereafter, the pace was steady between 6:20 and 6:35. Like last year I cheered every Km completed and struck up a conversation with some of the runners. Unlike last year this year's bus was less cohesive. That is, runners kept dropping off and new runners coming in. One reason was the aid stations. Up to the 15Km or so mark aid stations were very crowded and one time as well as some runners around them. Given the volume of runners there should have been more tables instead of just one or two. We reached the half way point in 1:06:49 at an average pace of 6:20/Km - about a minute slower than what I had targeted. On the way back we lost some momentum at the Kamraj Raod/Cubbon road intersection as traffic police stopped runners to let the traffic go.  The cops found it tough to hold the traffic- this is an area that has to improve - hopefully will do so over a period once the city becomes more aware and also the road blockages and alternate routes are well publicised. When we entered Cubbon park on the return stretch I realised that I had to accelerate a bit to finish within 2:15. Egging on runners around me I pressed the pedal and ran the last 3 Kms at under 6 mins/Km pace. This is not ideal and the lesson is to manage better and put more minutes in the bank in the first half. It had become quite warm after 730am. Another factor was the lack of clear Km markers towards the end. Anyway overall I was satisfied that I helped a few runners. 

I had intended to go back and run 10Km after a few minutes break like I did last year. I did start out to do that but abandoned the idea after about 500m. After hanging around the finish area for sometime I enjoyed the sumptuous hot breakfast. 

Ritika reached the stadium around 10am for the 5K Hope run. After some general entertainment and Zumba based warm up session the race kicked off a little after 10:50am. It took nearly 5 minutes for Ritika and me to reach the start point. The race was crowded and a lot of participants were walking rather than running. Ritika and I did run/walk and completed the 5Km in about 42 minutes. 

Before the 5K run/walk

Some photos from the 5K run/walk :

KTM 2015

Ran the Kaveri Trail Marathon   on 20th September after a gap of 5 years and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I have not been a regular at this race  - now in it's 9th edition - having run it only 3 times before : HM in the 1st edition in 2007, a FM in 2008 as part of my 12 marathon in 12 months and a 58K in 2010 as training for 75K at that year's Bangalore Ultra. So I excitedly looked forward to participating this year. Apart from the thrill of running the wonderful trail the anticipation was also due to this being my first race of the 2015-16 season and the first race since SCMM  in January 2015. Having been plagued with some injury/pain or other  since December 2013 I was looking to this race to regain self-confidence . However, having recently recovered from a pain in the right hip(lower abdomen, near the bone) and still having a dull pain just below the inner left knee I decided against racing hard.(Running too fast and/or too long too soon  increases the probability of injury and almost certainly was  the primary cause of my prolonged injury woes). My goal was to complete under 2 hrs. So I was extremely satisfied that  my left knee held up well during the run and I managed a time of 1:53:33 without pushing too hard  And to top it  I was pleasantly surprised when I learnt (after reaching home) that I ended up being 1st in my age  category. This was because the faster runners of my age group  did not run the race or ran the FM.  

Chandru (my brother) and I left Bangalore around 2:45 PM on Saturday afternoon and after a couple of stops enroute, to take care of some personal work, we reached Wild Orchids resort - our hotel by about 6:30PM. After  freshening up quickly we reached Greens Hotel for the RFL pasta party by about 7:30PM. It was nice to interact with runners and current and past RFL'ers. After a sumptuous pasta dinner (during which there was an interesting quiz) we returned back to the hotel by about 9PM. While I collected my bib at the dinner unfortunately RFL forgot to get my brother's bib to the dinner. We slept around 9:45PM with the plan of getting to the venue by 5:45am - well in time to collect the bib.

I slept quite well and woke up at 4:45 am just before my alarm was about to go off. Though the hotel was just 7 Kms from the race start point and we got there by 5:45am it took us time to walk up to the start point after parking our car. We reached there just in time to see the FM get flaggged off at 6am. Realising that the bib needed to be collected from the help desk in the holding area in Ozone resorts we quickly rushed there. It was a good 10 minutes walk away - so I jogged there which also served a a warm up for me. After collecting the bib we were back at the start point by 6:20am.

The race was flagged off  just after  6:30am - being in the middle of the pack of about 800 runners it took me about 40 seconds to cross the start line. After a couple of hundred meters I broke from the crowd of runners and for some reason took off.  After about a Km or so when crossing a couple of familiar runners I realised I was running too fast and slowed down a bit.  However, I felt quite good and quite comfortably maintained an average pace between 5:18 and 5:21 per Km.  The trail seemed to be a bit broader and less uneven from what I remembered from the previous years. Of course the Km leading up to the turnaround point was narrow and uneven - had to run quite carefully. As always the weather was pleasant when the race started - however as the sun came out it started to warm up. With the river flowing one one side and the fields on the other the shade cover is very sparse on the trail. However the trail was as beautiful as ever.

In the return lap it became quite warm but at no point I felt uncomfortable or dehydrated. In fact I felt so good that Kms 13 to 17 were my fastest with pace between 5:08 and 5:14. Knowing that I was comfortably on target to finish within 2 hours and would likely finish in sub 1:55 I eased of a bit and crossed the finish line in just under 1:54. It was great to see some of the other runners - Athreya(FM), Sid(FM), Rachel(FM), Dharam(HM) blazing the trail and finishing their races in amazing timings. Austin had a good race finishing about a minute behind me. Chandru though did not have best of races and finished in about 2:33 - one of his slower times.  

After hanging around in the finish area for some time we walked to the holding area and had breakfast which(IMHO) was quite decent. We then went back to the hotel had a quick shower and left for Bangalore around 11:30. After a break at Kamat for tea and snack reached home by about 3:45.

The race organisation was good as usual - the aid stations were well stocked and  the Km markers were clear and prominent. Parking of cars was also handled smoothly. The breakfast area should have had hand wash kiosks. However, the biggest mess up was with the timings. The release of timings was delayed almost a week and then too  it was incorrect or incomplete for several runners showing gun time and chip time to be same. Also there were no split timings which was a big disappointment for several runners specially relative new runners. Given that RFL has been doing this for many years now and there are lots of other choices for runners in terms of events RFL will need to work hard to recover the lost goodwill due to this mess up with the timings.