This is my third consecutive week
of running event participation after the Dr Ramani Marathon in Ponda and the
Goa Triathlon Team event in Bambolim. When I woke up today at 0330 hrs, I was
greeted by loud sounds of thunder and lightning. Electricity went off and it
was eerily dark everywhere. I am used to
running in the rain and in fact love it, so that was not an issue for me, but
reaching the race venue could become an
issue as Goa has narrow roads and a lot of tree cover and in such
thunderstorms, the chances of roads getting blocked by fallen trees is quite
high. So we were to go in a car pool and
I messaged my friends to start a bit early to cater for this risk. I managed to
be ready by 0420 hrs and stepped out of the house only to find heavy downpour.
My scooter was washed nicely by the rain and I wore a wind-cheater cum raincoat
and got onto the scooter and started driving towards my friend’s place who was
chauffeuring us to the race venue. It was very difficult to see anything as the
rain was lashing at an angle and hitting my eyes. There were no streetlights
also and somehow, I managed to drive slowly and reached my friend’s place by
0430 hrs. He was up and ready and there I learnt that two of our car pool
members had backed out because of the rain. I was surprised and I immediately
messaged on our group Whatsapp about the benefits of running in the rain.
Trainers’ also advice to increase mileage during monsoons as the body is cooled
down naturally and we can push ourselves more. Rain and Runners are always
friends. But the Flu had gotten the better of Runners and the fear of Swine Flu
was also active in the minds of most people here. So many runners from my place
were not ready to venture in the rain as they were just recovering from an
attack of Flu and were scared of a relapse. I did not want to take the
responsibility of being blamed for a relapse, if it occurred, so I let it be
and we proceeded towards the venue. As luck would have it, two runners who were
planning to bike it to the venue, asked for a lift and we had to wait for them
quite a bit, and we were getting impatient and anxious that we would be late as
our race was to begin at 0600 hrs. However, because of inclement weather, the
race organisers fortunately decided to start the race a bit late. So we reached
the venue well before the start of the race. Everyone was very skeptical about
the race as I was told that in the previous edition last year, the roads were
not blocked and the traffic was very unruly to the extent that runners could
have been fatally injured, also water was not sufficient and the starting was
not well organised etc. etc. With all this skepticism as we entered the
grounds, we could hear announcements on the system, but it was dark, there were
no lights in the ground. Because of the rains,
the ground had also become slushy, and it seemed as if this year also would be
a repeat of the previous year’s woes.
The race began at about 0615/0620
hrs. I do not wear a watch during my runs, also no gadgets. Actually, I have
been thinking of buying one to record my timing at various points during the
run, but now after this run, I have realized that at least for a half marathon,
I don’t need a watch. Because that allows me to be in touch with my mind and
body and decide my pace according to my comfort level. I am able to realize
when I am slowing down and take corrective action, what matters is to finish
the race strong and not land up in any injury. Sometimes, when we look at time
elapsed, we could push ourselves to a target beyond our capacity and while we
may achieve it in that race, injury is bound to happen and the learning of that
race is also affected. Every time we run a race, our learning about our own
capacity is enhanced and we understand the body better. If I am able to
complete a race strong and then introspect on how I ran each split of the race,
I can then focus on improving my pace in shorter runs till I again reach a
comfort level at this higher pace. Well, this is something that I will have to
write about separately in my next blog:
“ Transition from ‘HM
finisher’ à ‘Sub 2hr HMer’ à ‘1:50 -1:55 HMer’ à ‘1:40-1:45 HMer’ and hopefully soon a ‘1:35-1:40 HMer’ ”.
