TCS World 10K preview

By this time next Sunday the first event of the running season 2011-12 would be over. This is the 4th edition of the  (TCS) World 10K in Bangalore on 5th of June. While my goal is to do my fastest ever 10K , I am not as well prepared as I should be for this event. With continued hectic work schedule my running has been quite erratic. While I have not been able to put in consistent weekly mileage and have struggled in some of my training runs, I have  got in a couple of very good tempo runs including a solo 9K in about 42 minutes. Therefore, I am still hopeful of completing the 10K in under 48 minutes and possibly close to 47 minutes.Apart from inconsistent mileage my left leg calf niggle is another concern - usually I sense the niggle in the middle of the running season. This year I am alleady feeling it maybe due to the larger number of faster,albeit shorter runs.

In the last 3 editions my performance has been as follows:

2008            50:39

2009            48:24

2010            49:05

The route for this year seems to be the same as that of  last year. The website shows a start time of 8am for the open category 10K race exactly 5 minutes after the start of the Women's World 10K - I am very apprehensive about the chaos this is likely to cause at the starting line. Last year with 10 minutes gap between the Women's World 10K and the open 10K event there was a mad rush to move from the holding area to the starting line in the stadium. I hope this part is managed better this year.As a lot will depend on how smoothly I am able to start the race and breakaway from the high density of slower runners. My target is to try and do an even paced raced at about 4:45 per Km which will be quite challenging - this will give me a 47:30 finish which I will be quite satisfied with!! If the 1st two Kms are done at a slower average pace then it will be tough for me to make up. Towards the end of the race it also gets quite warm. In any case it would be disappointing if I am not able to keep my time below 49 minutes!!

Maiden Interval training

Though I have been running long distances since 2002 and have run 31 marathons including 4 ultra marathons I have never done interval training before. Interval training is considered one of the  key training techniques to help improve running speed(others being tempo run and fartlek). As part of the changes towards improvement  this new running season I decided to take up  interval training and try and do it  once a week. In my first attempt I set myself a goal of doing 4 intervals of 1.2Km each in 5:15 each last Tuesday ie 10th May. However, by the time I warmed up and started the 1st interval run I downgraded this to 1Km intervals at 4:30 pace. It was a struggle to do even this. With great difficulty I managed intervals of 4:24,4:31,4:23 and 4:34 and felt quite exhausted at the end. As a result I realised that attempting 1Km intervals straigh away without doing shorter intervals was a mistake. It is advisable to start with intervals of 400m , then 800m and so on. Anyway, having started with 1Km intervals I hope to continue it for a few weeks and see how it goes.

I complemented the interval training with two decent tempo runs - a 10Km in 49:30 and a 16Km in under 1:19. Specially happy with the latter as I started running late (7:15am) after a dinner party the previous night and still managed to keep an average pace of 4:56 for the run. I felt quite good at the end of the run - almost like I could have continued to do a sub 1:45 HM!!

Off-season Musings

It has been one of the worst couple of off-season months- with barely 30 to 35Km weekly mileage. This has been mainly due to mental and physical lethargy and a very hectic and stressful work schedule. The lowest point was when I was unable to get out of bed for two consecutive weekends. I cannot remember the last time this has happened with me though I did manage some cycling on both those weekend. Almost three months after my last marathon at Auroville I did my longest ever run since then -  I clocked 28.5Km running with the BHUKMP gang yesterday: . Hopefully, this is the turning point for me to get back into the groove. With the first race of the season,TCS World 10K, 4 weeks from now and the Hyderabad marathon at the end of August regular training should be easier - specific events certainly increases the motivation level to go out there and train.  

During the last weeks it has not just been low mileage but also the quality of runs has not been great - I have often struggled to sustain a pace that in the past I have done easily before. I attribute this partly to increased mental stress - the state of mind, as we know,  influences the quality of pretty much anything that that a human does. Which means while running improves both the physical and mental state of a runner ,the reverse is equally true - perhaps another topic for a future post. Another reason for this is a slight increase in my weight due to a fair amount of travel in the last 6 weeks. Being a non-meat eater my consumption of cheese,eggs and chocolate/desserts goes up whenever I travel outside the country on work and this leads to easy weight gain. I was away on a 15 days long trip - the longest trip on work in nearly 16 years. While I did get a decent amount of excercise during this period including a few runs in the treadmill(which I dont much enjoy) and a fabulous trail run(see below) , I nevertheless gained 3 whole Kilos during the trip going from a low of 59Kgs to slightly over 62! A third reason could be that I have been off my weekly strengthening sessions since the end of January. The Manipal Hospital Department of sports medicine where I have been going for strengthening sessions for the last two years or so.

