Inspired to run Comrades and other ultras

So far my experience of ultra running is limited to the three 50Km runs at the Bangalore ultra. After reading about the stupendous accomplishments and experiences of Indian runners at Comrades Marathon 2010 I am inspired to run  a few ultra marathons around the world.  To start with , I have added the Comrades Marathon  ,considered arguably the greatest ultramarathon in the world with the tag line of 'the ultimate human race', to my longterm running goals. The first Comrades Marathon took place on 24th May 1921 starting outside the City Hall in Pietermaritzburg with 34 runners. It has continued since then every year with the exception of the war years 1941-1945, with the direction alternating each year between Pietermaritzburg and Durban, the so called up & down runs.  Now it attracts thousands of runners from around the world. Here is some amazing statistics from the event in 2010 which as the 85th edition.

Entries: 23568
Entrants who met the qualifying criteria: 17627
Starters: 16480
Finishers: 14343

The Comrades has a qualifying criteria which includes completing a full marathon within 5 hours. Apart from the distance of 89Km an additional challenge is to complete the race within a time limit of 12 hours and also reach interim milestone points within specified time limits failing which runners are taken off the course. Keeping in mind my goal of running Boston marathon in April 2014 I would probably look at doing the Comrades in May 2012.

While the Comrades marathon is one of the best known ultra marathons, there are hundreds of other ultra marathons held in Asia, Europe and Americas. Other very well known and extremely challenging ultras are the Western State endurance run and Badwater ultra.  Closer home a popular ultra is the Addidas Sundown marathon which is a 84Km night race held in Singapore. And another spectacular race is The Himalayan 100 mile stage race. Also Globalracers is now organising some interesting and challengin multi-day endurance event sin India.

BSA Hercules Duathlon 2010 - race report

My 1st ever experience of a duathlon event on 13th June 2010 was great. As  is now the norm and expectation the event was organized very well by Runners for Life.  The collection of bibs at the Track and Trail store in Koramangla on Saturday(12th June) morning was a smooth affair well managed by A2, Nikhil, Ashwin and other support staff.  I had decided to take complete rest the two previous days(Friday and Saturday) before the event. This has been my practice whenever I participate in an event with a timing target. In this case I was even reluctant to cycle down a Km or so on Saturday morning to fill air in my cycle. That is also the reason why I decided not to use the RFL option of transporting the cycle to the venue as it would have meant cycling 6-7 Kms to drop it off and also to pick it up. Besides I wanted to take care of transporting my new Schwinn Searcher Sport bicyle myself. 

Five of us(myself, my son Rahul, Satish, Ashok and Neera) left Domlur layout just before5:15 after loading our bicycles on a tempo. We reached the venue Prakruthi resorts a little after 6am. Unloading the cycles we wheeled them to the transition area and parked them in pre-marked areas there after duly registering the cycles. This is the  first RFL event with chip timings. Also this being a multi-sport event(with running and cycling of course) A2 explained in detail what to do(and not to do) in order for participants to get accurate and detailed split timings. The route was also explained in detail with  the running and cycling happening in opposite directions - the runners going towards the Airport road and the cyclists the other way. After brief speeches by the marketing head of TI cycles (the title sponsor ) and Bhaskar Rao - Bangalore's transport commissioner and an accomplished runner and cyclist himself the latter flagged off the long category run at 7am.

I made a strong start to the 5K run clocking the 1st Km in just over 4 minutes - helped by the pace set by several fast runners and  the  cool weather. Of course, that was not a pace I could sustain.Nevertheless, I completed the 5Km in 22:55 my fastest ever 5K beating the 24:34 in Urban Stampede 2008 by 91 seconds!!

