I typically set running goals at the start of year, more as a motivation for the season. This year, it was slightly loaded target, achieving this was to pave the way for the coming years, serve as a leading indicator of post-surgery recovery. I trained religiously for 16 weeks for the Wipro Bangalore marathon (WBM), with a goal of 3:30 for the marathon. I fell short there (full story here). I usually pick a back up marathon - this year, it was Chennai. With, 8-10 weeks between these races, there is time for recovery and fine tuning. However, I recovered very quickly from WBM and made the rookie mistake - signed up for KTM in 3 weeks and Mysore marathon in another 3 weeks from there - and came short in both of these as well.
But, hey, my hypothesis was, improve your success rate by getting to the start line more often. There were some learnings and re-calibrations:
1. I had to work on my pre-race nutrition, salt intake, and focus on the last 5-6km pacing
2. Cramping was raising it's ugly head (once again) and D suggested a few longer training runs at race pace
I ran a 20k in Chennai during the holiday break, in under M pace, mid-Oct, 4 weeks after WBM. I love running in Chennai in general - I usually go without a tee shirt, pick the route along long straight flat roads of Anna salai till the port, then along Marina beach and back via Radhakrishna salai.
Postal Mysore in a week from there, although I suffered during the hill climb in the second half, I had a well paced first half, but the Chamundi hill climb coming post 30kms and a potential cramp lurking in the hills, led me to reduce pace and run-walk.
Most of December was about easy runs, my most important long run was to be a 36k at race pace. I planned to do this at GKVK campus, started at 6AM-ish, felt miserable for the first 10k. I dismissed the thought of aborting the run altogether, and focus more on the feel. I found second wind post 14kms, surprised myself running the last 10k under M pace, finishing just 5sec/km over my target for the distance. I was super pleased with this effort.
The long runs on IIM Lucknow campus during the vacation break kept me honest.
I travelled to Chennai in the non-AC Chair Car - unruly kids, indifferent parents, junk food, overweight freeloaders, bad mobile etiquette - and my frustration with all this, will make a separate post altogether.
I picked up the bib (a palindrome bib number 42624) at the Expo at Royapettai - quick in and out, stranger in a unfamiliar crowd of runners, and even unfamiliar shops with running gear, health foods, and what have you. I exited quickly.
Back at home, I had an early dinner, laid out the stuff required for the next morning and hit the sack by 8PM, to get some hours before the 2:30AM alarm!
Race day, 4th Jan 2026
The full marathon start point was Napier Bridge on Marina beach. Getting there and parking at the scooter at the University parking was hassle free. I had planned to run bare-chested (first one in a marathon for me), so I had to check in my change tee shirt in the baggage counter. I reached Napier bridge, with about 25-30mins to the start. As is a ritual, I pin my bib at the start point, I did this and looked in my bag for the salt tablets and gels. The plan was to have a gel every 8k (40mins or so), and about 8 salt tablets, specifically to compensate for the high humidity of Chennai. Panic - the ziplock is missing - no salt tablets. I looked around and asked some runners from Bangalore if they had some to spare - Nopes!
I then, made way to the baggage counter. The organisers had to ensure that the bags would be transported to the finish line (the start and finish points are a good 25kms away). In order to ease the logistics, the bags were tagged and placed into a truck directly. What that meant was, the bags had to taken one at a time. The line was long and the time was short. With 5mins to go, I managed to hand over my bag. The port-a-loo line was longer and I quickly dismissed the idea.
At the start line, I skirted through with Shashi, Manju and other free runners to front of the pack. The logistics confusion had already started me sweating, count down from 10 to 1, GO!
The cool breeze from the beach, the open Marina beach road, I hit 4:30/km pace right from the first km. After chatting briefly with Manju, I let him go ahead, to conserve my own pace. Shashi and I did cat-n-mouse for the next 25km or so. The Chennai marathon has a hugely popular 20miler category, which many Mumbai marathoners use as a tune up before the Mumbai marathon.
I love this course - it is a straight line drawn by the coast, North to South, with 2 U-turns, and less than 10 turns in all. The first U-turn was at 10k and then the only "uphill" - a flyover. The rest is all dosa-pan flat.
I was hitting 4:40 to 4:50/km for most of the first half. By 2hours, I had completed 25k. There was no crowd to worry about, the half marathoners were yet to start, when I passed their starting point. The route map had mentioned that there were gels available at some of the water stops - but this promise was not kept. In order to compensate for the lack of salt tabs, I consumed oranges dipped in salt in a few water stops.
After 26k, the course got even more desolate (or exclusive), we had passed the Maritime University (the finish venue), and now, only the few full marathoners were running towards the 35k U-turn point. One of the elite female runners and her pacer were company for a while. At this point, Pounam, a engineer from the North East, active insta and blogger caught up. He was running the entire distance with an Insta360 and a invisible selfie stick, catching up with runners and profiling them for his insta feed. And that is how, I got a cool video, running at 5min/km pace, shirtless on empty OMR road.
The U-turn point was at 34k, done in 2hr:45m, about 5mins ahead of 3:30finish pace. I was still doing between 5 and 5:30pace for the next 2-3kms. The prospect of a sub-3:30 finish was now looking real. There were some cramps coming up in the right calf and quads, but managed to keep a steady running rhythm.
All along, the mile markers were showing about 300m less and this would work to my advantage too! As I approached the final turn into Maritime University, I passed Rajesh Vetcha, who was completing his half marathon. It was a wonderful feeling to see the clock at 3:28:51, 23rd in the open Men category.
The last time this happened was way back in Dec 2017, when I had finished The Wipro Chennai marathon in 3:22 and then the Ultra bug, Covid, Surgery, Recovery... To get back to Chennai to do this after 9 years was truly special!
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