• Event Name: VTMM
• Date: January 17, 2021
• Distance: 42.36 Kilometers
• Location: Pune, Maharashtra – India
• Finish time: 2:59:12
• Average pace: 4:14 min/km
• Stride length: 1.39 meter
• Cadence: 170 spm
• Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/4633008892

Goals

Training

2020 had been a year of lockdown & uncertainties. Immediately after my Delhi marathon in Feb 2020 lockdown started and I used that period for focusing more on developing strength of my body. It was a very good Strength Training schedule till May end before we resume formal running schedule. After that as no races were happening around coach Atul Godbole planned 10k & 21k Time Trials (TT) for us and we started training accordingly. I was in a very good shape & clocked five sub 40s for 10k distance. July TT 39:59, July DKD – 39:11, Aug TT – 38:56, Sept TT – 39:11 & Dec TCS– 37:56. In Addition to this for Half Marathon TT Oct – 1:31, Nov – 1:24, Dec – 1:23. All these time trials went pretty solid and I was getting confident to aim 2:55 for full marathon distance. Tata Mumbai marathon takes place on 3rd Sunday of January every year so Coach planned a Virtual race on same day which is 17th Jan 2021 and started our 14 weeks training in Oct. Along with Atul, Kavitha & Krishna my entire training went very well as per plan in fact after the Half Marathon TT coach changed my FM training paces towards faster side. Not a single workout missed in this cycle. Working from home reduced my traveling time and allowed me more time to have three days of strength training, clean diet and good amount of rest. With six days of running my weekly mileage was 90+km. Whatever you did in past cannot be repeated unless you repeat the same intense training and that’s what I have been focusing in my all 12 Marathon’s so far. Marathon training period is something I always look forward to. Some happening / exciting period.

Diet

My diet has always been a focus area. Early morning black coffee and banana before running. Post run protein shake, 2 boiled egg and Omlet. One fruit at 11 am and lunch (1 chapati, little rice and curd /butter milk) at 12:30. Another fruit at 3:30 and a tea at 5:00. Light dinner (1 chapati) between 6:30 – 7 and lot of water throughout day. This helped me to keep my weight around 58kg throughout year. I also eat sweet sometime and other milk products, but all are in small quantity.

Niggle

I will be lying if I say I was not having any niggle in training. During December my left groin started to pain a lot but some constant groin exercises for couple of days and icing that pain went away and I added those exercise in mt ST routine. After that my lower calf became so tight and started to pain post run which affected some of my runs. Severity of pain was 4 in a scale of 1 – 10 (Lower to higher) so I continued my training but in a weeks’ time that went away. My learning from injury is within 24 hours of injury/pain that needs to be taken care. Anything can happen but that needs to be managed. Despite doing daily stretching, foam rolling & good amount of strength training, as we increase the mileage and speed these things are bound to happen. The important thing is how we handle it for a quick fix. On a race day I was 100% fit.

Pre-race

As race day coming closure my anxiety was increasing. I was trying to be calm and relax. I watched some comic movies also some motivational videos & continue to listen music. No heavy workouts, no weightlifting, no foam rolling but continue to do stretching. During the race week I ate good amount of banana’s, sweet potato’s & drank lot of water and electoral in previous four days. A night before the race 6 pm I ate a pasta dinner, did oil massage to the legs, 15 min light stretching and went to bed at 8:30. Due to anxiety the amount of sleep was not enough as I planned. Thursday, I had a good sleep, but Friday and Saturday sleep wasn’t good. In the race day morning I had banana, black coffee and five-star chocolate. I left my home at 3:10 in the morning & reached to the start point at 3:15 very close to my home and I was also a volunteer in race organizing so had to reach early to handover some of the stuff to volunteers. Went to the start point & flagged off FM batch 1 then did warm up, drank 200 ml energy drink, quick loo break and ready for the race at stat point.

Race

The point to point course is mostly flat with some rolling’s. My strategy was to conserve energy, not bank time so first km completed in 4:28. Starting 2km I started getting bit faster and settled around 4:10 pace I knew I have to run alone hence I continue to talk myself “yes its’s a hard pace but run calm & relax” which ensured I am not going faster than target pace. Still during some of the laps I looked at my watch and saw I was on 4:00 pace but immediately slowed it down to 4:10.

