TMM , the first of the three marathons that I have boldly signed up for this year , is just ten days away. Despite not being able to do a 35K(that I usually do before a marathon) in training I am looking forward to running the full at Mumbai for the 17th year in a row. The longest run I have done since TMM 2023 is the 33K on 16th Dec which went quite well(6:28/Km). However had to abandon the 35K run on 30th Dec at the 31st Km due to severe cramps in the right quads. In general, the quads have been the main problem this training cycle - they seem to fatigue after the 25th Km specially when going up even the slightest of gradients. As alluded to in the previous post I was training with the goal of a sub 4:28 finish. That looks highly unlikely now. In any case, my thinking now is to push hard in the flat course of Delhi Marathon on 25th of February to get as close to 4:30 as possible and take TMM as a long training run to complete under 4:45. Should be able to do the first half in between 2:12 and 2:15 and then look at keeping the second half to below 2:30. Regardless, I should be able finish under last year's time of 4:57 as I am definitely in a better shape strength wise and (lack of) injury wise.
I am going to be putting my aging and injury prone body under real test with the third marathon at the Avenue of Giants marathon on 5th May. Given the track record of 1-2 marathons the last 5 years it is an audacious goal. Without a stringent time target the goal is to avoid a DNF or crawling across the finish line which I think is achievable - keeping fingers crossed!!!
