As a step towards building up pace to hit a sub 3:48 FM this season I decided to race a HM after a gap of 6 years. Rather than the flat, fast course of ADH in October that I was considering, I decided to run the Life is Calling Mysuru marathon on 22nd September - a race that I had PB'ed in at the 1st edition in 2011. The ten weeks training, (post the Bengaluru 10 K challenge on 7th July), using the RLRF training plan for 1:48 HM, went pretty much as per target despite struggling to hit time targets in a few tempo runs and missing the last long run due to a sprained hip. The left calf hurt a bit on and off during the long runs. Surprisingly, almost all the interval runs were on target. The route for the HM was made available by the organisers less than a week before the race. Unfortunately, elevation map, which was the main thing of interest to me, was unreadable. The lack of response in spite of repeated communications to the organisers to get information on the elevation profile of the route(as my preference now is to run flat courses as my quads find it stressful to navigate gradients) was disappointing. From what I could make out the course was not as flat as I had expected. It seemed to have rolling hills with long but not very steep gradients throughout the route. Also, there seemed to be too many turns and loopbacks in the route.This was the start of the negativity towards the race which probably contributed in large measure to my not hitting my timing goal. The usual phantom pains and bouts of nervousness in the days leading up to the race could not be avoided. My plan was to get to 11Kms in as close to 55 minutes as possible with 53 minutes or so for the remaining 10Km.
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| Just before heading out from the hotel room |
My brother C and I took a 1:50PM train from Kengeri on 21st afternoon and reached Mysuru around 4:30PM. The bib collection process at Decathlon was smooth - there was no expo to speak about. We walked the 750m from our hotel(Siddarth) to the race start point in the evening in search of bananas. After an early dinner we went to bed before 10PM. Woke up around 4:20 am and reached the start point by 5:30. Saw the flag off the 30K race at 5:45 before lining up around 5:50. There were probably less than 1000 runners - a surprisingly low number for a city race in its 9th edition.
I took off from the the front when the race started at 6 am and covered the first 7 Kms in a little over 35 minutes. After that the turns and the loopbacks and the lack of clear Km markers put me off mentally and my pace began to drop. Also, the left calf strain and heaviness in the left sole constrained me from pushing physically. The city route was not great(excepts for the part inside the college campus and around it) and it was made worse by unclear and insufficient Km markers specifically for HM. This was compounded due to the 30Km and FM being added for the first time this year creating loopbacks and partial route overlaps for different distances. The volunteers were not proactive in directing the runners and more than once I had to almost stop to check the route with a volunteer. There were quite a few segments where one was running along with the traffice which is never enjoyable in a race and around the 17Km mark one had to cross a road with traffic flowing in both directions with no volunteer to manage the traffic. There were aid stations every 2-3 Kms and adequately stocked for my needs which is only water. Nevertheless, I felt hungrier and thirstier than I usually do in a race probably due to below par pre-race nutrition. In summary I did not enjoy the race experience - both the organisation and my performance was a let down. I was so cheesed off by the 13Km mark that I could muster only betwen 5:15 and 5:30 pace for the last 8 Kms for a finish in 1:50:46. The finish area was also not clearly marked and I almost sprinted towards the wrong arch.
There was limited breakfast both in terms of items and quantity. After breakfast we hung around for a while till the HM results were announced.The participation level was so uncompetitive that I ended being the first of eight finishers in the 61Y+ age category despite missing my goal by 3 minutes.
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| With Sumant in the finish areawhom we met on the train |
We were back at the hotel by 10am and in Bangalore by 530pm.
