Bharath's NYC Marathon Journey

Bharath (a close friend of mine, my veda guru and a runner) I'd think, got slightly serious to train for NYC Marathon only after he got his US visa around 3rd week of July. I having run the race last year and moderately struggling due to lack of prep etc, didn't want Bharath to take it lightly. Especially, after his sub-par mileage and lack of training in the first half of the year. Just for context, between Jan-Jul, 7 months duration his average monthly mileage was < 25 km. By any stretch of imagination very inadequate to run a moderately hard course like NYC. He ran the Tata Mumbai Marathon in 5:37:03 in Jan, averaging ~8:00/km pace nursing an injury and I'm sure not enjoying the second half or latter miles due to the struggles. I for one won't recommend anyone toe the line for a marathon without sufficient training. The suffering and experience isn't just worth it.

Training Plan

I cooked up a training plan for a duration of 14 weeks which was modelled with the primary purpose of getting easy/aerobic mileage week over week with a gentle ramp up in the first 4 weeks and then getting a few 30+ km runs just to get sufficient time on the feet for the body to cope during the race day and a 3 weeks taper. Nothing fancy really. No speed/interval training whatsoever as the risk of injury was high plus recovery time between runs. We went to 4-5 days of easy running to get those miles in the bag with the hope that it helps during race day. At the outset, I had mentioned to Bharath loud and clear that he was going to do all his long runs in GKVK, the idea was I could run along and he'd have company too. I am sure he and his family would have cursed me for the insistence on GKVK, but I am sure on hindsight it all worked out. Due to my and Bharath's schedule, all of the 30 km runs Bharath had no company and had to do those alone, which does a lot to one's confidence for a marathon. I can vouch for it, as I have mostly been training solo since 2020. Bharath kept chipping away week over week and ended up with a fairly decent mileage of 600 km in 3 months without falling ill or getting injured to miss any weekday or weekend long runs. Now as I look at his training plan, he'd had 95%+ compliance to the laid out plan - which in itself is pretty impressive especially when there is so much going on in everyone's life. The last 2 weekend runs preceding the race, Bharath was peaking nicely and I was slightly nervous that he shouldn't fall ill and get injured, I am glad none of that happened, barring some muscle soreness - the training block was uneventful.

Easy recovery run in Trails

Breakfast post run during one of the training runs

Race

NYC Marathon course is not a personal record course and the weather can be dicey. The plan we essentially discussed the weekend before the race was. a) Have fun b) Don't do anything daft c) Complete the race c) Run the first half no faster that 2:27:00, if the first half comes any faster - brace to suffer d) If not, maintain 7:00/km, 10-15 seconds faster in downhills is okay e) Accelerate or get to 10-15 seconds faster than target marathon pace only after 37 km. Bharath clearly executed the Plan to the T and ran extremely sensibly. I was super impressed.

Plan/Target time: 4:59:59

His finish time: 4:58:42. Yay!

First half came in 2:29:26 and the Second half in 2:29:16, negative split, 10 seconds faster. His detailed race timing can be seen here. Whilst he has run faster times, but given his training volume this is a achievement worthy of blogging. The past 3 months running along with Bharath has been fun and I'd like to think he had fun too. Here's wishing Bharath many more joyful marathons.

NYC Marathon Expo