During the above trip I had a very enjoyable run at the Town Lake trail in Austin, Texas. This trail provides loops of distances varying from 3.1 miles to 10.3 miles to runners and also has a separate trail for cyclists. Lady Bird Lake (formerly Town Lake) is a  reservoir on the Colorado River in Downtown Austin. On 2nd April the day I ran this (along with my manager who is a 3:45 marathoner from Belgium) the weather is quite Bangalore like - about 23/24 degrees celsius. Most of the run was through shaded areas and on a trail. We had to cross the highway just once. I managed a comfortable 21.75Km in a little over 2 hours and enjoyed it thoroughly. It was a pleasure to see so many runners and walkers on the trail a number of them running or walking with their dogs. Have never ever before seen so many dogs being walked together.  I did one loop of 16.5Km+ followed by another of a little over 5Km. Couple of photos that I took from my Blackberry do not do full justice to the pretty trail.

A couple of final points in this longish miscellaneous post. Hats off to Dharam - a very close friend who has taken 6 months off from work to train in the US with the objective of quality for Boston 2012. After several months of intense training under a coach he ran a FM last sunday at an astonishing time of 3:09:46- shaving more than 50 minutes off his previous best timing! Kudos to his coach as well and I am extremely happy that Dharam's hard efforts and focus have paid off. However,unfortunately due to the changes in qualification timing and registration process announced recently by BAA this does not guarantee his qualification. In fact this change has reduced my motivation to train specifically for Boston as I would need to complete a FM in 3:30 in 2014 and this is just impossible.  Here's wishing Dharam the very best for his next FM in a few weeks at San Diago. And finally I am also happy for my cousin Mrs. Raji Srikant who is training for the TCS World 10K with Runners High and is now able to comfortably run 10K.  She had run/walked through her first 10Km at Aurovile three months ago without training. Even more importantly she is enjoying the running and feeling great about it! This of course is not surprising at all.

Auroville 2011 report..finally

Six weeks after Auroville marathon 2011  and after  my first 25K+ run   since that event this morning,  I decided it is hightime to post the detailed report that I have been doing usually after an event. This was the fourth edition of the event and my 3rd year of participation. I enjoyed the run, the trail, the volunteer support and overall ambience thoroughly and completed in 4:12 - my best ever finish in a trail marathon. Following is my  timings in all the five  trail marathons that I have run:

• Kaveri Trail Marathon 2008         4:42:19
• Auroville Marathon 2009             4:23:25
• Auroville Marathon 2010             4:36
• Kaveri Trail Marathon 2010         4:32
• Auroville Marathon 2011             4:12

The experience was even more enjoyable as this was the first time that my brothers and I participated in a long distance(>10Km) event together. Both Chandru and Mahesh ran the HM. This was also the first 10Km completion for my cousin Raji and my wife Asha - who mostly walked the distance without registering and without  any preparation whatsoever.

With Mahesh and Chandru







Asha and Raji

Of course the experience was not without its share of mis-adventures. First of all we left Bangalore aroun 1:15PM almost 2  hours later than originally planned. We stopped at Adyar Ananda Bhavan after Hosur for lunch. After an hour since we restarted from there I realised that I had forgotten my digital video camera there. Though I was able to reach the restaurant manager who confirmed that they had the camera and would keep it for me till Monday evening this was not a good start as it left me feeling a bit low. Thanks to fellow runner Ravi Venkatesam warning me about the bad road from Tiruvanamalai, we decided to take the longer route via Ginjee. We reached the Auroville visitors area at about 8PM - thanks to the confident driving  skills of Gopal.  The bib collection process took just a couple of minutes and we rushed for the pasta dinner immediately after that. While most of the runners had left after finishing their dinner there were still several familiar faces around - Rajesh Vetcha from Hyderabad, Athreya and then of course the BHUKMP runners Amrita, Rishi, Nari, Chandra etc who came for dinner even after us. The food was much better than last year - there was pasta, lasagne and salad and once could go for the seconds. After dinner we dropped my cousin Raji at her dorm accommodation and went to Ginger Hotel in Pondicherry. After checking in and a quick prep for the run(pinning the bib etc) I went to bed at about 1030 PM.

