Running the Vodafone Delhi Half Marathon

You guessed it right, this post is going to have little to do with Wirkle ... this is about the Vodafone Delhi Half Marathon which I ran on 28 Oct 2007, and to sum up the experience ... it felt GREAATTT to cross that finish line after running 21 kms for over 2 hours !!! Yup, thats me on the left ... very close to the finish line (my wife Preeti taking the picture).

If you have been reading my blog, I had made a post earlier when I had completed 10kms of running. If you don't recall ... just click here. Now if you look at that post carefully, it was on 22 Dec 2006. You might think it took me quite a few months practicing, but the reality is it wasn't until Sep 2007 that I ran 10kms again ... all the months in between were pretty low in terms of my running practice.

To avoid sounding too cryptic let me just walk you through the story. It goes back to when I was in the US. I have a bunch of friends who completed their first marathon ... their stories were my first inspiration. I didn't do much about running in the US except for running on a treadmill for about 2 miles every now and then.

After I returned from the US to India at the end of Aug 2006, I heard about the Hutch Delhi Half Marathon that happens in October. Unfortunately, by the time I got to know about it, it was too late for me to practice anything and besides there was too much settling down I had do here in India. Nonetheless, I told myself that I will run the next time around.

So after the Hutch Delhi half marathon in October 2006, I made my modest beginnings and started practicing. I managed to reach 10kms by December (remember my last post on 22 Dec, 2006). Starting January the weather became so cold in Delhi that I didn't do any practicing. After Feb-Mar when the weather got better, I did start practice ... but that was casual running mostly around 5-6kms.

Many months passed like this and now it was almost the middle of Sep in 2007 when I realized that the Vodafone Delhi Half Marathon (28 Oct 2007) is only 7 weeks away. I started to look out on the web if there was anything I could do now to train myself to 21kms. MarathonRookie was a website that I found very useful. Based on the plan in there, I prepared the following plan for myself -

Week Beginning	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun
10 Sep	Rest	Rest	Rest	4.8km	Rest	Rest	6.4km
17 Sep	Rest	Rest	Rest	4.8km	Rest	Rest	9.6km
24 Sep	Rest	Rest	Rest	5.6km	Rest	Rest	12km
1 Oct	Rest	Rest	Rest	7.2km	Rest	Rest	14.4km
8 Oct	Rest	Rest	Rest	8km	Rest	Rest	16.8km
15 Oct	Rest	Rest	Rest	9.6km	Rest	Rest	20km
22 Oct	Rest	Rest	Rest	Rest	Rest	Rest	D-Day, 21km

I would run every Sunday to increase my running distance, and I would run once during the middle of the week where the distance would be half of the distance of the Sunday run and would act like a warm up. The other days of the week would be for recovery. Other than this I started to consume more carbs and proteins, my wife mostly taking care of my diet. I also made sure to drink lots of water especially before and after the running sessions to prevent dehydration.

The good part was that I was able to stick to the above plan ... although it was hard to wake up at 530am in the morning twice a week to run that distance. I would run in Delhi's Dwarka Sports Complex on their track which was 0.8kms long, I'd usually complete a certain number of laps of the track, which is why my plan is in multiples of 0.8kms.

As per the plan, a week before the Vodafone Delhi Half Marathon I had completed 20km in 2:05hrs. The last week I said no to running, just allowing by body to recover. As per the timings of my practice runs, on an average it took me 5 min to run 0.8km. I could run a little faster in the beginning but then I got quite slow towards the end. At this pace, I figured it was possible to complete the half-marathon around 2:11 hrs.

On 28 Oct, i.e., the D-Day, Preeti and I woke up early and reached the venue. There were about 7000 people running in the 21kms half marathon ... the energy was tremendous. Vodafone had also arranged for a timing chip which was to be strapped around the ankle and would be used to track one's time. Other than that, on every km there were people to give you bottled water to prevent dehydration and there were photographers (arranged by www.marathon-photos.com) all along that were clicking pictures. Besides that, the traffic was blocked on the route of the marathon, however, there were people almost on both sides of the route just seeing whats going on and cheering ... great energy !!!

When the marathon started at 7:45am, it seemed as if there were sea of people in front of me and well as behind me ... over a couple of kms the crowd gradually wore away. The route started from nehru park, going over the safdarjung airport to India Gate and finally to the Le-Meridien hotel in Connaught Place and all the way back.

I was going pretty steady in the beginning, keeping track of time as I completed every km ... i was doing just fine, speeding ahead of a bunch of people (as you can see in the photo on the left taken by Marathon-Photos). I was having fun and I was enjoying the scenic route. Once I reached Le-Meridien, I told myself that I'm done with half of the distance, I sure can complete the remaining half.

One bad part was that the day was a little sunny, also I usually run in the early morning when it isn't as hot. As such, I was sweating more than I usually did. The other bad part was that, we had go over a bunch of overpasses/flyovers ... that also got me a little more tired than usual. At the last flyover after completing about 16km I was pretty tired, finding it hard to run over it ... at the time most of the people on the flyover were just walking.

By the 18th km I was really tired, my legs were going numb ... my pace had slowed down quite a bit. The picture on the right describes my state more accurately (again courtesy Marathon-Photos.com). The last 3 km were the toughest ... I wanted to take a break but I was worried that if I did, I might not be able to get back to running again ... so I kept running.

Finally, I thought I could see the finish line ... that was such a relief. I picked up pace and tried to make it fast to that point as you can see in the picture on the left. I was caught by surprise to see Preeti there at the finish line clicking my picture. I completed the run in 2:16:40hrs. The finish time was 2:17:45 since I had started a little later than the others.

A short while after I completed my run the prize distribution ceremony started with Rahul Dravid (India's ex- Cricket Captain) and Sheila Dixit (Chief Minister of Delhi) on the stage. I was barely able to stand after the run ... but I did manage to catch a glimpse of them.

Looking back, I had lost 5 min as compared to my original estimate of 2:11hrs. That was mostly due to the sunny weather and the flyovers. Nonetheless, I ranked around 700 out of the total of 7000 people that ran and overall it was a great experience and a great sense of accomplishment.