I managed to grab my cycling helmet and the cycle and start cycling after a transition time of about 1 minute 36 seconds. It took me 52: 40 to complete the two 10Km loops. I think I did each loop in roughly the same time at an average speed of 22Kmph. With both the event category cyclists on the road  concurrently, at times the  narrow road became fairly congested and one had to ride a bit carefully. Plus the occasional car, bike or truck was also a bit of a pain specially when they honked. It would have been better if the traffic had been blocked for about 2.5 hours but that is easier said than done due to the complex permissions and also the challenges of actual implementation. The faster cyclists specially those with road bikes were cycling at amazingly high speeds. I found the area near the 5K cycling turnaround point very cluttered as the aid station was also at that point. I had to actually get off my cycle at the turn point losing a few seconds in the process. This has to be wider so that the cyclists who do not want to stop at the aid station do not get hampered.  Also, the turn around points both for running and cycling could have been marked explicitly with a chalk mark. However, overall it was a good fun experience. While my performance would  definitely have been better with a road bike I feel I need to improve my cycling efficiency. And of course it would have been much tougher with a MTB or worse a single gear bike like the one Rahul used. I lost quite a bit of time in the transition area the second time around as my cycle would not stand on its own and kept falling down. This was due to the cycle stand not having a bush and the metal stand sinking into the damp mud. Finally after 5 attempts I pushed the cycle against a tree close by and started to move  out of the transition area and towards the start area. 

This was my first week with my new Garmin 305 after the previous one had died after nearly 3 users of usage.  And of course this was the first event with it. In my enthusiasm of setting up the new unit I discovered the multi-sport mode functionality of the device and decide to use that in the duathlon. However, in my hurry to get going with my 2nd leg of running I pressed the power off button instead of the mode button and so instead of switching back from cycling to running mode the device switched off. I immediately switched it on and rushed to the start area leaving it in the cycling mode. In this process I lost a few more seconds of time.

Therefore, it was not a big surprise to me that the split timings showed that I took 2:29 in the 2nd transition. Most others had transition times below 2 minutes both times. For detailed  timings including all splits click here.

I started the 2nd 5Km run with stiff and sore legs. Honda-San (the Japanese super ultra runner) led the way encouraging and cheering me and all the runners we saw along the way. His enthusiasm and energy was incredible. While I struggled to keep up with Honda-San I focused on keeping my pace below 5 minutes per Km. It was specially difficult during the return leg as my hamstrings began to hurt. It was a big relief to turn back into the Prakruthi entrance and finish the race to the cheering of lots of friends with my Garmin showing 1:43:44. The official timings showed that I finished in 1:44:44(the 2nd 5K taking  24:33) - 21st overall and 4rth in my age category. While I was a bit disappointed that I ended up finishing at the higher end of my target timing of between 1:40 and 1:45 and missed the age category 3rd place  by less than half a minute, I was overall quite satisfied and enjoyed the experience thoroughly. The top three finishers in the event finished in amazing  timings of under 1:19 - completing the 20 Km cycling in under 40 minutes and each 5Km   leg well under 20 minutes !!! Neera Katwal who rode with us to the event showed amazing grit and perseverance. Despite falling off her cycle and injuring herself due to a crash between two cyclists in front of her cycle, she won the women's category finishing in 1:47:46. My son Rahul also completed his 1st duathlon in 1:16:41 in the short category - a wonderful achievement to add to his 1st 10K at the SW10K 2010 in May.

With Vikas Grover

                             

As always it was fantastic to cheer and meet and a lot of familiar friends and runners both during the race and in the finish area. And of course, kudos to Honda-San for pacing and cheering the runners  on-the-run and Nitin Gupta for enthusiastically cheering everyone at the turning point to the resort. After hanging around for some time and taking a few pictures we re-loaded the cycles on the tempo just as the prize distribution ceremony was underway around 10am and headed  back on the long road home reaching Domlur  just after 11:30am.

SW10K 2010- official timings and some pictures

'Official' pictures from Marathon-photos.com

In my previous post I wrote about the clutter and chaos at the start of this race. With the growing number of runners the organisers must seriously think of either wave starts or have runners line up at the starting point  in groups based on their past finish times. This practice is followed in many international races with large number of participants. For this to be feasible at the SW10K a longer lead time is required between the time runners move out of the holding area and the start of the race .


However, apart from this issue I must say that from the overall organisation perspective the race was quite satisfactory.There was complete traffic control, there were aid stations every few Kms and also Km markers. I noticed portable toilets in at least one location on the route and there was even a water shower to relieve runners from the heat though I did not run through it. There were water counters   right next to the finish point and refreshment counters had streamlined queues, that is, the finish area was well managed.There was a bit of confusion and some errors when the chip timings and photos were first uploaded - even now a few runners are unsatisfied with their timings.

