TRANSITION AND RELOCATION
Though I have been running for 6 years now, this was a special race to me. Yes, its the first Marathon that I am running in India and I would say that the race was nothing short of being excellent!
It all started in April 2013 after almost 3 months siesta from running because of an ankle injury and battling all the process of international relocation along with the family and the obvious domestic obligations to follow, the very few miles of running at around 40 degree C.
Believe it or not, even before I was trying to look out for a rental house or a school for my kiddo, I was looking up online for a running group in Hyderabad, fortunately was able to find the awesome group of Hyderabad Runners and started the first long run in 2 days after moving to india with the group.
Its been 4 months that I have been training with the group and I would say it has always been an awesome experience with the group, the folks, the way they organize and eventually realized that a running group that I go with is organizing the local marathon, that's a great news and soon registered for the Airtel Hyderabad Marathon 2013 on the very first day that it opened up for registration. that's the first of its kind that I have done to register right away without thinking about it.
I had a great training with no injuries, with awesome SAG support and hefty breakfast after every long run, I started to enjoy the Addiction of running even more!
ENJOYABLE TRAINING
After 5 Months 523 Miles of Training with 5 consecutive 20 milers, 60.2 miles of hill training, with 8 kgs loss in weight and at the verge of being underweight, I can't be much prepared for a race.
START LINE
I was beaming with confidence at the start line of AHM 2013 with that being the first race ever where I was not tensed at all.
The crowd at the start line was awesome, though not so crowded as my previous races, feels good to run in your roots.
There we start with a few minutes of delay, off we go, my motive is to be little faster than 8 min mile pace around the Hussain sagar lake , so that I have some time to makeup while climbing up the hills. perfect laps, at 7:40, 742's.., I felt that I am probably over excited and being speeding up, tried to slow down to 7:55's while for the first time , I was chased by a dog, while we were running by a dark patch around the lake, luckily had a great escape and kept going strong.
Passed the start point , going around the round about, greeted by the Chief of Hyderabad Runners, was all pumped up to take up the first hill, the Khairatabad Flyover in my own style, clocked 7:23's on the hill, felt great, kept going with all my focus on the gradual climb towards LV Prasad Hospital. was thinking of too many strategies, soon before I realize I am near the Chutneys, starting to climb the gradual 1.2 miles climb towards LV Prasad.
DONE WITH INITIAL CLIMB
Having gone past LV Prasad hospital and still feeling in rhythm, I was mentally relieved, since the only pressure or thought that I had was about the gradual climb to LV Prasad and not getting beaten up with the pace. Adding to that I was overtaking couple of fit triathletes like Tim Tim, Amit Samarath, for a moment I thought I was speeding, but not I was on target for a 3:30 or better by then.
Cruising along with amith all the way along the hi tech city road, we reach cyber towers where I see that I have dropped my pace a bit and had to get going, consciously overtook Amit and kept going.
REAL TEST OF DOWN HILL
I had an unusual or unique worry, which I probably think not many had running AHM, its about the down hill, I was probably over-trained with 10 weeks of hill training, the max that I have ever done, making me feel that hills were ok, but I trying to keep up the pace down the hill towards Bio Diversity complex towards Quality Inn, that's when I started having a feeling that I am slightly beaten up, Super Sarita was cheering all folks, first time hearing a loud cheer by my name.
TOWARDS LAST TWO HILLS
So far so good, feeling ok as I reach the bio diversity complex and I was mentally prepared for the next hill to climb, the gachibowli flyover, which I have run multiple times before, but now I am in a different state and under pressure to keep up the pace, so was skeptical about it until I climbed past and again I started feeling the tightening of calves running down the hill.
Soon when I was approaching IIIT Junction is when I had the Women Marathon winner get past me, I was mentally little demoralized, yet I know I can't push any further, I was already right on my pace and had no buffer left.
THE REAL TEST OF TRAINING
turning towards the ISB road, awesome hill was awaiting to be climbed :) I know I have run this n number of times, yet felt daunting to just see, went to my usual mode of just looking couple of feet ahead and kept hammering up the hill, though felt beaten up, I was able to keep up the pace and soon I was on top of the hill at ISB, again the pain of running down the hill had to be repeated, this time I had a chance to overtake few experience runners from Chennai with whom I had a talk before the race started, got past them and turn right onto Wipro Circle, grab the nutrition, as I felt really beaten up. The very enthusiastic greeting from Sandeep who was volunteering kicked in some adrenaline and was struggling to keep up the pace.