I slept reasonably well and woke up at 320am , as usual, before my alarm rang. After getting ready I met up with Jugy and others in the lobby a little after 4:10am. As we were about to leave in Jugy's vehicle a bunch of Mumbai FM runners(6-7 of them) who had missed the bus hitched a ride with us to the  visitors area of Auroville. The candle lit path from the parking area to the starting point was quite unique and eerie. As I got caught up chatting with other fellow runners I realised, with just 5 minutes, to go for the race start that I had forgotten to collect the torch. In my hurry to get one I bumped into a metal pole - I was fortunate not to get hurt. The race started a couple of minutes after 5am. It looked like there were about 175 FM runners.  Over 150 runners running with a torch for the first hour or so is a very unique feature of Auroville. The last two years the route had road surface the first 2 Kms or so going through a village. This year the route was changed with all but about 2Kms of the 21Km loop being trail. The course was mostly flat with the most difficult stretch being the one with the beach sand.

 I always tend to run the first hour slowly at Auroville as I am not sure of the surface with all its undulations and risk of injury due to a mis-step. I started the race with Prateek who had to dropout early due to a bad stomach. Then I had the wonderful company of Sridhar and Partha. Around the seventh Km or so my right leg got caught in a thorny branch which brought me to a grinding halt. I carefully removed the branch and re-started my run. Though there was some initial pricking ,I soon forgot about it and  covered the first 12Km in 75 minutes or so. From around the 18Km mark I ran with Senthil Anand of Chennai - we run at pretty much the same pace. I crossed the half way mark in about 2:05 - which meant I was well within my goal of finishing between 4:30 and 4:45.

As we started the 2nd loop we caught up with Rishi and Amrita and then the biggest mis-adventure happened. We missed a turn and got to the aid station around 23Km mark with our Garmins showing a lower distance. So the four of us ran back , in the opposite direction, to make for up this distance and then caught up with the regular route around 25Km. During this stretch I saw Asha doing her 10Km walk and stopped to take a couple of picutres with my Blackberry - sadly they did not come out very well. On top of everything else my shoelaces came off a couple of times. Regardless, around the 32Km mark I got a new burst of energy ,picked up pace and pulled ahead. I was able to run a strong pace of around 5:45 per Km finishing the race  in 4:12. During this stretch I ran alone completely focused on the run. I felt happy about beating my goal comfortably despite the getting entangled in a thorny branch and losing my way in the 2nd loop.

The breakfast of Idli/Vada and pongal was quite fine. Also caught up with other fellow finishers, my brothers, wife and cousin before leaving the finish area.  Ashok's 3:13 finish(faster than even Mumbai) is really amazing. Sustaining such pace with the first hour in darkness and on the uneven surface is something. The volunteers at the aid stations were enthusisastic as usual - continually encouraging all the runners. The only disappointing bit , specially for first time finishers, was the absence of medals for finishers.  Anyway, most participants affirmed that they would certainly want to participate in this event in the future years.  While walking back to the car I bumped into Amit Seth (of Comrades marathon 'Dare to run' fame) and his wife and chatted briefly with him.

I had a relaxing time the rest of the Sunday - doing some sightseeing. There was hardly any fatigue due to the run - in fact the recovery also was quite quick.  Asha and I then drove back to Bangalore on Monday  14th reaching around 7 PM evening.





