KTM was my 3rd marathon and I must confess it was the toughest one so far. It could be coz the last one was a tough one too and that was just 3 weeks back or it could be coz this was a stony trail and I train pretty much only on tarred roads. There was a lot of apprehension in my mind before I left Chennai to run this one coz a week after the Hyd Marathon I suffered a bad case of hamstring pull owing to an awesome sprint workout I got over enthusiastic about. It took a week and a half of icing, resting , volini rubs and bandaging to fix it but I was dreading that it may come back to haunt me during the run.
Anyway, so I was feeling fine and confident of the run ahead at the start line, as now after 2 marathons I sort of know what to expect. I had no strategy to think of as everyone had scared me about the unforgiving course. Upon being asked by a few ppl around about my expectations from the run, I just said I wanted to survive it and I totally meant that. At this point I was missing the Chennai Runners gang as there were very few known faces around.
So the course is a beautiful 10.5K out and back loop which the full marathon runners had to run twice. I started running and kept a constant pace for the 1st 10.5K, I was feeling strong and the weather gods were kind too. All the while, Bala was right behind me and I occasionally glanced over my shoulder to see if he was there. We weren’t talking much at all as everyone on the course was focusing on not tripping over some random stone and also dodging bullock carts / cows et al. At the 10.5 K mark, took a U-turn and started running back maintaining the same constant pace. At this time, the half marathon runners who were to start 30 min after the FM start were running in the opposite direction and this made the return 10.5K go really well as I kept shouting encouragement to each and every runner who crossed me, our bibs had our names on them so it was good to shout out names and exchange smiles. It just made the running come so much easier. I met Preeti who was setting the trail on fire and we shouted so much that we really did scare all the birds away :D
Anyway so the 1st half of the run went well and it was a pleasant surprise to see Balaji there cheering for us. The aid station at the half mark was about 200-250 mtrs beyond the U-turn. I sprinted to it, filled my bottle with electral, splashed some water on my face and was on my way to loop 2, this was when the half marathon ppl were coming back to finish their run so some more distance flew by shouting encouragement at each other and was great to see Preeti, Barefoot Sankar, Mukesh and some other Dailymile people.
Towards the 27K mark, pretty much all the half marathon and 10K ppl had crossed us and it was suddenly very lonely , there were multiple points starting now where I could not see anyone ahead or behind me.... I had lost Bala also by now, there were just some farmers working in the sugarcane fields and their bulls, cows, bullock carts and other paraphernalia. This is when the loneliness of a long distance runner struck me and realized how alone I was and how life imitates running and vice versa and then I realized that it wasn’t that I was being contemplative , I was just low on sugar :D so I stopped at the next aid station and had a small banana.
The weather kept getting sunny and cloudy alternately till now but the moment I
touched 35K it was sunny and humid as hell. From here on I just focused on running for 8 min and then walking for 2 min. I met some interesting runners along the way, conversation helped take my mind off the sweltering weather. At the 41K mark, I started sprinting and I think I overtook about 6-7 runners in the next 600 mtrs. My legs felt good and I sprinted to finish in 4:48. It wasn’t my best but was happy nevertheless to have made it back without any injuries....just badly badly tanned. I saw Bala’s family waiting and looking slightly worried so I went and informed him that he should be there at the finish in about 15 min and amazing how accurate I was with the prediction :-)
Now came the surprise bit, I was informed that I finished 3rd in the female open category and had to rush to the prize distribution ceremony .I collected my 2nd runners up certificate , met a few runners and while heading back also met Bala and family looking cheerful.
My run details: http://connect.garmin.com/
What I learnt
- Probably good to have some variation wrt the terrain I am training on
- Doing a sprint workout in the week following a marathon is a bad bad idea
- Should include more yoga to the training as my ankles felt wobbly after the run
Cheers,
Ridhima
Ridhima
No comments:
Post a Comment