Hyderabad Marathon 2011..a quick update

A restless and tense Saturday including a mostly sleepless night, mightmarish race start(with my timing chip falling off the shoe within secords of starting), a great 1st Half (21.1K in 1:47) and a terrible 2nd Half taking close to 2:05! I am quite disappointed to have missed my original target of a sub 3:40 by over 10 minutes - that's what I had trained for the last 12 weeks- nevertheless the sub 3:52 finish (official timings awaited) is my Personal Best and gave me the 1st place in the Men's veteran category.

Overall the race was as well organised as I had expected it to be though I found the course much tougher than I had anticipated . The main lesson for me is  that I need to work hard on strengethening specially my gluts.  More details in the next post hopefully by the end of the week.

Countdown to Hyderabad Marathon 2011

The Hyderabad Marathon which will be my first Full Marathon of the season (the last one was at Auroville in February) is less than a week away - in fact by this time next week it will be over. And I will know whether the hard work and training of the past 11 weeks enabled me to achieve my goal of beating my previous PB of 3:52:48 achieved  at SCMM 2011 in January by over 10 minutes. Right now it looks extremely challenging - A couple of my recent long runs were below par, my usual left calf niggle seems to have resurfaced and  a light cold and sore throat has  set in over the weekend. Moreover I realise that the flyovers and gradients on the run route are going to pose quite a challenge !

Whatever the outcome I know that I have trained very hard for the race. While I have generally been following a training regimen of 3 days of running and 2 days of cycling this is the first time that I have trained specifically using the 'Run Less, Run Faster'  training program from FIRST. Though the weekly mileage using this training program has never exceeded 55Km the training has been very intense and specific. With each of the 3 training runs each week , that is, the interval run, the tempo run and the long run having quite stringent time goals. I have usually struggled in my interval runs  to meet the pace goals - the interval training has varied from 10 x 400m to 3 x 1600m with intervals of 800m,1000m and 1200m in-between. On the other hand the tempo runs varying between 5KM for the short tempo to 16Km at marathon pace were very comfortable. And so were most of the long runs varying from 21Km to 36Km. I have never done as many consecutive weeks of 21K+ runs before.

I did have two below par long runs during this period; the 1st one was on 7th August where I ran a 30K  in 2:39 at an average pace of 5:16 versus my goal of 32K in 2:46 at an average pace of 5:14 per Km.  The last 5Kms of this run was quite a struggle and I decided to stop at 30Km rather than completing the planned distance. I was probably both mentally and physically tired due to stress at work and also lack of sleep the previous night. Plus it was the 3rd consecutive day of excercise and I seemed to have had a mild stomach upset. The 2nd one on 14th August was in the hilly terrain of Yercaud. I did not find a good run route and managed a 16Km in 1:31 instead of the target of 21Km in 1:46 . In both these runs my left calf hurt towards the end and these dented my confidence a bit - however a good 20K/1:41 run yesterday has had a positive effect. Whatever the outcome next Sunday I am quite satisfied with the progress I have made using the FIRST training program and hope to make further improvements over the next 12 months or so based on valuable detailed  feedback from Bill Pierce, Scott Murr and Ray Moss - the authors of the book 'Run Less, Run Faster'.  As all experienced marathon runners know there are several factors that all need to come together on race day and many of these are beyond the runners' control.

My strategy next Sunday will be to try and reach  the half way mark as close to  1:45 as possible and sustain the pace to get to the 35K mark in around 3 hours. I have very pleasant memories of the 2008 edition of the Hyderabad marathon which was the 1st one in my journey of running 12 marathons in 12 months. I am once again  looking forward to a great running experience , meeting fellow runners from around the country and having a fun weekend!!

Revised goals for 2011-12 season

Building on the momentum of a great 10K run on 5th June I was able to do 30K the following Sunday (12th June) at a much faster than targeted pace. My goal was to run 29K in about 2:45. My running rhythm was excellent that morning and I ended up running 30.1Km in 2:39 at an average pace of 5:19. Based on these two runs and subsequent tempo and long runs at better than target pace for 3:45 marathon finish I revisited the FIRST key workout tables (more about this program in my next post) and decided to set myself a more aggressive goals for the 2011-12 running season compared to what I had set in December 2010.

• A sub 3:40 finish at the season's 1st marathon - either Hyderabad marathon on 28th August or  sub 3:35 finish at a fall marathon in the US
• A sub 4:00 at the Colombo marathon on 2nd October
• 50Km or 75Km at the 5th edition of the BangaloreUltra
• A sub 1:45 Half Marathon at the Midnight Half marathon
• A sub 3:45 at SCMM 2012

PB at the TCS Open 10K on June 5th

Thanks to a fast start, the excellent Bangalore weather,flatter course and support from numerous well-wishers I did my best ever 10Km run at the TCS Open 10K 4 weeks ago shaving over 2 minutes of my previous best time of 48:24 achieved at the Sunfeast 10K in 2009. Like last year Rahul and I (along with Ravi Venkatesam) took the bus to the Kanteerva stadium and reached there by 7:15 am or so just a few minutes after the men's World 10K was flagged off.  The intent was to get a position near the gate opening into the stadium so as to start the race early and break away from the crowds. I got to the gate around 7:25am - where I met many familiar friends - Neera, Sid, Praveen, Pani, Ashok  etc.  I could not empty my bladder before getting nto the gate. I normally like to do that few minutes before starting a race and I thought this might impact my pace - however it completely went off my mind once I started running.  The holding area became very crowded by about 7:45am. The women's world 10K started at 7:55am and soon after the gate to the stadium was opened. Like the last couple of years there was a lot of jostling and pushing to get to the start line. This is something that the organisers need to improve - the chance of someone getting hurt even before starting the race is quite high. Perhaps, they could plan for wave starts based on previous 10K finish times.

I started well covering the 1st Km in 4:21. While the pace dropped a bit subsequently I reached the half-way point at an average pace of 4:30 well within my target pace and I felt quite good. Around this time I went past Neera  - who was cheered and encouraged by numerous runners. I was completely focused on the race and did not chit-chat with anyone. I also had water only once during the entire race - it helped that the Bangalore weather was fantastic with temperature in the low to mid 20s. I read about the Kenyans complaining of high humidity in next day's newspaper - I did not feel the humidity at all. As I entered the Cubbon Park stretch I knew that a sub 47 was comfortably achievable.  I tried to push myself harder but had a minor stomach cramp in the last Km which constrained me. Nevertheless, I was thrilled to finish  with a gun time of 46:06 and chip time of 45:57. This gave me a 4rth position in my age category and 144th rank overall among 5000+ finishers. Pani and Sid finished 1st and 3rd respectively. ANS started a  See here for the split timings. Most runners improved their 10K timings this year including Chandru,Akshay and Rahul who all completed in very good timings.

Soon after finishing the race I collected the refreshments and my medal - this took me only a couple of minutes. However, later I found that thare was a very long queue for this and also a lot of chaos  - this is another area where the event needs to improve significantly!

With Rahul just after getting home

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!!