March 2011 musings

Even two months after the Auroville marathon this year I have not been able to make the time to write my race report. I have never been this late in detailing my expereince of a running event; however since starting my new job just a few days before this event life has been very very hectic. This has also impacted my weekly mileage. Normally even during the off-season I clock about 35 to 40Km per week. My running mileage the last two weeks has been 30 and 15Km respectively. This week I did higher cycling mileage (on a stationary bicycle) than running which is very rare for me. Also, this week my son who has suddenly (re-)taken to running clocked more mileage than I did.  My weekend schedule has also been such that I  missed out on two 10K events in the last few weeks: the Science and Technology 10K run at IISc on 6th March and Contours Women's day run on 13th March.

Just like the previous two years I thoroughly enjoyed myself at Auroville  - the new route with even less road and more trail was fantastic and the organisation was as  good as in the past. Despite not pushing myself I managed to complete in 4:12  well within my goal of between 4:20 and 4:30. This was my best ever FM finish in a trail marathon by a large margin. I hope to write a detailed report on the race within the next couple of weeks.

With the world 10K in Bangalore about 10 weeks away I need  to pick up on my training. The plan is to do some tempo and interval training to try and do my fastest ever 10K.  I am also expecting a confirmation on the Hyderabad marathon soon so that I can start training using the 16 weeks  FIRST program from the beginning of May.

Auroville 2011 preview

By this time next Saturday I will be on my way to run Auroville marathon for the 3rd consecutive year. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of running at Auroville in 2009 and 2010 and am looking forward to it again. Four weeks after pushing myself at SCMM I generally like to take it easy at Auroville and enjoy the wonderful ambience of nature in all its splendour complimented with friendly volunteers and organisation. My timing has been 4:23 in 2009 and 4:36 in 2010. Ideally, this year I would like to finish between 4:20 and 4:30. However, having done two fast marathons recently- ING Hartford marathon in October 2010 and SCMM in January 2011 and four 50Km+ runs since September 2010 the body seems to be  a bit fatugued at the end of the marathon season. Therefore, I wont be surprised if the body decides to take it easy and I end up doing somewhere around 4:45. Additionally, I re-started my strengthening session at Manipal this week after a break of almost 4 weeks and am consequently feeling the soreness in my arms and legs. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to this marathon before I take a break from long distance running for a couple of months.

Strides of Hope 2011

It is now nearly two weeks since I had the the  privilege of being able to do my bit in the 2nd edition of Strides of Hope held from 21st to 23rd Jan. Despite being unemployed since the beginning of the year I have not been able to make the time to update the blog  as regularly as I would like to(Besides - there is a long overdue project to revamp the blog and creat a version 2.0 - hopefully will be able to get to it sometime this year!). The event this year was much bigger than last year as seen by the summary stats below:

Total number of participants: 624

Total distance run: 5677.6 Km
Total distance walked: 577.5 Km
Total distance Cycled: 5529 Km
Total overall logged distance: 12255.1 Km
Cities  reached out to: Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Mumbai, Austin and New Jersey

The above is in comparison to over 350 runners and over 3000 Kms in the 1st edition of the event in 2010. The event is slated to grow tremendously both in terms of number of particpants and coverage of cities in the years to come. More details are available in the post event report and press release on the SOH website.

My goal this year was to do 5-6 Kms at the flag-off on Friday, run as much as possible starting Saturday night with the goal of exceeding my last year's 81Km and possibly do 120Km+ and also be at the finale in Madhavan Park on Sunday afternoon. I failed miserably in  my overall goal  - nevertheless I had a great time and felt satisfied to have participated and made a small contribution to this unique event.

On Friday 21st Jan afternoon I reached the Home Guards group in Ulsoor by about 4:45PM for the flag-off. There were a number of Runners High folks as well as other runners and cyclists gathering there for the flag off. Everyone was very enthusiastic - the high energy levels were palpable. Nikhil of RFL arrived with all the stuff required for aid stations. Radha Ganesan was interviewing and filming a few participants  - see photo below.

Radha and crew interviewing some of the participants before flag-off

The event was kicked-off just before 530PM with the runners running out of the Home Guards ground into the Ulsoor lake ground and the cyclists heading towards Hebbal flyover , enroute to Hyderabad, soon thereafter.  I ran two loops covering 6.34Km in about 49 minutes with Santosh, Sam and Jacob Bhoopalan. Several other runners joined in. While I was tempted to run longer I decided against it in order to conserve my energy for Saturday night.