MENTAL GAME ON
This is the part of the race which is typically termed as "Hitting the wall", I almost felt that I did hit the wall, but with some stiff competition between two army havildars with whom I kept conversing and kept going along with them, those were complaining that they had to be 12 minutes ahead and still struggling and what now, comparing to that I was just 0.5 minutes behind my schedule, small bumps and humps felt like hill, the time where I got to be mentally strong though I can realize that physically I am exhausting all I had.
UNEXPLORED TERRITORY
now I kept going just by thinking about what to expect inside the unexplored territory within University of Hyderabad, I haven't run that part any time, and heard that I had decent climbs, so I was not so encouraged, yet these two army fellows kept me going. Thanks to those two, once we got a half mile into University of Hyderabad, one of the army folks dropped off, slowing himself down, that was kicking in negative thoughts into me to slow down, yet right in time the other guys started yelling "Hum Dono Katham karoonge", he badly wanted a company to keep up the pace and so was I.
He had all patriotic, hindi songs running, he snapped off the earphone cable and let me listen to that, that proved to be some distraction for a mile , finished off my last pack of Gu Gel, hoping that will carry me till the end.
DOWNHILL FELT
Soon we see the Rao's road leading to stadium, out we go off the University onto the road, where I could see that I was slightly trending down, yet I could feel every little step, the havildar started to pick up yelling "Chalo Bhai, Chalo", man I badly needed any motivation that time. picked up my pace a bit, and starting running in sync with him, by this time I already was 2 minutes behind my schedule, now I see that my pace was almost more than a minute slower than my target race pace and I had easily 2 more miles to go, so I was mentally prepared for a off target finish, yet decent time range.
FINAL STRETCH
Once I see the stadium gate, I was all pumped up, not know how far inside that I had to run, I started sprinting, soon to realize I had enough to cover, seeing me do that, the havildar was so reach kind of to say if you have enough go for it, I kept the pace and take the final turn only to see the entrance of the stadium, and as usual, giving it all I had I sprinted the home stretch, with the mental feeling of finishing strong, there you go I finish my first marathon in my home country with decent margin of slowness, yet feeling strong after finish!!
THOUGH OFF TIME, POSITION NUMBER WAS SOMETHING TO CHERISH UPON :)
Yay! First race to complete in India, and my 8th full Marathon, though not my PR, felt that I put up a good show. Thanks to Hyderabad Runners for the awesome group runs that brought me up to speed in the new climate!
Though I have been running for 6 years now, this was a special race to me. Yes, its the first Marathon that I am running in India and I would say that the race was nothing short of being excellent!
It all started in April 2013 after almost 3 months siesta from running because of an ankle injury and battling all the process of international relocation along with the family and the obvious domestic obligations to follow, the very few miles of running at around 40 degree C.
Believe it or not, even before I was trying to look out for a rental house or a school for my kiddo, I was looking up online for a running group in Hyderabad, fortunately was able to find the awesome group of Hyderabad Runners and started the first long run in 2 days after moving to india with the group.
Its been 4 months that I have been training with the group and I would say it has always been an awesome experience with the group, the folks, the way they organize and eventually realized that a running group that I go with is organizing the local marathon, that's a great news and soon registered for the Airtel Hyderabad Marathon 2013 on the very first day that it opened up for registration. that's the first of its kind that I have done to register right away without thinking about it.
I had a great training with no injuries, with awesome SAG support and hefty breakfast after every long run, I started to enjoy the Addiction of running even more!
ENJOYABLE TRAINING
After 5 Months 523 Miles of Training with 5 consecutive 20 milers, 60.2 miles of hill training, with 8 kgs loss in weight and at the verge of being underweight, I can't be much prepared for a race.
START LINE
I was beaming with confidence at the start line of AHM 2013 with that being the first race ever where I was not tensed at all.
The crowd at the start line was awesome, though not so crowded as my previous races, feels good to run in your roots.
There we start with a few minutes of delay, off we go, my motive is to be little faster than 8 min mile pace around the Hussain sagar lake , so that I have some time to makeup while climbing up the hills. perfect laps, at 7:40, 742's.., I felt that I am probably over excited and being speeding up, tried to slow down to 7:55's while for the first time , I was chased by a dog, while we were running by a dark patch around the lake, luckily had a great escape and kept going strong.
Passed the start point , going around the round about, greeted by the Chief of Hyderabad Runners, was all pumped up to take up the first hill, the Khairatabad Flyover in my own style, clocked 7:23's on the hill, felt great, kept going with all my focus on the gradual climb towards LV Prasad Hospital. was thinking of too many strategies, soon before I realize I am near the Chutneys, starting to climb the gradual 1.2 miles climb towards LV Prasad.
