Hyderabad Marathon 2012 (Or, How Queen Nature bamboozled me. Royally)

Your first marathon is always a memorable experience. You are scared, you worry about things that could go wrong, you wade into the unknown determined to overcome any monsters that might be hidden.

All that, and more, happened at Auroville on my marathon debut.

I'd been the laziest guy on the block - happy to eat, drink and sleep as much as I could. I used to bunk sports period in school, and hardly ever ventured into a sporting arena in college. If a poll was conducted in school on the person least likely to have any sporting achievement, I'd have won hands down. (I don't know if crawling to finish a marathon qualifies as a sporting achievement. If it doesn't, please don't tell me so – that’s the only one I’m capable of.)

And then, basking in the satisfaction of having tamed that course, I turned my focus to looking for my next conquest. Hyderabad it would be, I decided. Having run a half marathon last year, I knew it wasn’t an easy run. The hills would be an added challenge, I said to myself.  And I would do it in decent time, maybe a 4:30? Or less?

Hill training? Who needs that?

For variety, I tacked on to this 4 month Furman ‘Run Less’ program, consisting of 3 runs a week, 2 of which were tempo/intervals. Added on 1 day of strength training. So I still had 3 days a week to sleep late and wake up later.

Promptly after starting training, I succumbed to minor injuries – pulled groin during a weak attempt at sprints. And then a strange case of shin splints, which is supposed to be a beginner runner’s affliction. And summer had set in too. With all this, I found a sharp drop in fitness levels. I was panting at ‘easy’ paces, heart rate was shooting way up, and any sort of speedwork was about as comfortable as surfing on a Blackberry, or typing on an Iphone. But I stayed determined to keep up with the program, icing the shins after every run and reducing my pace targets.

Finally, some 5 weeks before Hyderabad, I found the injury starting to let up, and fitness levels improved marginally. Managed two 30+ k runs without too much trouble. And then the realization that I had done ZERO hill training dawned. Harish reminded me of this as well. So I proposed a 21k run over a fair number of flyovers in South Chennai 2 weeks before the event. That didn't go too bad. Problem solved.  Or so I thought.

Little did I know.

After enjoying the 2 week taper period, I found myself packing for Hyderabad, 2 days before the race. Padded my 4 ½ hr playlist to 5 hours, just in case. And then off to Hyderabad, a nice carb-heavy South Indian lunch, race packet pick-up and an afternoon relaxing with a book. Went down for dinner and found a pool party going on, with a bunch of kids smoking and drinking and frolicking in the pool, amidst music which must have been audible at Gachibowli stadium, let alone our dinner venue adjacent to the party venue.

Chicken Soup and Pasta for dinner with many other runners. Service was terrible, but the two consultants at our table managed to get the bill waived. (No, they haven’t sent me an invoice for their services. Yet). And that music had stopped. So far, so good.

Decent enough sleep, vague dreams about the run. Woke up at some unearthly hour to join the other runners at the lobby. Ramesh looked happy as a clam, having had his peanut butter sandwich for breakfast. Preeti was looking good for podium, which she missed by a whisker. Had I known she’d finish at 4^th place, I’d have tripped one of the first 3 at the start. Harish seemed nervous but confident for his marathon debut, and Krishna and Shankar were cool as ever. Walked 10 mins to the start line, and was happy to see many more known faces. After half a banana and a Gu, felt all set. The countdown started, the balloons went up. And off we went.

The first bit, around the lake was deceptively flat. Kept an easy pace along with Harish and Anil, another Chennai Runner. The weather was more humid than expected, but nothing a Chennai-ite could complain about. At 9 k, we passed the start point again where the Half Marathoners were lined up for their run. Just after that, the first flyover came, and that was when the Half Marathoners started, all full of vim. Hordes of people were overtaking us, and I was happy to let them pass, content with my 6:20/k pace. And the string of flyovers and hills had also begun.

While slowing down somewhat, I was fairly comfortable handling them, energy levels were fine and heart rate was unexceptional. Passed the 50% mark at 2:13, at which point I realized a 4:30 would be tough; but I could live with finishing a few minutes off. Stayed easy, running up inclines with small steps, and bounding down the declines, feeling pretty good. Was even able to do a small jig when a loud volunteer bus passed by, just before the killer Gachibowli flyover started. Struggled up it, and met a few Half Marathoners who were by now nearing the end of the course, and looking forward to the finish line. We of course had miles to go. At around 28k, our paths diverged. Courtesy last year’s Half, it had been a familiar route till then. I was hoping the rest of the course would be flatter, and I knew there weren’t any more flyovers. But then Nature had other plans. Immediately after the turn, she threw up a steep and endless hill, and then a sharp descent till the 31.1 (almost 75%) point, which I passed with 3:21 on the clock. Ok, it’ll be flat from now, I hoped. If I maintained a 7 min/k pace, I was looking at a 4:38 finish. That’s not too bad, I thought.

And then up it went again. Was starting to feel some tingling in my right quad by now. Cramps coming up, they seemed to be telling me. I’d never had cramps during a run before, and hence no idea how to handle them. Stopped briefly for some stretches, cut down the pace and kept running. But the hills showed no sign of ending. There was a turn around 35k onto a small road, full of cows and a rural vibe. And still uphill. At this point, I saw Ramesh who was moving well but also struggling with the inclines. Then a young lady in a yellow tee bounded by untroubled by all this, frustrating us further. Kept with Ramesh for a couple of Ks as the legs were getting more and more uncomfortable forcing me to cut the pace heavily. And then we saw another incline at 36-odd k. “Are you f***ing kidding me?”, I had to blurt out. Ramesh the consultant said pretty much the same thing, only it was more like “In a resource-thin situation, unfavorable environment changes may need a paradigm shift with the end-goal in mind to make the deliverable actionable”. And he shifted and kept moving.

I struggled on and turned into the university where the road went – you guessed it - up. That’s when my legs started seizing. The left quad had joined the party by now, and the hams were sending threatening signals as well. ‘We told you to get more hill practice’, they seemed to be mocking. Tried some weird stretches which had no impact, nor did Volini spray. Ramesh was still with me here, and suggested backward walking, which didn’t do too much to me, other than attract weird looks from passersby. Was able to jog + walk with some occasional stretches for the next 2-3 k, and realized the jog parts were getting shorter and shorter, and my net pace was only marginally better than fast walking. 

Finally gave up at 40k and decided to just walk it back. Other runners were passing by, and there was nothing I could do about it.  They say a marathon is mostly mental, but at this point it was purely physical. The mind was willing, the heart was in it, but the legs had their own plans. Any attempt at running, and they would promptly protest by buckling. As I entered the stadium, I saw Mani, looking concerned seeing me walking, trying to spur me on. I kept enough reserve to start jogging as I entered the stadium track, and there was Bala, pulling and prodding me on to the finish line. Crossed it just before my playlist ran out, comfortable but disappointed.

‘Let’s come back and crack it next year’ Ramesh said later. ‘Never again’, I promised.

Yes, promises you have no intention of keeping are the best kind.