I pretty much rested most of Saturday and had a 'semiya-upma' dinner around 745PM. By 8PM I had packed my bags(with extra clothese, shoes, energy bars, bsicuits etc) and was ready. On Saturday, 22nd  Nari picked me up just before 9PM and in a few minutes we reached the Goldman-Sachs parking lot at EGL where the aid station was being setup by a few volunteers. There were also a few runners waiting there. Around 930PM Santosh, Chandra, Preeti and others arrived. Nari and I started our run around 940PM. We ran the first two loops of 9Km each at an average pace of around 7:45 per Km. There were a couple of dark stretches on the route and it helped that I was carrying a small torch. Though I had thoroughly enjoyed running  this stretch at night last year I found it a little more challenging and a bit boring this year.  During these two loops there were about 10-12 runners/walkers on the route including Santosh, Sunand etc. As we were returning to complete our 2nd loop Honda-San joined us. The three of us (ie Honda-San, Nari and myself) did the next 3 loops pretty much together. From the 2nd half of the 4rth loop (from about 32Kms or so) we started following a run/walk pattern.  I am sure Nari and I slowed Honda-San quite a bit but he stuck with us. By the 3rd loop our eyes got used to the darkness and since htere was also reasonably good moonlight we did not really need the torch. The weather was great -in fact a bit on the chillier side as the night wore on. Also during the course of those 3 loops all of us passed a lot of gas (symphony of f*rts!)- intially I felt a bit embarassed and tried to suppress it but later I just let it go as Nari can testify! Farting while running is quite normal - ofcourse it depends on on the food and the timing of the meal before a run - Here is an interesting post on this subject with a bunch of links.

Between each loop we stopped for a few minutes at the aid station to drink and eat a bit - biscuits, chocolates etc. At the end of our 5th loop Honda-San stopped running- he said he would be abck after a couple of hours of rest. I am amazed at how runners are able to do two long runs with a short break of a few hours in-between. Santosh did this as well. Before coming to EGL at 930PM he had taken a few hours break to get some sleep. At EGL also he took a couple of hours break and started running quite strongly thereafter. Towards the end of the 5th loop my back started hurting and I had to slow down considerably - we crossed the marathon distance in just under  6 hours. We started the 6th loop after a slightly longer break  - I changed my socks while Nari changed his attire. In this loopthe back pain increased considerably and I also started to tire mentally. The mind started to say maybe I should not push myself too hard and risk a long term back issue. I have never had an issue with my back during a run and so it was quite worrisome. The pain did not seem to stay in one place- it seemed to traverse across the back. At the end of the 6th loop(54+Kms) I knew  that I would not be able to continue too long. The legs hurt for sure but it was not too bad. However, the back pain was quite disconcerting.  Preeti also advised that it was better not to take a chance with the back. I decided that the 7th loop was going to be my last one. Nari was determined to do an 8th one- I would have loved to give him company but this was one of those days where I lost the battle both mentally and physically. During the return leg of the 7th loop we met tens of familiar RFL runners. This one took a good 1hr 45 minutes to complete and I stopped at the end of it with my Garmin showing 63.4Km in 9hrs 41 minutes!! I felt disappointed that I was short of my goal but at that time I did not think it realistically possible to do two more loops to cross 81Km!! I did not hang around at EGL for too long - I left for home soon after and lay down on the floor. At the end of 90 minutes of sound sleep my back felt better. The legs also recovered in a few hours and a twinge of regret crept in my mind - maybe I could have pushed on and stayed the course a little longer :).  I was able to do 81Kms last year exactly one week after running the Auroville marathon. However, I found it much more difficult this year one week after a fast Mumbai marathon. I guess this is because the body takes much longer to recover after a fast run while recovery is faster and better after a slower run(intend to research and post on this some time in the future). Doing 100Km+ will have to wait till next year now :)

I slept like a log for over 3 hours  after an early lunch and thereafter felt too lethargic to go to Madhavan park for the finale!! While the soreness in the back lingered on for a few days I was able to comfortably do a 8Km run on Wednesday 26th Jan.  Hats off to Santosh Padmanabhan for doing over 230Kms in 38hrs - his passion and commitment to running and helping under-privieged children through Asha is really amazing!! Several others ran/walked over 100Kms during the event : Jagadish, Sunand and of course Honda-San. Not to forget the 5 cyclists who rode to Hyderabad and back clocking  3007Kms in 48 hours with Samim Rizvi alone doing 1237Kms - again an amazing feat of endurance and commitment!!

