Aug 30, 2009

The Second Half Marathon

Hyderabad had its 2009 edition of Half & Full Marathon events today. And it was the occasion for me to complete my second half marathon. A decision to go for it was taken just two weeks back, in the euphoria after the Freedom Ride on Aug 15th. It was much like cramming for an exam overnight, and the preparation was not fully adequate. In terms of long runs, I could do one 10k run and another 9k. I was not sure of the 'how' but blindly went for it.

A big bummer was that i took the 'carb loading' thing too seriously. I must have overate yesterday and when I got up this morning, realized the tummy was not feeling right . Things could have gone worse, but i managed the run at a sedate pace and refrained from eating much (contrary to what is advised). The foot injury sustained in a charged-up Karate class was not helping much either. Overall I managed to still shave eleven minutes from my previous HM and clocked 2:27:38. I hope to improve this with better prep next time around.

I must thank the Hyderabad Runners group for the encouragement and guidance without which i could not have imagined running these kinds of distances. In my later teenage years i had sustained major shin injuries and any kind of running was fully out of question. The group led by the highly motivated Rajesh Vetcha, Satish Mandalika, Devyani Halder, VV Prasad, Vasu (vnug), Anirudh Pandey, Divya and many more, is a great example of excellence combined with humility.

The event itself is becoming more and more popular. This year there were several people from Kenya (where else, of course!), USA, South Africa etc. Several old men were running briskly easily beating people forty years younger to them! Many ladies and girls were also doing very well. Overall the run was well organized with lots of volunteers . Special mention to Riyaz, Srikanth who biked down from Habsiguda to Hitex, Sumanth who biked from Yousufguda, Deepthi who travelling from Fatehnagar and stayed at a hostel overnight, many more from my workplace. Let's hope this run gets a much bigger crowd next year.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

You could now probably gear for the Full marathon this November. [But there's speculation that this time they're going to have a 10k only!]

One very interesting day!

desertwind said...

Congrats. We should've better participation from Infy, wrt runners.

Unknown said...

Thanks Srikanth. I am not going anywhere near a full marathon in hte foreseeable future. HM is tough enough and if i am able to do slighly better next time, will be more than happy with it.

Unknown said...

Thank you Riyaz, we need to start a running movement in our organization!

Venky said...

Hey Ram.. We met briefly at the Freedom ride. Nice to see you completing the Half Marathon that to in decent time. I wanted to do this but got to know about it late much like you. But, I decided against participating with out preparation in my very first such event. Hope to join the runners group and make progress towards my first half marathon. Thanks for being an inspiration :)

Unknown said...

Hi Venkat, i must say that you were an inspiration for me too! I finished exactly an hour behind you in the Freedom Ride. Somehow when i heard you mention your time, i missed the H part and said my time was fairly close (chuckled about it later).

We have another HM coming up on Nov 29 in Hyd. Hope to see you there.

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