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Bangalore Marathon 2006 - Hunted Down

This year's Bangalore Marathon was good. Could have been great, but what the heck ? There is no fun in just completing the marathon. That i will definitely do anyday. Loads of fun when you run in a company and finish _together_. Therein lies all the fun. KK one of our pedalathon goons joined us this time around with an aim to complete the full marathon. Sathish opted for the half marathon and we had another of our pedalathon guys, sandy who was running along with him !



A mug shot of KK, Myself and Sathish before we started off.

Anyway at around 6.10am the gun blew and off we went. The plan was rather simple. Finish the first half marathon in two hours and the remaining in three hours. Try to cut down a little bit of corners here and there. Ideally i was fitter than the last bangalore marathon and hence i was aiming for a sub five hour finish. As i said in the start, what is the point if you run all alone ? Better run with some company and have some fun while running. Okay after the second KM mark, i kind of wanted to test myself and off i went. The running was strangely pretty smooth. I did manage to reach the 10KM mark in 65 minutes. After filling up my water bottle and taking a small nature call i started off again. In fact, i was myself surprised that i was able to run pretty comfortably. Disaster struck at the 16km mark.
Due to whatever reason that i am unable to comprehend, i suddenly started craving for glucose or candy bar or something to eat. Even though i had a decent dinner, my whole body was totally unresponsive. Well that is the beauty of running a marathon i guess. You do push your limits. Half marathon is, well, anyday easy. It is running the full marthon that gives you that feeling of a high.
Anyway, i stopped for water at 16KM mark, washed my face, poured water all over me and found out that glucose or whatsoever is available only at the half marathon point. Ah the next few KM's were nothing but a crawl. I was hoping to reach the 20km mark by 120 minutes or 130 minutes. At the 18KM mark i reached the ambulance and pocketed two packets of electral for the remaining part of the journey and had one. Feeling refreshed i started again. KK caught up with me and we reached the half way mark together in about 140 mintes. The second 20KM had taken me 75 minutes to cover.


That's me at the half way mark.


And that's KK.

KK started having problem with his knee and i decided to run along with him, recollecting the time we spent cycling together during our pedalathon. The route in bangalore marathon is such a way that from the 10KM point for the next 20KM there aren't much shops, nor are there any kind of civilization to distract your attention from the torture that you are subjecting you legs to. Hence, i decided to keep talking to KK so that he takes of his pain from his knees. At around the 29KM mark, he started feeling better and off i went. It took us around 100 minutes to cover this 10KM.
At the 30KM mark i met Manoj. As i always say, the world is such a small place. This guy has been a rather regular reader of both sathish's and my blogs. In addition to marathon running, he also has a passion for cycling and he is also a bulleteer. Well, well. Coincidences galore ! The next 10km we ran together and it was quite an intresting experience. We ran all along the slopes and walked all along the up-hills.
I meandered to a finish in about five hours and thirty minutes. The last 10KM took me 80 mins. Looking back, i could have comfortably finished in about 30 or so minutes earlier, but then no point in running alone ! It is always intresting to run with someone you meet on the way. Makes it more intresting that way.


That is (from left to right) Sandy, Sathish, KK, KK's friend and myself after we finished !
Note to remember for the next marathon : carry a few candy bar's and one or two packets of electral along with the water bottle !
K.Shyam

Labels: Bangalore, Marathon

Posted by Unknown at 10:36 AM