My official chip timing was 49:05 - pretty much what I had expected. I ranked 222 overall and 6th in my age category(50 to 59).RFL and BHUKMP runners Honda-San and Pani finished 1st and 2nd respectively in this category - kudos to these amazing runners!  BTW - this is probably the first event that I ran without a cap. I have decided that the cap is more a hindrance rather than an advantage for shorter distance events(5K/10K) where one is trying to complete at an average pace faster than 5 minutes per Km. Rahul's official chip timing was 1:18:42. Official results are available here.

Rahul, Akshay, Chandru in the holding area before the race

With Rahul and Akshay after the race

Rahul,Chandru and Akshay after the race

BSA Hercules Duathlon 2010

I am looking forward to doing my 1st Duathlon event two weeks from now on June 13th 2010. This will be the 2nd edition of the BSA Hercules Duathlon being organised by Runners For Life. I did not participate in the event last year. I felt a bit tired after the Sunfeast 10K 2009 at the end of last May and decided to conserve my energy to complete my 11th and 12th marathons in June and July as part of my 12 marathons in 12 months. Having recently invested in  a hybrid bicycle I hope to do fairly well in the duathlon. The winning time in the men's senior category last year was 1:31:11. My goal is to complete between 1:40 and 1:45.

While I have been cycling and running regularly, I have never  done both of them back to back on the same day. So the RFL duathlon practice today at EGL was a perfect opportunity for me to experience this. I managed to complete 5Km running+20Km cycling+5Km running in 1 hr 55 mins. The two runs were done in about the same time of 27 minutes - though of course the 2nd one was much tougher and I really had to push myself the 1st Km or so when the legs were  stiff. I should be able to shave 3-4 minutes off this time in the actual event. The 20Km cycling took me a little over an hour. While the route was not ideal for cycling with the speed bumps, potholes and warts I need to improve significantly. A2 and Ashwani of RFL observed that increasing the seat height on my cycle would result in considerable efficiency. Plus the route of the duathlon would be much better suited for cycling. So my aim is to do the cycling also in about 50 minutes.

Oldest Half Marathoner!!

Fauja Singh in Addidas 'Nothing is impossible' advertising campaign

His name crops up often in discussions on how runners can push themselves and accomplish anything at any age and why not. Most recently  he was in the news for achieving the distinction of being the 'oldest half marathon runner'  when he completed the Inter Faith Luxemourg Half marathon in 3:29 on 16th May. While there are many many   amazing older long distance runners Fauja Singh certainly stands out. I hope he is able to meet his goal of running London marathon at the age of 100 in 2011.

Fauja Singh moved to London in 1992 from a small village  near Jallandhar to live with his son after his wife's death. He took up jogging to beat the boredom of just sitting at home.  He shot to fame, when aged 89, he completed his first  marathon in 6 hours and 54 minutes in 2000. He holds the marathon record for the 90 plus age group at 5 hrs 40 minutes.

His profile as found in  Facebook :

Born: 1st April 1911 in India

Former Occupation: Farmer

Running Career: Rediscovered at age of 81

Diet: Ginger Curry

Marathons: London (5), Toronto (1), New York (1)

