Sydney Marathon

The thought to run Sydney Marathon this year came when Gautham CB, GCB (runner friend) having finished the Abbott World Marathon Majors (WMM) Six Star in 2024 registered for Sydney Marathon in Jan to claim his 7th WMM Star, GCB promptly called me and told me to register and run Sydney Marathon end of Aug. Initially I rubbished the idea stating, I would be running Boston in Apr (you can read about my Boston outing here), and that I did not want to run another marathon in 4 months and that I would look at running Sydney Marathon Aug 2026. GCB and Rashmi persisted, I decided to reluctantly give in. But then I also convinced Bharath and Vinay to register which on hindsight, I am sure they'd agree was a brilliant idea. As a few weeks passed by, I came to realize there was a huge contingent of Abbott WMM Six Stars finishers, many of my friends who'd be running the race this year. I can't thank GCB and Rashmi enough that I registered for the race too. 

The 13 weeks training block started on Jun 2 after about 6 weeks of my running the Boston Marathon in Apr, so I had good mileage entering this training block. One difference compared to marathons I ran 2022 through Boston Marathon that I ran earlier this year, I didn't have to train solo. I had Bharath and Vinay's company who had registered for this race as well. The detailed weekly break-up of Sydney training block is here, please go through it for running volume, time duration and other stats. I had not missed a single weekend long run which gave me a lot of confidence getting into the speedy 20-miler that I run 3 weeks before any marathon. Vinay and I ran that 20-miler pretty well, giving both of us the confidence to run a sub 4h marathon. Given Sydney course has the highest elevation gain amongst all the WMMs, even more than Boston, both of us weren't sure whether we'd just manage a sub 4h or would be able to get closer to 3:55 or less. We just chose to focus week on week balancing work, family and other commitments and do the best we could. The three of us did steady/tempo runs during the last 3 weeks at target marathon pace to get used to 'running fast', as my training plans mostly comprise of easy runs for most part. In a nutshell, we stuck to the training plan, did what we could.

Race week

Vinay, Bharath and I took a direct flight to Sydney Wed evening which got us into Sydney first thing on Thu. Flights with layover in Singapore / Kuala Lumpur increases the travel time and can be tiring and stressful, it was sensible we took a direct flight. Thursday - after some sightseeing and catching up with Abhilash (runner friend) for Lunch, we went to the Expo to pick our running number. That evening along with GCB, Ranjini and Pani sir, we took the cruise to Manly Beach and had some Indian dinner. Friday - after breakfast, along with Vinay's friend we went to Blue Mountains, which involved a bit of walking and handling the cold/wind, some amazing Thai food for lunch towards the end of the tour. That evening we had a cruise dinner booked too, towards the end of it we were pretty exhausted from all the running around during the day and lack of sleep due to jetlag. Saturday - Abhilash joined us for a 25-minutes shakeout run to test the gear and assess the weather, we ran in and around the harbour waterfront - the weather was amazing. It was cold but I was feeling nice and good with how the weather was. We had the Sydney Cricket Ground tour booked that afternoon post some Indian lunch. We kept the evening light given we had the race Sunday morning :).

At the Expo to collect our running number

At the Expo with other Bangalore runner friends

Blue Mountains

Trail walk in Blue Mountains

Cruise Dinner w/ runner friends

Sydney Skyline

Shakeout run

Mandatory picture with the Opera house in the background :)

Sydney Cricket Ground Tour

Race day

0400 alarm, jetlag helps in beating the alarm clock! By 0600 we were geared up and ready to go. We took the Metro which was filled with runners at that time of the day all heading to North Sydney across the Harbour Bridge, Sydney Marathon start-point. Given 35000+ ran this event, runners are flagged off in waves - every 30 minutes or so. The first wave of elite and fast runners started at 0630, our wave was flagged off at 0703. Bharath had a different time target, so he was on his own from the start. Vinay and I were running together, I was 'supposedly' the pacer, who was supposed to keep a steady pace all through, reduce the pace during uphill, remember to cut corners and run along the turns to not run more distance and also not bonk and run the first half no slower than 1:55:00. You can now imagine the stress! if I screwed up, I not only screw up my race but Vinay's too. Naturally that weighed a lot in my mind the previous night and up until the 20-miler mark during the race. The first half came in 1:53:47 (5:24/km or 8:41/mi) and the second came in 1:56:31 (5:31/km or 8:53/mi) slightly slower due to all the uphill sections that we needed to negotiate. Vinay and I crossed the finish line together in 3:50:18 (5:27/km or 8:47/mi) which was our best-case scenario, although we would have taken anything in and around 3:54:59! One Huma gel every 7 km a total of 5 for the race, 3 salt tablets and water/Gatorade every water station that came by to keep me going without bonking.

All set - itching to go!

Relieved :)

Bondi Beach in the background

Last but not the least, pic w/ GCB if not for him, I won't have run Sydney Marathon

 

Gratitude

I dedicate this run to Rashmi who has been a huge support and my two lovely daughters, Diya and Dyuthi, they put up with me patiently during these marathon training blocks and do what it takes to support me. Gautham CB who persisted with me in January to have me register for the race. Vinay and Bharath who put up with the training plan, you guys were awesome the training block was so much fun because of us training together. Abhilash and Ritesh you were great hosts and made us feel at home. Thank you for that, can't wait to visit Australia again!