I had decided to run a few HMs to
find out my consistent race pace for a HM. While I had achieved a PB of 1:37:44
in the GRM held in Dec 2014, I cannot call it my consistent pace for a HM,
because I knew that I had pushed myself in the race and though I was able to
achieve it, I still needed to become comfortable at that pace. When I ran the
SCMM, I ran the first half as if I was running a HM (a serious error in pacing)
and I reached half way in 1:41, then I ran the Ponda marathon which was 1:43:14,
then I did a Goa Triathlon 10k where my timing was 0:46:33, and now I wanted to
run this marathon to see if I could get my consistent race pace for a HM. So as
I started, I decided to first move fast out of the crowd and then stabilise my
pace, this has worked well during GRM and I have started following this in all
races. So I slithered my way from the sides and moved ahead of the bantering
crowd and soon I was running with a lot of Army guys in sleeveless vests and a
few of them were really fast. I controlled myself and focussed on my cadence
and form and breathing and tried my level best not to race with any of them.
But the mind is a devil and every other moment, I found myself racing with
someone or the other. It was a tough game to stop racing and count my own
steps. So I engaged my brain and mind in counting steps and checking my form
constantly-> “collar
bone erect and behind till I feel the load on my core and abdomen”,
“hips ahead
of legs”, “hands moving straight and not cross”, and “breathing
from the diaphragm and audible breathing”.
These four factors, one after the other, I kept on checking on myself and soon
I had forgotten about the other racers. I find this very useful as it becomes a
habit to run erect and the legs just roll below the hips, as it is much easier
to run this way. Credit of this knowledge has to be given to my running mentor
“Jeetendran Nair” of the FreeRunners group at Pune who was the first to teach
me these basic fundamentals of running. As I moved ahead, I realized that I was
overtaking many people and one person was tagging along behind me, and I could
hear his breathing rather panting, and I thought that he would give up soon and
lag behind, but one strong hombre, he was always there and when I turned around
at 10.5K, he was right behind me. The scenery was awesome as usual as we were
running along the river Mandovi, and I could also generate a conversation with
this gentleman, who told me his name and he seemed to be a middle aged guy. I
respected his efforts and complimented him.
As I started my return leg, it
was much easier as I could see a number of familiar faces and I made it a point
to cheer and encourage many, there were runners who were just going to start
walking and I would shout out to them to continue running and they would
immediately start scampering into a trot/ run. It was fun to see how people
respond to encouragement. I had this young army jawan running with me who was
complaining that he did not get time to practice, but I noticed that he was
running pretty fast and could do better as he was a young guy. I just asked him
in a commandeering tone to start overtaking people one by one by making them targets
and the way the youngster took off was to be seen. Yes, I did tell him that I
am a retired defence officer and used my power of command a little bit, but it
worked wonders with this guy.
I realised during this run that if you are able to keep checking your form once in a while,
it works stupendously. I was cruising along and I had no clue of
any time or pace. My body was working at its optimum level, I could have pushed
it harder, but that would not be its optimum pace. As usual I sprinted the last
100 m and finished, there was no timing at the finish, but later I asked the
organiser and he checked my bib number and the timing was 1:40:13. I was a bit
unhappy that I missed 100 min by 14 seconds but soon, I told myself that the
aim of this race had been achieved and now I can call myself a consistent 1:40-1:45
runner. The next target should be to become a consistent 1:35-1:40 runner and
this could be the target for 2015. Who knows how the body reacts but what is important is to be in touch with the body and mind and understand it thoroughly and running is helping in this exercise. I will give
it a try, after all, it is the efforts which count and efforts always pay
dividends, is what I have learnt in my running life as well as my personal and
professional life.
In contrast to the previous edition of this race, the roads were
blocked for traffic, water was available at many points, and return leg water
stations also served oranges, bananas and salt water / enerzal. The
organisation was meticulous throughout without any problems what had been faced
at the previous edition. Another lesson learnt: Do not judge anything or
anybody on one performance, there is always scope for improvement and things
change, so learn to have an open mind and necessarily give feedback both
positive as well as negative. This is what can be done to make a difference in
our own little way. Overall, it was an excellently organised race which was
supplemented by an equally awesome weather and route.
Feeling happy that I was able to maintain a constant pace of 4:45 min/km through the race with a tolerance of 2 seconds without any Garmin/ watch/ gadget and using my mind and freerunning. A Big Thank you to "FreeRunner" group!
Looking forward to more running
days and more writing of my running experiences...