No crowd was around saw some runners from other side of the road from earlier batch otherwise its lonely. I was going well & continue to talk myself. Completed half marathon in 1:27:29 as per plan. At 21st km Pawan Chand one of the fastest runners in town joined me for rest of the distance. We continued as per plan and completed 3rd loop, 30km in 2:05 a min slower than target I thought I would cover some part of that later which didn’t happen eventually. At 32km collected my 4th Fast & Up bottle from Samrudhi. All 4 loops 4 Fast & Ups filled bottles with her & that worked well. Running lots of kilometers in training will not guarantee success. You must prioritize and plan well your race fueling. Now I was having 50 min to cover 12.3 km to hit the target. I was getting 5/10 sec slower than the target pace of 4:10. I took out my last gel and gulped full one with water. I carried 5 gels, one gel for every 8km. Manoj Thakur gave me a chikki at 32km and that helped to change my taste. I felt like a rebirth and thought of having a strong 10k. Legs were heavy, Pawan was pushing me with encouraging comments good to see familiar runners from other side to get the positive energy. Now laps are showing 4:15 – 4:20 pace. I told Pawan earlier, this is not a big marathon event and not many runners and crowd around to get that extra push so even if I get slow down you don’t drop your pace for me and continue with the target pace so that I will have someone ahead to chase and that almost worked well.

Thank you Pawan for the company and that much required push. I started feeling some discomfort in nails though I taped them, but I did some finger movement on the run and somehow after a kilometer that pain went away, when I saw post run it’s a bad blister. I kept on repeating all positive thoughts in min mind, reminded all my strong training run, TT’s on same route. I counted 1 to 100 with my cadence rhythm for countless times, I was just looking at Pawan,s feet and running with that rhythm. I was in that moment of a race where I have to make a decision of whether I am going to push through or giving up to the inner voice telling me to slow down. Then I thought why I am doing this, I wanted to get that feel good, hands in the air, proud moment at the finish. I visualized myself crossing the finish line strongly. I started thinking about that moment, and how good it is going to feel and that was enough to kick me back into gear and make me realize that I am actually not hurting as bad as I thought. I was talking to myself “I did not come this far to slow down now” so tolerate this for some more time because pain is what leads us to the moments of pride. Now last 4km to go and I knew 2:55 is not happening today but 100% sure for sub 3 so continued the effort at last two km increased the effort & had a strong finish. All my friends were at finish line shouted sub-3, sub-3 and I finished in full swing. I did not fade but little drop in average pace to 4:14 against target of 4:10 and no negative split this time. In my last year’s Sub 3 at Delhi and even at 2020 TMM 3.03 I did stop for few sec in final laps but this is the first marathon from start to end I did not stop at any moment. I knew at this point making an improvement is big thing, even repeating the earlier timing will require huge amount of efforts, discipline and dedication. Over the years I have developed never giving up attitude in marathon and I keep striving and working hard towards my goal. While running you have to keep motivating yourself at every km to stay strong and keep going on. This takes utmost will and determination and is not easy to keep up with.

It was a lot of process. I got the sub 3 but did not break the Delhi Time 2:58:07. Not at all disappointed with missing PB rather happy to repeat and convinced myself last year’s sub 3 was not just a luck. After last year’s sub 3, me & coach discussed BQ & sub 3 done now what next so we decided to keep focusing on further improvement in timing. I am happy but not content. I was very confident about this race (few min here & there is ok) and this confidence comes from your training. So, trusting my training & trust on my coach have been key to success over the years.

I knew the trend of having a PB in each marathon will be broken one day. Overall, I am happy with my marathon progress so for & will continue to look for improvement. Now the game has moved from minutes to seconds and that’s the real fun going forward. Very high efforts and very little improvement in terms of timing.

There is always an area for improvement. Next course action is to list down the “What went well” & “What needs to improve”. So that I will work on those in future for continuous improvement. It’s an ongoing learning process.

I am thankful to all the race volunteers for such an amazing support and making a memorable day for all of us.

Thank you Coach Atul Godbole for the personalized training and constant check on progress. You always push me to my limits. Kavitha and Krishna thanks for all your help and support in our trainings runs. Company makes the difference and I always feel running is a team sport. I am fortunate to have a champion friends. Looking forward to seeing all four of us at Boston soon.