The pursuit of 1:29:xx

As I anxiously stood at the start line of the Airtel Delhi Half Marathon (ADHM) 2016, a myriad of memories flashed through my head. I thought about several occasions on which I missed the sub-1:30 mark, I thought about the 4:00am wake-up routine over the last several months, I thought about the fun training moments spent with my close friends over the past few weeks, I thought about the final taper week, I thought about the pasta lunch I had with my close friends a day ago…It felt like a lot passed through my head. Before I could think of anything else, the ‘mad-rush’ started..

The background

Before I describe the journey (or the pursuit of 1:29:xx, as I love to describe it) a bit of a background on how it started. About two years ago, when I had started running I had very limited understanding of what half-marathon is all about. It had started almost out of my whimsical desire to try something new. Why? Because, I had known a few other people doing it. At that stage, I had a simple discussion with a friend at work about what a good finish time looks like for half-marathons. The discussion progressed like a typical conversation between strategy consultants:

Sundeep: “What’s a good finish time for a half-marathon?”

Friend (after a bit of thought and consideration): “It depends.”

Sundeep (with visible exasperation): “OK – that doesn’t help much. Go on...”

Friend (unperturbed): “It depends on factors like your age, body conditioning, how long you have been running etc. etc.

Sundeep (still not happy with the answer): “OK – so for a physically fit runner who has been running for a few years and who is around as old as me…and you can make some intelligent assumptions...– what would be a good half-marathon finish time?

Friend: Officially, if you do it in 3 hours, it is regarded as a formal half-marathon finish; Kenyans can do it in 1 hour. If one does it in within 90 minutes it is considered quite a decent pace”

Grossly overestimating my physical abilities, I told my friend that I intend to do my first half-marathon in 1 hour 29 minutes and a few seconds. The friend had an amused smile. Without saying anything explicitly he dismissed what I had said as an ignorant remark. It didn’t take me long to understand why.

• On 12^th October 2014, I did my first half-marathon in 1:47
• On 23^rd November 2014, I did my first ADHM in 1:43

About a year later, I was able to finish three half-marathons where I came within striking distance of my aspirational timing:

• ADHM 2015 (Nov 2015): 1:31:20
• NDM 2016 (Feb 2016): 1:31:00
• Fastest running and living HM (Mar 2016): 1:30:40

 The gap may have appeared just about a minute or so. However, it was good 60 odd seconds which would just refuse to go away. With that started a serious desire to do 1:29:xx. 

3 months training period: Sep – Nov 2016

It was around September 2016, when the training for ADHM 2016 started in all earnestness. By this time, I had gathered sufficient understanding of what a typical training cycle looks like. However, there still were a few gaps which had to be addressed. In particular, there are three things which I was not doing correctly. I am sharing the same below and hope that it might be helpful for runners with similar aspirations.

Mileage is not everything, but it still matters – probably more than most other things!

I have always been a firm believer that strength training has a huge role to play for any long distance running (and I continue to believe that). However, earlier I often underestimated the importance of clocking mileage and my typical weekly workout schedule would look like 3 – 4 days strength training and around 2 days running. The turning point in my understanding came when I had a chat with Shiv Gahlot, our local Boston Qualifier (once again, if you are reading this – thanks buddy!). Besides sharing some serious training tips, Shiv suggested reading a book on Advanced Marathoning by Pete Pfitzinger.

This has been massively helpful and I highly recommend this book to any serious runner. Since reading this book, my weekly workout schedule comprises of 1 – 2 strength training sessions and around 4 runs. Once again, in no way undermining the importance of strength training (and it is critical to avoid injuries), but just highlighting how running is important to improve as a runner!

Each training run has a purpose – got to respect it!

My weekly workout schedule now comprises of 4 runs a week – an interval run, a tempo run, a medium long distance run and a long distance run. The beauty and finesse lays in understanding what is the right pace to run each of these runs. Earlier, my tempo run used to be an effort to run 10K as fast as possible. The interval run used to be an effort to do some sprint repetitions. Occasionally, I would also do a 5K and try to achieve my PB without realizing where it really fits into the overall training plan for half-marathon. A lot of these misunderstandings got addressed after reading the book by Pete. The three months leading to ADHM days comprised of very specific runs – to be run at a particular pace (not faster, not slower!) with a specific objective. More on this subject on some other day.

