First things first – In the
August edition I had shared a humbling experience at day-breaker half marathon
(19th July) where I registered
my personal worst time. Here is an excerpt from the concluding section of that
blog: “…Next month I am travelling to Hyderabad to participate in Airtel Hyderabad Marathon (AHM).
I have heard a lot of nasty stories about the hilly terrain and weather
conditions at AHM. Personally, I would have wanted to achieve anything but my
PW in the last event before going into AHM next month. However, that was not to
be and the only next step from here is to prepare stronger and harder…”. This edition of my ‘Running Reflections’ describes the journey from
the time I wrote the above quote to the experience of running in AHM 2015.
Given that this year’s AHM was going to be my
first experience of running in the testing conditions of Hyderabad, the first step for me was to understand the conditions
better and customize the preparations accordingly. To achieve this, I started
reaching out to all my fellow runners at Boot-Camp Yellow (BCY) who had earlier participated in
AHM. Based on the inputs I gathered, it emerged that to do well at AHM
I needed to overcome three challenges:
- Hills
- Heat
- Humidity
Hills Challenge
I knew that for me to plan my run I needed to
understand the terrain better. I needed to know the exact terrain (including
steepness, points of uphill, downhill, plain stretch, lengths of different
segments and what not). A little bit of online research and I seemed to have
found a jack-pot – I came across a video of AHM’s half-marathon route with
exact elevation listed at different points on the route. I used that
information to build a granular profile of the 21.1km stretch with exact
elevations at every 500 meters interval (shown below). 
-
Legs would get sore sooner than usual (compared to a plain terrain).
- Given the never-ending hills, I realized it would be important to pace the run intelligently. I didn’t want to commit the mistake of running too fast in the initial uphill segment and running out of ammunition midway.
To address the second challenge, I decided to pace my run
based on the elevation profile. The idea was simple – given the rolling hills, there was no point trying
to maintain the same pace through-out. It was more prudent to maintain the same effort through the run. This
essentially meant that I needed to run faster on down-hills and plain
sections and run slower (or perhaps jog) on the up-hills. With a little bit of
thought and consideration, I developed a pacing strategy for myself that would
help me achieve my target timing of 1:50 for this rolling hill terrain.
Heat and Humidity challenge
To address this challenge, I started with a bit of
research to understand the historic weather conditions in Hyderabad during
August end mornings. It emerged that this is the period of high heat and
humidity in Hyderabad. Specifically, I found that temperature could possibly be
as high as 32 degree Celsius (i.e. around 90 degree Fahrenheit) and humidity
could be as high as 90 percent. This is very close to what AHM runners
witnessed last year (thankfully, it was very pleasant this year).
Having understood this, I was keen to understand how exactly
these conditions impact running performance. A little bit of research and I
seemed to have found just the kind of information I was looking for. See figure
below – it provides a great view of what heat and humidity can do to running
performance. Based on historic Hyderabad weather, the conditions were likely to
be somewhere in the Danger zone.
Source: http://frayedlacesracing.com/how-heat-and-humidity-affect-running-performance/
I was concerned to see this and then the next
question was to identify the actions to address these harsh conditions.
Following are the two deviations I made from my regular running habits,
specifically to combat the conditions at AHM:
-
I realized that sweating was going to be a serious challenge. To combat that I decided to cut short my running attire and minimize the skin contact with clothing.
- I usually rely on hydration available on the route. However, for AHM I decided to carry two small bottles. I had heard that ‘thirst’ is the final warning call that the body is getting dehydrated. I wanted to ensure that I don’t reach that stage and planned to keep sipping through-out the run (especially, on the hilly parts where I planned to jog and it was easier to sip due to relatively slow motion).
Event Day (30th Aug)
A little later, my fellow runners from BCY arrived at
the race venue. Their arrival did help to settle the nerves a bit. At around
5:45 am, all runners assembled in the holding area behind the start line. That’s
the time when my coach Jatin walked up to me. I was certain that Jatin would share
some running tip (just the way he did before the day-breaker half marathon
about a month ago). However, on this occasion he did not share any coaching
tip.
This is what he said – “…I know you have been working hard
for this race. I don’t want to share anything specific. Just do what you have
planned and things would be fine…”. The tip may sound a little generic, but I guess that’s exactly what I wanted to hear before the start and it did help me a lot.
Shortly, thereafter the run started. Like always there was a
temptation to run faster in the initial few kilometers. I guess no matter how
much mental planning one does, this initial temptation does creep in. It has
something to do with the ambience, adrenalin rush, loud music, and a sudden
release of pent-up energy (which is desperate to be released after an hour long
wait). However, on this occasion, I kept telling myself the only
chance of getting close to 1:50 on this hilly terrain is to conserve energy and finish strong. So, I kept conserving
energy and running as per the pacing plan I had made for myself. The other
thing that I kept telling myself was to take the game into the last 4
kilometers (hopefully into a situation where I needed to strike a pace of about 5 mins per kilometer for the final 4 kilometers to get to
overall 1 hour 50 minutes time).
By the time I reached the finish line, I had surprised
myself by finishing good 8 minutes faster than the timing I was targeting
(finished it off in 1:42). All in all, it was a very satisfying day and a very
well organized event. Kudos to all the organizers for such nicely organized
event - I look forward to come back to AHM next year. Sundeep Singh: +91 - 98181 19794
About the Author: By background, Sundeep Singh is a Mechanical Engineer from IIT Delhi. Given his flair for mechanics and passion for running, he loves to deeply analyze the finer nuances of running techniques / strategies. Sundeep ran his first half-Marathon on 12th Oct. 2014 and within less than a year of running, he has achieved a personal best HM timing of 97 minutes.
