Marathon Mania : The Follow Up

Yet another marathon under my belt. This time it was TCS World 10K, Bangalore 2011. OK agreed the tag "marathon" doesnt suite a 10k run , but the title of "10k mania" doesn't sound that glamorous :P. This was a good follow up of what I had started the previous year and hope to keep on continuing, and probably getting better with time. The ultimate goal being to be placed 1st in the race, and as expected thats a goal for which I  really have a long long long way to go. The main problem I had this year was training, after the run last year I have not been dedicatedly following the running regime which I restarted only in the month of March 2011 giving me just a 3 month training window.

Some Stadium Shots

This time the World 10K was organized on "World Environment Day" i.e. June 5 , and being a nature lover I was really upbeat. Also was planning to take my cycle for the commute to and fro the race venue(Kanteerva Stadium) in order to avoid burning any fuel and only fat on this day, but a total of  25km cycling and 10km run didnt seem that encouraging, finally saner minds prevailed and decided to burn fuel with my bike against my wishes :(.

Same as last year there were utter chaos in the stadium. The infrastructure was pushed to the brim. Toilets were flooding and foreigners and Indians alike were getting grossed out, but still people who are in love with the most basic form of transportation available to mankind make it a point to be present and to participate year after year.  Thankfully  past years experience had me prepared and I was pretty ready for it. Reached at around 7.20 am for the 8 am run (i didn even come that early for any of my exams :D ) and went directly towards the small opening from where all the Open 10K participants were to be let into the tracks. Initial races had the elite mens and women races and this was followed by the Open 10K race. Soon were let into the stadium and off started the race.

The weather was awesome with the monsoon clouds looming above the city of Bangalore, this made matters a bit better than last year giving a few seconds boost, nevertheless running a marathon under shade is also no less of an effort. My run was more or less controlled and I tried to maintain a constant pace, but one thing I observed against last year is that the number of people overtaking me has increased considerably over the year .... guess Bangaloreans are moving towards a healthier life style as a general rule :). Took breaks whenever the going was tough and increased or decreased my pace based on my heart rate. Also came across 3 runners who had collapsed along the sidewalk , completely exhausted from the run, and the onlookers, medics , cops were running to their rescue. Hence running even 10K requires a minimum level of preparation if not that of a full marathon.

When I crossed the 9th Km mark , I decided to push things to the edge and call upon my reserve energy which I usually have during my routine 6.3 K run, but surprisingly at that point it drew a blank :P. Hence there was no ramp-up from my side during the finals stages and could muster the energy only for a blistering run for the last 100 m where I overtook nearly 15-20 people in one shot :D. Were provided by refreshments and surprisingly a finishers medal , which was not there in the previous edition. In the end I had clocked up 55 mins 40 secs (with an overall ranking of 614) which is 4 min 17 sec improvement over the last years 59:57 timing. Great going since at least I improved my timing, but somewhere deep down I was a bit disappointed of not achieving my "sub 50 min" goal which I had set.With that I have already set my goal for next year for sub 50 finish and sub 300 ranking.

Expecting to get yet another souvenir Nike T-shirt for my sub-1500 ranking performance.

Run Summary(Official Timings)

Total Distance : 10,000 m
Time Taken : 55 mins 40 secs
Official Split Timings -----> 

Rank	Bib	Name	Category	Category Rank	split @7.5K	split @8.3K	Gun Time / Net Time
614	1744	NITHIN ULIYAR	U40	506	00:42:20	00:46:43	00:56:18 / 00:55:40