Marathon Debut: London, 2000 aged 89

London Marathon Personal Best: 6h 2m

London Flora Marathon 2000 6 Hours 54 m

London Flora Marathon 2001 6 Hours 54 m

London Flora Marathon 2002 6 Hours 45 m

Bupa Great North Run (Half Marathon) 2002 2h 39m

London Flora Marathon 2003 6h 2m

Toronto Waterfront Marathon 2003 5h 40m

New York City Marathon 2003 7h 35m

London Flora Marathon 2004 6h 7m

Glasgow City Half Marathon 2004 2h 33m

Capital Radio Help a London Child 10,000m 2004 68m

Toronto Waterfront Half Marathon 2004 2h 29m 59s 

Sunfeast World 10K 2010 Report

I completed the 3rd edition of this 10K race with my (borrowed) Garmin showing  49:46(gun time). I expect the chip timing,which will  come out in the next few days, to be about 20 to 30 seconds faster probably close to my timing of 49:32 in the 2009 Nike Human Race. In any case my timing this year is likely to be about 45 seconds slower than last year. I can think of lots of factors to justify this: the cluttered, chaotic start with hundreds of runners jostling to move from the holding area to the start point, the stomach upset since Friday night, too many U turns in the route, niggle in the left calf and ofcourse the more than expected heat. However, the bottom line is that I am not cut out for running at a fast pace , that is, I have dominance of the 'slow twitch muscle fibers' vis-a-vis 'fast twitch muscle fibers' . Which means I can run at a decent average pace for a longer distance rather than run at a very fast pace for a shorter distance. Therefore I think it will be near impossible for me to better the 10K personal best of 48:24 that I achieved in last year' s race.

The elite men's and women's winners finished in 27:54 and 31:58 respectively. The complete results should be available here  in the next day or two.

Rahul and I, along with Adam and Vidhya from our appartment community, took the bus to Kanteerva stadium this morning. We left home around 6:55am , caught a bus around 7:10am and were comfortably in the holding area around 7:30am just a few minutes before the first of the elite men's finishers came into the stadium. The holding area started to fill up quite rapidly and by the time the women's event flagged off at 8am the area was jam packed. When the gate in the fence separating the holding area from the tracks in the stadium was opened at about 8:05am there was a mad rush to get out of the holding area. I was scared that I might get injured while being shoved down the steps. Several runners just climbed over the fence. So before I could even get to the starting line the race was flagged off. The whole arrangement in the holding area was highly disappointing for a race that has the IAAF gold label and is apparently one of the most prestigious 10K races in the world! Another standout was the absence of restrooms in the holding area - at least there should have been signs pointing runners to the nearest restrooms.

I turned on my Garmin as the race started and it was about 20-25 seconds before I crossed the starting line. With an estimated 6000 runners in the open 10K I found the first 1.5 Km to be very crowded and tough to break away. The first few hundred metres was at an average pace of 6:15 per Km - my target average pace today was 4:45 in order to finish below 48 minutes. I was never able to achieve this average pace. After about 2Km I managed to get to about 4:47 per Km and stayed around that past the half way mark. Around the 5Km mark I passed Amrita - a brilliant women's marathoner while Vasu another runner from BHUKMP surged past me soon after.  I started to slow down again after the Kamaraj road U turn which BTW was the 4rth U turn in the course and had a upward gradient on the return leg. The heat was also beginning to have an impact. My goal now was to keep my pace around 5 mins per Km and the average below 4:50. I did not stop by at any aid station except once. Nevertheless, the average pace crept upto 4:53 by the time I touched the 8Km mark near Vidhan Soudha. I pushed as hard as I could for the last 2Kms - around this time Neera , a fast women's runner, surged ahead. I managed to complete with my clock showing an average pace of 4:51 and a distance of 10:25Kms in 49:46!! Heartfelt thanks to Meher for loaning me her Garmin - if not for  constantly monitoring my pace via this device I would have probably finished 3-4 minutes slower. See here for this year's route.

Of course, I met up with a lot of familiar runners in the finish area.  Some like Honda-San seemed to have done extemely well - he finished in about 40 minutes. Many did their PB timings while a few people I met were slower than last year's timing by a minute or two. My brother Chandru completed in 1:04 while Rahul and my brother's son Akshay did their first 10Km race in a very creditable 1:20! While this event is here to stay as a premier road race in Bangalore and the season opener I hope the organizers do better in terms of facilities and infrastructure to cater to the growing number of participants.

Experience of bicycle shopping

After nearly 3 months of researching on the web, talking to a few friends and visiting a few shops I finally bought a Schwinn Searcher Sport from R and R cycles in Ulsoor. This post is a summary of a few basic concepts that I learnt as well as a few websites, blogposts and discussion threads that discuss the subject of buying a bicycle. One thing I realised very quickly is that there is numerous choice of cycles now available in India - Indian makes and  imported ones. The choice of cycle depends on the budget and the purpose of usage : daily commute to/from work, weekend rides, cross-training, long rides, racing etc. The usage also determines the type of cycle:

Mountain Terrain Bike or MTB for off-road riding

Road bike for racing or fast riding on roads

Hybrid bike for a mix of the two - primarily road riding with occassional off-road

Here are a few options in increasing order of budget - this is certainly not an exhaustive list.