Race day planning matters - Break it into smaller components.

21.1K is a fairly long distance and a lot can go wrong if one doesn’t plan the run. This is where an honest introspection of one’s own physical abilities (body conditioning, nature of flagging during training runs, level of fatigue, typical pace limiting factors etc.) close to the race day is critical. Equally critical is to plan the big day race based on a clear understanding of these factors. A simple race day plan could look like:

For me to finish 21.1K in a given time, I need to do 14K in x minutes. For that to happen, I need to finish 10k in y minutes. For that to happen, I need to do 5K in z minutes…

...and more importantly - understanding if x, y and z are really achievable with the current level of body conditioning.

It often helps to have a close friend critique this and keep you honest in such an assessment. This is where my running buddy Rahul Dhanda really helped me through innumerable discussions close to the big day. The plan for me was simple:

21.1K in about 89 minutes, 14K in about 59 minutes, 10K in about 42 minutes, 5K in about 21 minutes – and yes, we did believe it was achievable.

The big day: 20^th November 2016

When one attaches too much importance to something, it is bound to put undue pressure. I was no exception. The race day almost felt like JEE day or like CAT day for me. Standing at the start line, I was not sure if cracking JEE / CAT was more difficult or if finishing 21.1K in the next 89 odd minutes would be more difficult.

As I anxiously stood at the start line, a myriad of memories flashed through my head. I thought about the previous edition of ADHM, I thought about several occasions on which I missed the magical sub-1:30 mark about a year ago, I thought about the 4:00am wake-up routine over the last several months, I thought about the fun training moments spent with my close friends over the past few weeks, I thought about the taper week that had just gone by, I thought about the pasta lunch I had with my friends a day ago. It almost felt like an eternity before the race started and each passing moment was adding to the anxiety. I kept casually jumping on the spot to keep the body warm.

At 7:10am the race started, and how relieved I was to be able to switch from vertical jumping motion to the linear horizontal motion! The race commenced as per the plan: 5K in 20:10, 10K in 41:09, 14K in 58:30…and finally, yes finally 21.1K in 1:29:39.

It was a moment of joy, joy that can be felt but not expressed..

What next? - Time to briefly cherish the moment and start a new pursuit!

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Sundeep Singh

+91 - 98181 19794

About the Author: By background, Sundeep Singh is a Mechanical Engineer from IIT Delhi and holds an MBA from IIM Kozhikode. Given his flair for mechanics and passion for running, he loves to analyze and write about the finer nuances of running techniques / strategies. Sundeep’s best run till date is ADHM 2016, which he completed in 1:29:39.

AHM 2015 - All it takes is ALL you got.

First things first – In the August edition I had shared a humbling experience at day-breaker half marathon (19^th 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

Typically, strategy consultants love to compress complicated ideas and thoughts into (apparently) neat looking frameworks. Some of you may have heard about concepts like 4P (product, price, place and promotion) framework, 7S framework etc. So, all I had to do as a strategy consultant (and of course as a runner!) was to overcome Hyderabad’s 3H obstacles. And, that’s where the preparation started.

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).

The next step was to understand what would be the ‘limiting factor’ that would determine my eventual timing at AHM - lung capacity, leg strength, cramps, hydration, body weight, pacing strategy? I realized it would be a bit of everything, but given the hilly terrain I realized that two things were more critical than others:

1. Legs would get sore sooner than usual (compared to a plain terrain).
2. 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 first challenge, I decided to focus deeply on building leg strength. Thanks to BCY coach Jatin in helping me identify different variants of squats and lunges which helped me build reasonable leg strength to combat the hills. In fact, 60 - 70 percent of my work-outs prior to the two months leading to AHM event (before I started tapering down) focused on legs.

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:

1. 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.
2. 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)

So, with this basic preparation spanning across 6 weeks came the big day (30^th August) and I was certainly anxious on the day of the run. In fact, I was so anxious that I couldn’t sleep after 1:30 am on the night before the run. After a little bit of futile effort to sleep, I decided to give up and get to the starting point. For the 6:00 am start, I was at the start line a little before 4:00 am. There was hardly anyone in the ground when I reached the venue.

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

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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.