PB at Celebration Mysore HM

I had a near perfect race and while I narrowly missed my goal of going below 1:43 I still achieved a PB of 1:43:33 bettering my previous best  in a half marathon by over two and a half minutes. Ravi Balasubramanya and I pretty much ran the whole race together. And I got the benefit of a running commentary on the localities we ran through  from the local boy. Ravi , who  is a much younger and faster runner than I am, was returning from injury and decided to stick with me. With the finish line visible  a few hundred meters away Ravi found that extra burst of energy and sprinted to  finish 13 seconds before me. Sid ran a very steady race and finished a few seconds ahead while Neera also ran a strong race to finish just after I did. I finished 30th overall out of about 173 timed finishers. See here  for complete results.

The day started very early - 2am to be precise when my alarm went off. Though we had planned on driving down to Mysore the previous afternoon we changed our plans once  we learnt that bibs would be given out on the morning of the race for outstation runners.  I left home at 2:45am and reached Rich's place a little after 3am after picking up Sid on the way.  Rich, Sid, Neera, myself, Raj and Sabesan then left Lavalle road at about 3:20am in Rich's Innova. Enroute I was able to doze a bit. We reached the start point outside the Mysore palace at about 5:45am just before day break. The area was buzzing with runners as well the road seemed to have quite a bit of traffic. We collected our bibs in a few minutes(thanks to Nikhil of RFL for helping us out on this) , got into our running gear and headed for the portable potties across the road. At about 6:30am the timing technologies folks were setting up the timing system at the start point and there was some confusion as to where exactly the runners were supposed to assemble for the start of the race. The cricketer Javgal Srinath and actress Nidhi Subbiah appeared soon after. However, the run did not start as scheduled at 6:45am as the chief guest -  a minister arrived late. The crowd became very restless and started booing. Finally, after a few speeches which we could not hear anyway the race got underway a little over 20 minutes from the scheduled start time.

Ravi and I ran together from the start. In the 1st Km or so it seemed like the sun would come out; however thankfully it did not and it stayed partly cloudy throughout with little humidity.  We went out on Devraj Urs road and continued on Hunsur road  where there were a few gradients. Overall the route was quite scenic specially the  Mysore university area and the trail around Kukkarahalli lake. There was a downward slope leading up to the entry point of the trail which provided momentum to both Ravi and myself. Ravi hit a curb and stumbled across in front of me - fortunately he was able to regain balance as I managed to grab his elbow - else both of us could have got injured and our race might have ended at that point. We turned around at the end of the trail a little past the half-way mark. At this point I was pretty much on target with my garmin showing a little over 49 minutes.  The second half also had a few gradients and my pace strarted to drop a bit. However, I managed to keep the average pace at 4:55 . I could have possibly pushed a bit harder in the last Km - however as both my left glute and calf were hurting a bit I decided not to that. Both of these were sore tilla couple of days after the race. The traffic control was reasonable with the volunteers and cops doing their best to give priority to runners at intersections though there were a few instances when they found it challenging in handling buses. There were not too many Km markers on the route and also the route seemed to have the runners cross the road a few times more than is desirable. Otherwise , overall it was a good experience.

After the run we had a sumptious buffet breakfast at Pai Vihar and started the drive back to Bangalore at about 11am reaching home at 2:30PM. I decided to take a couple of weeks easy and do some light running and also undergo soft tissue therapy before starting on the rigors of the 'Run Less, Run faster' training for Mumbai 2012.

Hyderabad 2011: Disappointing despite a PB

Though I managed a PB time of  3:51:48 beating my previous PB at SCMM 2011 by exactly a minute and  finishing 1st in the senior men's category (all winners  here) I was  disappointed with the race. I had trained for over 10 weeks using the FIRST 'Run Less,Run Faster' program with a target of going sub 3:40 or at least sub 3:45. Except for the last 2 weeks I had some excellent training runs specially the tempo and long runs - though the interval runs were a struggle. I got to the half-way point on target at 1:46 and the 30K at 2:37 as planned. However, after that things went downhill. Both my glutes started to hurt and around the 34K mark I suffered from cramps in both the quads and feet. However, I hung on despite the average pace dipping rapidly specially between 35K and 39K. It was during this stretch in the Hyderabad University that fellow runenr Kumar who had stopped due to cramps passed by in a pickup vehicle and asked if I wanted to get in. Despite the pain that the thought of givving up never crossed my mind.  By the 35K mark I realised that 3:45 was not going to be possible so my focus was to try and do a sub 3:50. However, soon even that slipped away and I had to push hard in the last 2Kms including sprinting  into the stadium to go just below my previous PB time ! See the official split timings here and detailed analysis from my Garmin data here.

