Mysore Half marathon- 28th-Oct-2012

Event name: Mysore Marathon 2012

Event date: 28th-Oct-2012

Event venue: Mysore

Run distance: 21 KM

Bib #: 1113

Overall time taken: 140 minutes (Exact to be shared by event organizers)

Overall run Speed: 6.7 minutes per KM

Time of run: The run started at 6:45 AM

URL: http://www.lifeiscalling-sports.com/mysore/

Running experience:

One of the runs for which i had prepared really hard for last 2 months. Last year i did 25 km Bangalore Ultra run but i must admit i didn’t practice well for that run barring a few long walks and occasional run. For this time, i actually started to prepare following an overall marathon training schedule as prescribed in the book- The Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer  . The practice of last 2 months helped a lot on this run in which i managed my best timings so far. If i remember, i completed 10 K mark in this run in 63 minutes and overall half marathon by 2 hour 20 minutes or so. Though i have never run with any time goal in mind but this run was quite satisfying. I often jokingly tell my friends- i run only for 2 goals- one is to complete the run and second is to not be last in doing so. So i achieved both this time :-)

Since this run was in Mysore, i along with my family reached Mysore a day earlier. My plan for to start back from Bangalore immediately after the run was over to i hired a driver, the move which will allow me to relax a bit. Spent the Saturday going around in Mysore vising places like Zoo, which my son liked a lot and the Palace in the evening which was looking as beautiful as any monument but it was overly crowded. So didn’t really get down. Other thing was that my run the next morning was expected to start at one of the gates of the Mysore palace called as "Balarama Gate" or "North Gate". Zoo visit was a good warm-up for me as it was a long walk of 3 Km or more. I was a bit cautious on what i was eating the day before and had some good intake of Gatorade and water.

The next day morning, i got up a bit early around 5:00 AM. Had Gatorade, freshened up and had half banana and set out towards the Palace. The atmosphere was electrifying as usual with loud music and lot of people around. There was a unique freshness in the air which one would find only with lot of energetic crowd around. I could spot Reeth Abraham , one of the premier former athletes from India. She was not surrounded by many people but i could not gather courage to go and speak with her at that time.

Eventually the run started. The route was tricky for me because i was running in Mysore for the first time. It involved going through a lot of turns around small roads. I realized that Mysore had lot of roads with elevations, something you don’t realize when you are driving on wheels. But while running you experience each and every slope. I did maintain a steady pace and starting setting small goals for myself. My basic approach, since this was a long run, was to make each and every kilometer important i.e. to say that i had goals to cover each Km and motivated myself to find something unique in each Km e.g. 7 Km mark is important because that will mark the 30% of run being over or if i was on a steep road on 9 km mark, i would say i got to focus on and complete this milestone because i will conquer the steep slope. While completing 15 Km, i said i need to reach 16 Km because then i could say only 5 km are remaining. I found this type of Self-talk helping a lot during the run and achieving each sub-goal gave confidence. I felt quite good on completing 10 Km at 63 minutes (which is my fastest 10K so far). One of the other things that i experienced was the beauty of Mysore. You got to be on the road to experience the same. The run went through the Mysore University campus, around the lake and lot of shade which made running a pleasure even though there were less than usual water stations. The last few Km were particularly tough not because i was tired but because the route was very steep at times, causing me to slow down. Eventually i beat all the demons and reached the finishing line with lot of satisfaction in the mind.

I could still spot Reeth Abraham post the run and now i gathered the courage to reach out to her and ask for a picture. I asked the person standing next to her to take a picture but he messed it up and did not take us at all. In my excitement to see her, i did not even check the picture. She did however ask, how was the run and how much time did i take to complete. Felt great, not only because i spoke to her but also that i gathered courage to approach her. One more interesting thing happened at the start of the run when one of the participants came over to me and said he recognizes me as he had heard me in many of the public talks that i have delivered. Felt good to get that mini-celebrity feeling (atleast for a moment :-))

On to the next run now!

Timing details shared by the Organizers:
Bib Number:    1113
Rank:    142/260
Gender:    Male
Gender Rank:    137
Category :    open
Category Rank:    122
Split@6Km:    00:39:45
Split@7.25Km:    00:46:38
Split@13.65Km:    01:27:33
Split@14.85Km:    01:34:21
Net Time:    02:22:50
Gross Time:    02:23:13icv

Certificate:

Image Source:

http://www.lifeiscalling-sports.com/mysore/

http://www.endomondo.com