what a wonderful journey

 

"What a wonderful journey!"

[I had written this article when I had achieved my personal best in my first half marathon.] 

 

 

Night before the Doom's day ...

Checklist for the event - done. Hydration, carb loading, all preps - done.

Good (slightly early) morning than usual. 

Pre race nutrition - done. 

Take blessings from God. I remember someone saying "Remember it's all humbums. Only thing that will improve your performance is your nutrition and practice." And another statement "After 18km or so, it is all "mental strength" game in half marathon.".

Get ready and head to BM (Bengaluru Marathon) location with the comrades. 

Nice weather!

Let's do warm up. Friends of eternal support.

 

10..9..8.... Start.

Huge crowd. Difficult to steer through. 

Whaaaat 7.5 m/km 

Timings not as per the plan. Just keep going. 7km mark. Yes, timings are improving. 

Keep hydrating. Smile at the camera.... Just enjoy the run. 

Hey there is Jaguar running... "Come on Jaguar!"

Encourage fellow runners 

Let them bear the fruit of their efforts they have been putting for soooo long. 

 

"Hey you are going strong. Let me run with you. It's all downhill now." 

Who's that? They are helping you to keep motivated and completing the run with a decent result. Not letting you down. Thanks for coming out to cheer me. And taking great pictures, creating memories. 

 

Can I complete my target?

Am I going to stop? Will I just walk? 

Where's all of my energy going? It is just less than a km remaining now.

"Hey, I need water.... You got water?"

"No"

"Anyone else?"

"Here you go. Take this. You are doing great! You are steady. Keep running. Enter the stadium and go as fast as you can."

"Need more water." 

Yessss. I can do it. I will complete it nicely...yeahhhh! 

 

Did it! 2:07:15. Not upto my expectations but it's good  

Keep your goals high!

 

"Congratulations Sir!" Tick mark.

"Where is the water?"

"There "

"Thanks... One more..." "One more...." "One more."

"Sir this is electrolyte."

"Wow. It's nice... One more..." "One more... Amazing."

 

Need to do stretches. Where are the others? 

"Hey buddy, good run."

"How was yours?"

"Great! It's good that we could finish."

"Let's do stretches. Do you remember?"

"I can't do ITB. It's painful." 

"It's ok. Keep doing other stretches."

 

Wish my family was here in the stadium to take photos, have fun, cheer up...

Yummy millet shake.

"One more. Please"

Let's have breakfast. Take some photos.

 

Now I will send my finisher medal photo and timing details to my friends, relatives. 

99% will respond with congrats/superb/nice/. Running events are mushrooming. So they are used to it. 

They may not even know how much distance I have run and in how much time.

They may not know the story behind the finisher medal because it doesn't say your timing.

1% will say great timings. And I'm elated to see THAT response from those 1% 'connoisseurs'. 

To understand more about the marathon timings go through this info about timing percentile https://marastats.com/marathon/, https://marastats.com/halfmarathon/runner/99216/.  

So I was not running to just get a finisher medal. Everyone who finishes a marathon, be it in 2:30:00 hrs or 6:00:00 hrs will get a finisher medal. 

I wanted to achieve that great timing.

 

Flashback....4 months ago.

I shall try a half marathon. Registered for BM.

Searched online about training centers for marathons. And found Jayanaga Jaguars. Also called JJ. https://www.jayanagarjaguars.com/jjs/

"Do you have a branch/location near bellandur/HSR?"

"Yeah. Come tomorrow for a trial session."

"Sure."

"Did you run any event earlier?"

"Yeah... 10km. Long back in 2009."

"What was your performance then?"

"Around 1 hour 15 minutes."

"Ok."

 

Next day around 5:20am... "Where is the ground?"

"Can you see many cars parked?"

"Yeah... But the gate is closed."

"Not that one. Come from the one opposite the Sai Temple..."

"Ok coming there."

"We do core around 5am and do stretches afterwards around 5:20. Just follow me. We will go this way and u turn there and back to ground. Then cool down stretches."

Done! I will continue.

 

First practice run. And I realised how many muscles I have. 

"Try doing some foam rolling for your muscle soreness. It will give u good relief."

In the holy name of God, henceforth you will be called Tirunesh. Sachin Tirunesh HSR.

(I was part of the Tirunesh group. They name the groups after famous marathoners. Ours was Tirunesh Dibaba. I learnt after a few days that Tirunesh is a lady who is an Olympian and 5km world record holder.)

 

Get up early... Head to ground... Practice runs. Exercises. 

Change of diet plan. So many things. Ok, let's do it. 

Gym. Ohhh yeah. I can now use my gym card.  

Family members "Why are you running so much? Earlier you were running upto 7/8 km. That's enough. Don't overdo it."

"Who is your coach? I will talk to him."   You know who says this line.

 

Coach session queries:

how shall I hydrate? Solution for black toe nails?

 

"It's a fast finish buddy. Either you have run Steady pace distance faster, or Fast finish distance slower.." I ran a practice run incorrectly.

"Hmm, what's the race pace?" "What's the steady pace?" ... etc etc.

Heel pain.

Captain: "Yeah, I know why it happens. Heel striking, over striding. Watch it properly."

 

Ohh no. What's this magic number 12? I keep getting foot pain after 12km.

Physio. "Metatarsal pain. Change your shoes. They are worn out. Check if you need neutral or stability shoes."

Now what's this new terminology?

 

Let's get new shoes before the trial run at GKVK. Remember unnecessary weightage is given to shoes. First start with basic running shoes. Hmmm. This fits well and it's light weight .

Continue practice runs, physio sessions, exercises at home for the feet.

It's helping. Magic revealed.

 

Credits:

Chandrika, Vijaykumar Panchgatti, Sarvanidhi, Navya, Ashish, Coach Pramod Sir, all my friends and fun group at JJ HSR, running buddies (Swagat, Nirupa, Lakshman, Nizam).

Inspirations: Ramprasad Rajendran, Salim Babuchandran, Kavita Rajith Nair!

 

After the marathon:

Family members: 

"How much did you run and in how much time?"

"So you want to continue."

"Good. You can maintain weight and your diet also."

"Waking up early in the morning is also good. Anyway it's only for 3 days right?"

Is it???

 

Monday is a rest day!

Tuesday:

Beep beep... Beep beep.

Jago Jaguars, 

Bhago Jaguars.

 

Running is now a habit!

 

Friends, I took coaching at "Jayanagar Jaguars" for my half marathon under the coach Pramod Deshpande from July 2019 to October 2019.

It's a great team!

And co-runners are a great inspiration and fun to be with!

 

regards,

Sachin

Winners are too busy to be sad,

too positive to be doubtful,

too optimistic to be fearful

and too determined to be defeated!