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I ran the Mumbai Half Marathon 2010 - and it was a great experience. It was also good because this was the first proper event in which I was running while absolutely fit. Before the Airtel Delhi Half in 2009, I had some version of plantar fascitis. Once I recovered from that and resumed hard training, I developed Achilles tendonitis! That took almost two weeks of rest and recovery. By this time I had lost a lot of training time. Nonetheless, I managed to do some long runs, some tempo runs, but NO intervals. Also I could not build up the weekly mileage required for a full marathon. So I decided to run the Half instead of the full that I had initially planned to.
One good thing was that my Garmin Forerunner 305 had arrived and now I could actually measure training and introspect on what my performance had been. This fantastic gizmo is a GPS watch cum Heart Rate Monitor (HRM) and measures distance run, speed, elevation, route, accuracy, time, heart rate and also the averages for these fields. One can then upload the data onto the net and see how you fared during the run and at what point on the Google Map where you.
Check my run - http://connect.garmin.com/activity/22757415.
I ran the Gurgaon Half Marathon on 6 Dec 09 and was pleasantly surprised to find that I did it in under two hours - 1hr 59mins 57 secs to be precise. However the course was a repeat and weather was ideal, no pressure - more of a training run for the Mumbai. This run was without the 305. Thereafter I did a few 10kms and one full on 27 Dec and then light work.
Mumbai was hot and humid but the run started at 0640hrs and so weather was by and large good. I was running by the watch and my goal was under two hours. That meant I had to run each km at 5 mins 40 secs average and so I set the alarm at 5:30 min/km. The initial few 10 kms went well...and then I started struggling to keep the pace. The last turn onto the Marine Drive had the sun in the eyes and was quite a drag. This was when I started falling short. Tried like hell to push, but I could feel myself falling short of the goal.
Nonetheless...the experience was amazing.
Next year Full Marathon? Depends!