1. Single speed bikes would do good for local commuting but not efficient if one wants to cycle for the purpose of 'cycling' (Rs 3K - Rs 5K)
2. Hercules Ryders ACT series start from 7.5K. The latest release is ACT 110  that is more for the purpose of commuting and fun ride with friends! See here for a user's review of this cycle.
3. Hercules Mach is the basic model of a road bike that should cost around  6K - but this does not come near any of the other international brands
4. LA Sovereign is a Taiwan based product that has a series of MTBs starting from 8K. ("Navigator" is a good commute bike and seemed to have been quite popular in Bangalore till recently
5. Firefox has a very good series of MTBs (starting from 13K) and also road bikes at a relatively lower cost
6. Schwinn has number of hybrid bikes starting from  13K range as well as a few MTBs.
7. Decathlon has a series of MTBs branded Btwin/Rockrider  starting from Rs 12K. Read here for one user's comparison of Merida with Btwin.
8. Merida is a another brand that has several MTBs and also a hybrid bike.
9. Cannondale starts from 20K and goes upto 2 Lakhs. Cannondale F9 is very popular among cyclists in Bangalore.
10. Bianchi has a couple of Hybrid bikes that are worth for commuting and riding. Starts at 28K.
http://www.trackandtrail.in/
11. Trek is one of the most trusted brands used by many serious cyclists. Trek 7100 is a good hybrid bike for 21 K. There are other series starting from 25 K.

There are a number of bicycling forums in Bangalore/India where various bicycles have been reviewed by users and which have discussion threads on the topic of buying a cycle. Here are a few links that I found useful.
Want to buy a bike? READ THIS FIRST
Bicycle Suggestions
The Bike Affair
Bikeszone-cycle cycle reviews

I chose the Schwinn Searcher Sport as I decided on a hybrid bike which I can use for cross-training and occasional road racing and ocassional long rides. I had started with a budget of Rs 15,000 and was planning to go for Schwinn Searcher. However, at the last minute I switched to the Searcher Sport which has 24 gear combinations  instead of 21 and ended up spending Rs 17.5K including a stand, lock and mud-guards. So far I have been using the cycle for cross-training riding a total of about 25Km two days a week - the experience has been quite satisfactory. .

Finally, a couple of general sites that I found with a wealth of information about bicycles.
How to buy a bike
Bicycle tutor

Countdown to the 3rd edition of Sunfeast World 10K

This year's edition of Sunfeast world 10K on 23rd May which  is less than a week away is expected to be bigger than last year's event. It is anyway by far the largest road race event in Bangalore. With more and more Bangaloreans taking up running the popularity of this event is growing.  This is the first year of the event after it was recognized as a IAAF Gold label event. There are a couple of changes from the last two years:

•  the start time for the open 10K event has been advanced to 8:10am compared to 9am the last two years - this will be a big help specially if it turns out to be a warm day
• the timing chip is compulsory for all 10K participants and the entry fee has been increased to include its cost

Surprisingly the website does not still have any information on the race route. I assume it is going to be the same as the route of last two years - despite the roads being dug up around the Chinnaswamy stadium/Cubbon road areas.

Though my training has been a mixed bag the last couple of months, after a solo 52minutes 10Km a couple of days I feel reasonably confident of at least a sub 49 minutes finish this year also. This is provided I am able to borrow a Garmin 305 for the race- else I will probably just focus on enjoying the run and be satisfied with  sub 53 minutes.  My son Rahul who has done the Majja run last two years is looking to complete his first 10K this year.

Interesting posts on 10Km runners' performances

With the 2010 edition of the Sunfeast world 10K around the corner I found a couple of recent posts on The Science of Sport(which BTW is a great site that I highly recommend to running and cycling enthusiasts for scientific comment and analysis of sporting performance). The first with the headline of An exclusive club of sub-27 minutes10Km runners explains that only 31 runners have done sub-27 minute 10Km and of these 31 only one is non-African. Chris Solinsky became the first American to join this club  by finishing a 10Km in 26:59.60 recently. And he is by far the tallest and heaviest runner to do this - his weight being over 8Kgs more than the average weight of the previous 30 sub-27 minute 10Km runners! He is also 3cms taller than the previous tallest runner!