More on SCMM 2011

While the Mumbai marathon on 16th January was my best ever Full marathon run where I comfortably exceeded my goal of 3:59 by clocking 3:52:48, the last couple of days leading up to the race was quite nerve-wrecking. I usually am quite nervous before a big event specially if I am targeting a specific time or a new distance. Even then this time was different - maybe it was the pressure of aiming to do my first sub 4 hr in India. Or the fact that the last time I attempted a sub 4 hr FM in October 2010 I ended up with cramps and  missed it by a whisker. I felt extremely hungry in the 48 hours before the race eating much more than normal. I was a bit apprehensive of getting to the start point well in time for the early start time of 06:15am. Specially the last 12 hours from Saturday evening after returning home from WTC was a very nervy and restless period so much so that I started feeling light pain in my tail bone. All of this fortunately had no impact in the end as  the race went as perfectly as possible on Sunday morning. 

As has been my tradition for the past several years  I landed in Mumbai Friday evening and went to WTC to collect the race bib on Saturday morning a little of noon. And as usual I met a number of familiar runners from Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Delhi. Also met a few new runners as well. As always the excitement, energy and passion among the runners  was great. After lunch at La Flamboyante in WTC I returned to Govandi by about 5PM. One thing I noticed was that Mumbai was less warmer and less humid on pre-race day comapred to the previous years. Was praying that race day weather would be at least s good.  I tried to relax as much as I could. The 2nd  India-South Africa ODI in SA served  a good distraction. I went to bed around 9:45PM soon after India got bowled out for 189 with the intent of waking up around 3:45am. I slept reasonably well and woke up just before the alarm rang. 

I got ready by about 430am and informed the security to send me an auto. Within about 7 minutes there was an auto on my doorstep which took me to Chembur station where I caught the 4:45am train and reached VT station by 5:20am. This can only happen in Mumbai in India - very impressive!In the train I chatted with a bunch of runners who got off at Vadala to head to Bandra for their HM start. Given the segregation of the FM and HM start points VT station was not that crowded. I changed into my shoes and headed towards the entry gate in Azad maidan. While wearing my shoes the timing chip came off from the plastic tag and I had to thread it through my shoe lace. I thought this was not a good start - in the end of course it had no impact. En route I met Pani and Sid - two other veteran runners from Bangalore(see photo below taken inside Azad maidan after finishing the race and collecting medal, refreshments etc).   In side the maidan of course there were a lot of familiar FM runners. After some warm up, I consumed a half of my fourth banana(had eaten 3 before leaving home) and checked  in my bag in the baggage counter and moved to the holding area around 6am. 

With Pani and Sid post the race

The gate was opened just before 6:10am and all of us took a brisk walk/slow jog to the starting line. The race started on time at 6:15(flagged off by Deepika and a few other 'celebrities'. Having managed to get myself close to the front of the start line  I crossed the start line in 12 seconds. Vasu and I started together and got off to a good start covering the 1st Km in about 5:22. At this point Ravi Balasubramanya joined us - though a much faster runner he decide to run the race with us(probably due to inadequate training). As always in the first few Kms it looked like there were lots of runners ahead of us. In reality we were probably in the first one third of the pack of runners. Around the 5Km mark Priyankar - another very strong runner - joined us and the four of us then pretty much ran together for the next 25Kms.  The weather was definitely much much cooler than it has ever been in a race in Mumbai and the 6:15am start was indeed a great help. The point of merger with the Half marathon runners was a bit of a bummer as the slower runners came in the way of FM runners impacting their momentum. The four of us managed to weave our way through the crowd reasonably well all the time hollering out for the slow runners to give way and keep our 5:27 per Km average pace.  We had crossed Sid Mallya from Bangalore during this stretch. In the stretch leading up to the sea link Milind Soman and his friends went past us. The Mumbai crowd as was to be expected had special cheers for Milind. (Milind's finish time of 3:49:53 is very impressive and a huge improvement on his time of last 2 years).  In the stretch leading up to the sea link a wide patch of shade had been created by putting up a tall side shamiana for a fairly long stretch. This was a pleasant and welcome improvement. At the sea link we were still running at an average pace of 5:27 per Km. One big change from last year was the presence of two water points on the sea link which was huge boon to the runners. Around the middle of the sea link stretch Vasu slowed down while I continued running  pretty much with Ravi and Priyankar.  I got to the 29.9Km timing point at 2:43:31(5:29 per Km pace) as compared to 2:45:21 at the 29.7Km mark last year. And felt much much stronger  compared to last year. Somewhere at the back of my mind I was hoping that my timing chip was registering at all the mats - at the 29.9Km mark this got confirmed.