DONE WITH INITIAL CLIMB
Having gone past LV Prasad hospital and still feeling in rhythm, I was mentally relieved, since the only pressure or thought that I had was about the gradual climb to LV Prasad and not getting beaten up with the pace. Adding to that I was overtaking couple of fit triathletes like Tim Tim, Amit Samarath, for a moment I thought I was speeding, but not I was on target for a 3:30 or better by then.
Cruising along with amith all the way along the hi tech city road, we reach cyber towers where I see that I have dropped my pace a bit and had to get going, consciously overtook Amit and kept going.
REAL TEST OF DOWN HILL
I had an unusual or unique worry, which I probably think not many had running AHM, its about the down hill, I was probably over-trained with 10 weeks of hill training, the max that I have ever done, making me feel that hills were ok, but I trying to keep up the pace down the hill towards Bio Diversity complex towards Quality Inn, that's when I started having a feeling that I am slightly beaten up, Super Sarita was cheering all folks, first time hearing a loud cheer by my name.
TOWARDS LAST TWO HILLS
So far so good, feeling ok as I reach the bio diversity complex and I was mentally prepared for the next hill to climb, the gachibowli flyover, which I have run multiple times before, but now I am in a different state and under pressure to keep up the pace, so was skeptical about it until I climbed past and again I started feeling the tightening of calves running down the hill.
Soon when I was approaching IIIT Junction is when I had the Women Marathon winner get past me, I was mentally little demoralized, yet I know I can't push any further, I was already right on my pace and had no buffer left.
THE REAL TEST OF TRAINING
turning towards the ISB road, awesome hill was awaiting to be climbed :) I know I have run this n number of times, yet felt daunting to just see, went to my usual mode of just looking couple of feet ahead and kept hammering up the hill, though felt beaten up, I was able to keep up the pace and soon I was on top of the hill at ISB, again the pain of running down the hill had to be repeated, this time I had a chance to overtake few experience runners from Chennai with whom I had a talk before the race started, got past them and turn right onto Wipro Circle, grab the nutrition, as I felt really beaten up. The very enthusiastic greeting from Sandeep who was volunteering kicked in some adrenaline and was struggling to keep up the pace.
MENTAL GAME ON
This is the part of the race which is typically termed as "Hitting the wall", I almost felt that I did hit the wall, but with some stiff competition between two army havildars with whom I kept conversing and kept going along with them, those were complaining that they had to be 12 minutes ahead and still struggling and what now, comparing to that I was just 0.5 minutes behind my schedule, small bumps and humps felt like hill, the time where I got to be mentally strong though I can realize that physically I am exhausting all I had.
UNEXPLORED TERRITORY
now I kept going just by thinking about what to expect inside the unexplored territory within University of Hyderabad, I haven't run that part any time, and heard that I had decent climbs, so I was not so encouraged, yet these two army fellows kept me going. Thanks to those two, once we got a half mile into University of Hyderabad, one of the army folks dropped off, slowing himself down, that was kicking in negative thoughts into me to slow down, yet right in time the other guys started yelling "Hum Dono Katham karoonge", he badly wanted a company to keep up the pace and so was I.
He had all patriotic, hindi songs running, he snapped off the earphone cable and let me listen to that, that proved to be some distraction for a mile , finished off my last pack of Gu Gel, hoping that will carry me till the end.
DOWNHILL FELT
Soon we see the Rao's road leading to stadium, out we go off the University onto the road, where I could see that I was slightly trending down, yet I could feel every little step, the havildar started to pick up yelling "Chalo Bhai, Chalo", man I badly needed any motivation that time. picked up my pace a bit, and starting running in sync with him, by this time I already was 2 minutes behind my schedule, now I see that my pace was almost more than a minute slower than my target race pace and I had easily 2 more miles to go, so I was mentally prepared for a off target finish, yet decent time range.
FINAL STRETCH
Once I see the stadium gate, I was all pumped up, not know how far inside that I had to run, I started sprinting, soon to realize I had enough to cover, seeing me do that, the havildar was so reach kind of to say if you have enough go for it, I kept the pace and take the final turn only to see the entrance of the stadium, and as usual, giving it all I had I sprinted the home stretch, with the mental feeling of finishing strong, there you go I finish my first marathon in my home country with decent margin of slowness, yet feeling strong after finish!!
THOUGH OFF TIME, POSITION NUMBER WAS SOMETHING TO CHERISH UPON :)
Yay! First race to complete in India, and my 8th full Marathon, though not my PR, felt that I put up a good show. Thanks to Hyderabad Runners for the awesome group runs that brought me up to speed in the new climate!
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