That explains the title of the second post titled Chris Solinsky - "A fatty world record" which gives the height/weight table of all the 31 runners. And as part of the reader comments there is a table of BMI of all the runners which shows that Chris had the 2nd highest BMI at 21.33. Hmm..  with a BMI of around 22, my goal in the forthcoming Sunfeast 10K  is to get to within 21 minutes of Chris's timing!

2010 thus so far..

I had set myself the following goals for the year 2010 as part of my 2009 year end musings:

1. Run at least 5 Full marathons/Ultras

• Mumbai Marathon - 17th Jan 2010
• Auroville Marathon - 14th Feb 2010
• Hyderabad Marathon - August 2010
• Athens Marathon - 31st October 2010
• Bangalore Ultra - 14th November 2010

2. Sub 4:05 finish at Mumbai marathon 2010 in 2 weeks from now

3. Sub 4 Hr at Hyderabad marathon 2010

4. 75K at Bangalore Ultra? - it is tempting to go beyond 50K

5. Invest in a better cycle and do a few trail rides with Tandem Trails
 

The year 2010 started off well with a good first week of running , better than targeted performance in SCMM 2010, an immensely enjoyable run at Auroville in February and my longest ever distance as part of the Strides of Hope. Howevever, the 10 weeks or so since the distance running season ended in the 3rd week of February has been a real mixed bag or more like a yo-yo. I have not had two consecutive weeks of solid running since then and have had several periods of not running for more than 3-4 days at a stretch. This has been partly  due to frequent bouts of stomach upsets and cold/fever(off-season blues?). My Garmin 305 that I have been using for nearly 3 years going kaput did not help the cause. And then when I went back to Manipal hospital department of sports and excercise medicine to restart strength conditioning sessions after a break of couple of months I was disappointed to learn that the remaining two sports physios with whom I had trained in the past were leaving their jobs. So I had no choice but to sign up for the unassisted (or membership as the department calls it) sessions. Though lower cost than the assisted sessions I am a bit skeptical about their effectiveness for me. As I am now without the benefit of a sports-physio watching to ensure that my technique is right and also push me to do a few more repeats. The natural tendancy is not to push oneself completely and stop a couple of repeats early which is less beneficial.  So I am not certain that I will continue with this much longer. On the plus side during the last couple of weeks I have enjoyed a few rides in my new Schwinn Searcher sport bicycle and look forward to doing a couple of long rides in June/July timeframe.

 

Due to personal/family reasons I have decided not to run Athens marathon this year. Instead I will probably run the KTM in September. I have also pretty much decided to do the 75K at the ultra in November. So my long distance running goals for the rest of the year looks thus:

• a sub 4 hour marathon at Hyderabad in August
• KTM in September
• 75K at Bangalore Ultra in November
• HM at Bangalore mid-night marathon in December

The new season of events starts in a couple of weeks with the Sunfeast World 10K on 23rd May 2010 followed by the 2nd Bangalore duathalon on 13th June 2010 - am looking  forward to maintaining my timing from last year's 10K and also doing my first duathalon.

Dud Week

An excellent mileage week was followed by a completely dud week - as with life, running is full of its ups and downs. Had travelled out of Bangalore for a couple of days and returned with an upset stomach due to which I was unable to run the whole week - that is - 7 days in which zero run mileage was logged. While I was down with the bad stomach for a couple of days I also realised that the motivation to get up in the morning and get out of the door has reduced considerably after the loss of my Garmin 305. Having got used to one for nearly 3 years , running is not the same without one. I did a 90 minutes run this morning after a break of 7 days and without a Garmin did not enjoy it much. Will be ordering a new unit from Amazon soon. Meanwhile, here is a picture of the dead and broken unit.

The one good achievement of this week is the purchase of Schwinn Searcher Sport - a hybrid cycle. Will be writing about my research on buying a cycle in Bangalore and also experience with this cycle in the enxt few weeks.