Delhi marathon race report

 

My 1st experience of the Delhi marathon on 25th Feb was quite good - I hit my goal by finishing in 4:33:14 at an average pace of 6:29 though the first half at 2:11:16 was a minute slower than plan. Was happy to shave 10 minutes off the timing of TMM 24 though given the cool weather and flat course sub 4:30 should have been possible(the ifs and buts invariably kick in after any race!). Nevertheless,  thankful to have completed two back to Back FMs within 5 weeks with just one long run (28.3Km falling short of the 30Km goal) between the two races .

Landed in Delhi around 1:15PM on Sat, 24th Feb with wife A. Took a cab with brother M  to the Airbnb at Jangpura extension and after leaving the bags there reached Gate 1 of JLN stadium for bib pickup. The expo was relatively small and not very crowded and the bib pickup process was very quick. 

After  Bib pickup at Gate#1 JLN stadium

After an early dinner at a Haldirams about 500m from the Airbnb slept by 945. Woke up at 2:15am and got ready by 3:10. Booked Ola cab but the driver was unable to figure his way to the Airbnb. So cancelled it and  walked/jogged to JLN gate 14 with Ashwath Reddy and Manjunath , runners from Bangalore, also staying in the same place. Joined other runners heading there after we went thru the colony gate and crossed the overbridge. Reached at 3:40 and after some warmup and taking a leak walked a fair bit to the start area(from gate 14 to gate 1).  It being about 11c  at start time (going up to 16c by 9am) agonised over whether to wear a full sleeve shirt. Ended up with a regular shirt and checked in the windsheeter at baggage counter which in hindsight was a good decision as the cold was not too bad and the body warmed up fairly quickly.

With Ashwath near the baggage counter

The race got flagged off at 4:18 a couple of minutes after the elite women started. Ran the 1st Km too fast in 5:50 . Shoe laces coming off slowed me quite a bit in the 2nd Km(perhaps it was a message to slow down). Keeping the pace mostly below 6:20 completed the 1st half in  a little over 2:11. Continued at that pace till Km 26 when I hit the tail end of the half marathon runners (who started at 6:15). With the road being narrow and given the number of HM runners occupying it I was forced to slow down and and lost momentum. The pace dropped to between 6:30 and 6:50 with , by now, familiar strain in the right quads rearing its head in Km 35. Unlike in the case of Mumbai decided to continue running through the cramps albeit slowly. Hitting the 10K runners at this point did not help and the last 5Kms were again at 7 mins+ pace. 

Have mixed feelings about the , as flat as can be, route due to their being too many U turns, the road being narrow in several sections for the number of runners and the cadence of the road.  Disliked the  cobblestone section in the first 5Km and the absence of lights in Km 3(mot of the route either had streetlights or lights put up by the organisers).  Of course, running on Kartavya Path was a unique experience - many runners took selfies with India gate in the background. 

The finish area seemed very chaotic with no volunteers to direct one towards medals etc. The breakfast area  with the long Qs , lack of waste seggregation and  overflowing bins seemed quite messy and was  not appealing to me. So except for some kind of daliya did not eat anything else. Feeling bad that A was not allowed inside the gate so went out in a hurry at 9:30am to join her. 

After a few photos outside the gate area we headed back to the Airbnb  undecided whether I would do the race again anytime soon. As my long distance running years maybe numbered and its unlikely I am going to be able to improve my timing significantly,  the risk of  two back to back marathons may not be worthwhile. Anyway it is a long way off and after the 10 days break in Delhi and Uttarakhand need to shift the focus to training for the AoG marathon on 5th May!!