Of course, as with any FM the last 12Km is the toughest and more so at Mumbai where you hit the Peddar road flyover in this stretch. Also it got warmer though it was not really hot. At the Peddar Road flyover Priyankar took off- I could not quite keep pace. I just focused on keeping the current pace below 6 minutes per Km. At this point it was clear that I would go below 3:59 fairly comfortably. Going below my previous best of 3:56:49 seemed very possible. Now I hung in there from Km marker  to the next one. As I turned from Marine drive towards Churchgate station for the last 2Kms I ran at a fairly comfortable pace to get to the finish point with a net chip time of 3:52:48!! I felt much less tired at the end  - so much so that I felt maybe I should have pushed harder in the last 5Kms to shave off a few more minutes. However, I am very satisfied specially to have exorcised the ghost of Hartford and achieving the 2nd sub 4 of my career in 26 Full marathons!! Chandra with a time of 3:47:42 was at the finish line. Soon after I met Rajesh Vetcha of Hyderabad runners and also my brother Mahesh and his daughter Divya. Mahesh and Divya had come all the way from New Mumbai to experience the marathon atmosphere and try and take a picture of me finishing. However, he had not expected me to finish in below 3:55(well nor had I expected to do it this year) - so he missed me by a few minutes at the finish line. Below are a couple of pictures taken a few minutes after completing the race.

Two new things were introduced in this year's event:

- there was a 5hr FM pacer and 2hr and 3hr HM pacers; pacers for every few minutes of finish time are common in most international marathons. 

- there were a couple of spray showers on the route to help cool down the runners ; this was welcomed by many runners though personally I did not run through any of them

Overall it was a great run for me and for a number of friends. It maybe a tough act to beat this next year unless the weather gods are kind again. 

with Rajesh after the run

With Rajesh, Divya and other Hyderabad runners

Cracker of a race at SCMM 2011

All the stars lined up perfectly this Sunday 16th Jan 2011 in Mumbai for my 26th FM finish(excluding the 4 ultras). The weather was as perfect as it can be in Mumbai, there was water support on the sea link, I had a good start to the race and excellemt pacing with Priyankar and Ravi  for over 32Kms(and Vasu till half-way on the sea link), my shoe laces did not come off, there were no cramps and the body felt pretty good throught out the run. All of this resulted in not only my fastest marathon finish at Mumbai but my fastest ever marathon time of 3:52:48. This is over 3 minutes faster than my previous PB of 3:57:56 in Washington DC in March 2009. And over 8 minutes better than my  last year's time at SCMM.  Thereby continuing my progression of improving my timing at Mumbai.  I did a pretty much even split covering the first half in about 1:54 and second half in 1:59. My average per Km pace was between 5:22 and 5:29 through out the race. I felt extremely good and not too tired after the finish(unlike last year when I was very drained and nauseous at the finish) which led me to think that maybe I could have pushed harder and tried to go sub 3:50. Well that will certainly be the target for SCMM 2012!

With Ravi on the sea link

A couple of things that could have been better with the race organisation:

• At point that FM runners merged with the HM runners there should have been two clear lanes to separate the two categories; this will help avoid the slower HM runners/walkers impeding the rhythm of the FM runners
•  The narrow entry/exit back into Azad maidan after the race which had hundreds of ill-tempered runners jostling to get in was very frustrating specially for the FM finishers. As in the past there could have been separate entry point for FM runners or the entry/exit should have been broader.