I am unable  to figure out why I cramped in both the legs. I had hydrated well before and during the race,  taken adequate rest and was not using a new pair of shoes. Infact the weather was very nice - mostly cloudy and temperature in the low 20s celsius.  Perhaps , the couple of Kgs that I had put on since January made a difference or for the type of  course I ran too fast in the first 30Kms. That is , my legs (and glutes) did not have the strength to handle the pace across 3 flyovers and numerous fairly steady and long gradients. See here for the route description. An additional challenge was strong headwinds at times.  I have not been doing any strengthening since January 2011 when I discontinued the  sessions at the Manipal Hospital Department of Sports and Excercise medicine. The niggle in my left glutes and left calf continued to linger on several weeks after the run - so I need to start strengthening excercises soon. That and sustained interval training is probably key to be able to sustain the desired pace for a longer period of time specially towards the end of the race. As always met with several friends and also my brother Mahesh at the end of the race and took a few pictures. Several friends from Bangalore had podium finishes - Ashok, Neera, Vaishali..and the awards were given away by the governor of AP. I myself missed the opportunity to go upto the podium to receive my plaque as the winner of men's veteran category as I was busy catching up with ex-colleagues Nathan(see picture below), Mathivanan and my brother Mahesh.

Overall, the event was well organised. For most part the traffic was well managed - there were a few small stretches where we had to run with traffic. The Km markers and turns could have been marked better. Also, in a few other places the volunteers were not attentive enough and one had to ask for directions. I also heard that the aid stations did not have the spray which many runners required inorder to get temporary relief from their pain and cramps. Apart from this ofcourse the delay in the bib distribution commencement the previous day was an irritant that should be avoided. Nevetheless, on the positive side it gave an opportunity for runners to hang around longer and mingle and catch up each other and take some pictures - see below. The major put-off for most runners was the 24 minutes delay in the start of the race possibly due to the chief guest arriving late. Nevertheless, the overall race experience was very nice and I am sure Hyderabad Runners will ensure that the event improves year after year.

Being interviewed for 92.7 Big FM

With the 12m in 12m gang

With Nari,Sundar and Kumar

On race morning I left Domalguda at 4:20am by cab and reached the start point at people's plaza in about 15 minutes with ample time to check in my bag, warm up and exchange banter with other runners. The 24 minutes delay in the start of the race made the runners quite restless. When the race did begin I had night-marish start - within a minute or two I felt my timing chip come-off my shoe. This was one of the rare times where I had used only the plastic tag and not a shoelace to tie the chip and I seem to have done a shoddy job with the tag(a lesson learnt ofcourse!). As soon as I realised this I stopped and turned around to walk back a few steps and pickup the chip causing a minor panic amongst the runners directly behind me including Neera. I put the chip in my pocket and ran a short distance mulling over what had happened and what I should do next. Fortunately, I got the idea of stopping on the side and tying the tag via a shoelace which I did. Around that time I started to run with Sundar from Chennai Runners. We ran together for about a Km or so after which he took off and finished in an amazing timing of 3:33:04. After that I ran most of the race by myself.  At around the 14 Km mark after the Khairatabad flyover in the gradients of Banjara Hills I saw Nitin waiting for Neera to come by. Upto about the half-way mark I was just behind Siddhartha Menon - at this point I was doing quite well- hitting the mark within my target time of 1:47.  But soon after he too took off or rather I dropped off as he seems to have run a steady pace to complete in 3:35:55. Though Rajesh Vetcha went by in a crew vehicle shouting that the gradients were all but over that was not all true. I found that even the stretch inside the university, though very green, was not flat. And as mentioned in the first paragraph above the last 7-8 Kms was quite a struggle. After crossing the finish line I took the help of Mahesh and collected my bag - this was my first experience of a point to point race and a baggage bus in India and it worked without a hitch. And then met with fellow runners and other friends.

Finishing..at last

With ex-colleague and good friend SV Nathan

With Mahesh

Less than 12 hours to the Mysore Half Marathon

After vacillating quite a bit I went ahead and registered for the HM in Mysore  couple of weeks ago.  I would be leaving for Mysore in a few hours along with Rich, Neera, Sid and a couple of other runners. The evening/night before a race is always a restless one for most runners and certainly so for me. This one is even more so as I know that I should probably not be running this race(My coach and mentor  Bill Pierce is quite categorical about it). I have not been unable to train much since the Hyderabad marathon on 28th August. Work schedule has been hectic and also I have not fully recovered from the niggle in my left glutes and calf which I picked up a couple of weeks before that event. So logically I should take some more rest and focus on the training for my next marathon event. However, I did not want to miss the opportunity to run a runner friendly (with RFL handling the organisation) HM event in the vicinity. Moreover, I have not run a daytime HM event since May 2005.  My goal is   to use this race to get over the disappointment of not meeting my target at Hyderabad and also restart my training   using the Run Less,Run Faster program from FIRST  for SCMM 2012 which is 15 weeks away.

The  1st target is to beat my HM PB of 1:46:03 from Midnight marathon in December 2009 and if all goes well to go below 1:43. This will depend on how the 1st half goes . If I can manage the 1st half in about 49 minutes at an average pace of 4:52/Km without  much stress to my left glute and calf then I will try and do the second half in under 54 minutes. Else I will take the second half easy. Either way am looking forward to the race - the route looks pretty interesting  with the start and finish being at the famous Mysore Palace and about 4 Kms of soft path around a lake and also going through Mysore University. Hopefully there will be efficient traffic control and weather wont be too bad - both critical factors for a race starting at 6:45am. This is the first time I have seen the video of the route put up on the website for an event in India.

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.