TCS London Marathon

Around mid November, I got a place to run London Marathon April of this year, this was right after I got back from the States after NYC Marathon, if you haven't read I have blogged it here. I continued clocking easy/aerobic base miles during November & December, averaged about 30 km/week. Just shuffling my legs and staying in touch.

I started training with right earnest for London Marathon the week commencing Jan 23, it was a 13 weeks training block building up to the big day, Apr 23rd.

Call w/ Neeraj Engineer

Beginning Jan, I was scrolling through my Garmin app and chanced on a run Neeraj did in Pune which meant he was visiting. As he was in town, thought would ring him and chat up for a bit. We talked about various things and ofcourse running too. I casually mentioned to him about the upcoming London Marathon, he asked me about how the training was and what the plan was. I hadn't started training specifically for London and/or had any plan at the time. With no so great time at NYC, I told Neeraj the idea was to finish and hope to better my NYC marathon time. We exchanged training notes, he told me if the training goes smooth a sub 4h could a good target to go after and also strongly recommended not to do interval training to avoid risk of injury given there were only 13 weeks to the race, also such speed work needs longer recovery time, his suggestion was to just stick to slow/easy runs and occasionally throw in a early/mid-week fast paced run. Neeraj (for those who don't know), a collegemate who lives in the States, is a super accomplished runner, has a sub 2:45 PR for the marathon and my inspiration.

Training block (Jan 23 to Apr 22)

Nothing complicated really, 4 days of running during the week and a weekend long run. Plus 2 days of strength training. I managed to stick to this schedule. I ensured to strength train and keep my runs for most part very easy pace. This really kept me in good shape without injuries or niggles.  

Did 2 * 20 milers, 2 * 30 km and usual weekend runs in the ballpark of 25-30 km. One of the 20 milers, I ran with a friend (Saini) at an average pace of 5:30/km which gave me confidence to look at a 4-hours finish at London. Many thanks, Saini for your patience and running with a 'slow' runner. Every couple of weeks, I used to chat with Neeraj and share how I was getting on. He was more a sounding board and kept me real every now and then. I had averaged ~65 km/week during this training block and was confident to finish stronger than I did at NYC Marathon.

Race week

Thursday: Flew out Thu, Apr 20, the BA flight I was taking was 6 hours late, and as a result I reached London only at 7 pm instead of Lunch time. Caught up with Madhu (who also ran the London Marathon and finished phenomenally to qualify for Boston with a decent margin) and Ken (who ran London Marathon back in 2004 when there weren't timing chips, gels and such) for dinner. We had a great time reminiscing our time at McAfee.

Dinner w/ Madhu & Ken

Friday: Morning was cold and rainy, I did get out for a quick 2 miles run to assess the weather and layers I'd likely need on the race day. Headed to the Expo to collect my running number, I was in and out in 15 minutes with some customary photos with the bib (I don't like running Expos for some reason). I'd already planned to meet with my cousins, Anusha & Rakesh for lunch that afternoon. I had last met Anusha in Sep/Oct 2002 in Seattle, some 20+ years ago. It was great catching up with them, chit-chatting and eating some amazing Thai food. Anusha was kind to take me to her office in the Shard building for some amazing views of London city and skyline. The weather at this time was cold though but not wet. The prediction was rainy Sat & Sun. After a bit of rest in the afternoon, met up with some ex-colleagues for Indian 'curry' at Brick Lane, Aldgate East. I had a whale of a time catching up with Neal, Liebmann & Bishop over some amazing food.

@ The Expo

Lunch w/ Anusha & Rakesh

At Shard. Anusha was kind to take me up the bldg to her office

Dinner w/ Neal, Bishop & Liebmann

Saturday: Ken suggested, I should do the Gunnersbury Parkrun as a shakeout and get a feeling of the weather. I think it was a great idea, it was good to experience the energy and look at hundreds of runners who do these parkruns week after week and also get a another feel of the misty and cold morning. 

My first ever parkrun in the UK

Good shakeout run before the event

The original plan was to meet with Vasu, Sukhvinder & Dr Vandna, my Delhi schoolmates. I guess that would have to wait for another time as Vasu was heading to Manchester for Eid and Sukhvinder was out in Japan. I video chatted with Vandna on Saturday & Sunday, she couldn't make it from Solihull either - but we made it up chatting on diverse topics. Had a light meal in the night, nothing fancy and went to bed early.

Sunday (race day): Woke up at 5:30 am, looked at the weather app, there was forecast of rain between 10 am -1 pm and the weather gods weren't letting go. Got ready, had a very light breakfast and walked to the Turnham Green tube station to take a train to Cannon St onwards to Blackheath which was the start point for the Blue color. Dropped my bag and soon enough at about ~9:45 am it started to rain. I went into the holding area at 10:20 am for my wave to be let off at 10:36 am. After getting rid of the 2 layers that I was essentially wearing to keep my running clothes dry, our wave was flagged off at 10:38 am, for another 75 minutes it was raining continuously, was cold and windy! Anyway, I got into a nice rhythm and was running at a comfortable pace. The plan was to get to the half way mark just under 2 hours and then maintain a steady pace until 20-22 miles and then cut some time to get to the finish in 3:58/59.something. I crossed the half way mark at 1:59:24, continued with the same momentum hoping to finish just under 4 hours or thereabouts (worse-case scenario). I crossed the finish line in 4:01, little over 4 hours, I'll take that. If you have made it through the blog this far, my race splits and other details are here should you be interested. The event organization was world-class, my salute to the TCS London Marathon organizing team and Londoners, who were on every km of the course braving rains & the cold weather and cheering runners.

Baggage drop at the start area

Runners bracing themselves for the rain

Thank god, it's done!

Maybe I should have pushed harder?!

Gratitude and closing comments

I owe this race to all my friends and family. First and foremost, Neeraj Engineer who mentored me on and off during the course of these 13 odd weeks, Rashmi who came up with my strength training regime which wasn't too demanding, Diya & Dyuthi (my 2 lovely daughters), my parents and my runner friends (Shailja Singh, Col Krishna, RVS, Bharath, TimTim Gautham CB, Suresh, Saini & Ranjini) and all the donors who donated to 'Young Lives vs Cancer' charity I helped raise GBP 2,288. 

With this race, I finish 4 (Chicago, Berlin, NYC and London) out of the 6 World Marathon Majors with 2 more (Tokyo and Boston) to go.