Overall though it was a well organised event and many many  friends had a great run and achieved their PBs. Congratulations to all the participants!! It is incredible how runners are improving with experience  -  shows that running as a sport maturing in India and many runners are yet to fully tap their potential. Despite finishing 8 minutes faster than last year my ranking in the veteran category is 13 this year compared to 10 last year! Though oddly enough overall ranking has improved from 90 to 49 - looks a bit fishy!!

Run Less, Run Faster ..the 3Plus2 training program from FIRST

I just completed reading this book and have decided to try this program for my next road marathon in 2011-2012(either Hyderabad marathon in August 2011 or SCMM in January 2012). The weekly mileage advocated by this program is lower compared to most other training programs. The FIRST program suggests running on alternate days 3 times of the week. However, it specifies that each run of the week be of a different type(tempo, interval, long run) and also the intensity of the run in terms of pace. This means though the weekly mileage is lower the intensity of training is higher compared to most other programs. Another critical component of the FIRST training program is two weeks of cross-training which can be cycling,swimming etc.  And hence the 3plus2 concept.

In some form I already do the 3plus2 training. I usually run 3 days and cycle 2 days a week. I also do one tempo run and one long run almost every week. However neither of these are usually done with a target goal pace and I have never ever done interval training program. I am looking forward to doing the the 16 weeks  FIRST program with a target FM time of 3:55 in the 2011-2012 running season.

The challenge of SCMM 2011 beckons

By this time next week I should  be done with my 8th run of the Mumbai marathon (6th FM)and would have hopefully achieved my goal of a sub 3:59 Full Marathon. While I am reasonably well trained and prepared for the event and can take heart from the fact that I have progressively improved my timings at Mumbai since 2006(see below) shaving over 40 minutes, I am well aware that now going below 4 is going to be very tough. Whatever be the training a lot of factors need to fall in place in order to have a good race specially in Mumbai: race start, heat and humidty, aid station support, sleep and rest in the days leading up to the race, mental and physical state on the morning of the race etc etc.

1. 2006        4:42:28 
2. 2007        4:37:16  
3. 2008        4:31:09 
4. 2009        4:13:16 
5. 2010        4:00:56

Of course for the last week or so one has been going through the usual tapering blues that encompass  reduced level of excercise with  higher level of food intake and imaginary aches and pains couple of weeks before an event. The light fever that I had every evening for several days since 31st December has been worrisome and had an adverse impact on my 35K run on Jan 1st.  While the timing of 3:40 was slower than my target time I felt much more fatigued than normal at the end of the run. Anyway, the fever seems to have gone now and my last 15K+ run before SCMM this morning was quite normal.

In order to devise a strategy for my run this year I analysed my split timings from SCMM 2010.

           Distance           Time                Average Pace

• 14.7 Km         01:21:35            5:33 per Km
• 17  Km           01:34                 5:31 per Km
• 24  Km           02:12:55            5:32 per Km
• 29.7  Km        02:45:21            5:34 per Km
• 42.2  Km        04:00:56            5:42 per Km

To shave two minutes off my finish time I need to increase my average pace by 3 secs per Km ie stay within an average pace of 5:39 per Km. My target is to hit the half way mark in about 1:55 at an average of 5:27 and get to the 30K mark by 2:45 at an average of 5:30. That will leave me about an hour and 14 minutes for the last 12.2Km at an average pace of 6 minutes per Km. This is vis-a-vis over 115 minutes I took for the 12.5Kms at last year's SCMM. More recently at the ING Hartford Marathon I got to the 32Km mark in 2:56:46 at an average pace of 5:32 per Km. and ended up taking 6:11 per Km for the last 10.2Kms.

Looking at these numbers makes me even more nervous - it certainly makes me very conscious of the enormity of the challege ahead of me next Sunday morning. I am going to keep my fingers crossed that all factors fall into place on race day and I am fortunate enough to continue the trend of improving my finish time at the biggest road marathon in India!

Here is wishing all fellow runners a great run at SCMM 2011!!