Kaveri Trail - Half Marathon 2013 - Race Recap

Even though it has been over a week since I ran the Kaveri Trail Half Marathon 2013, I still cannot stop raving about the experience. The Kaveri trail is one of the most scenic marathon trails in this prt of the country. With the sound of singing birds, gurgling water, the chants of the field workers and the near perfect running weather that Bangalore offers, it became a must do after being initiated into the world of running races last year.

My training was quite consistent in the beginning but slacked quite badly after I was uprooted from my home, changed jobs and basically my world changed over night! The longest run I had been on was a 13k, while the Hal Higdon Plan stipulated that I run atleast a 16k as part of the training.

But I have been running for more than a year now, and the Scientist reassured my nervous self that I'd be ok once I reached the start line. The drive from Bangalore took nearly one a half hours. I woke up at 4 a.m. so that we'd reach the start line after I'd had enough time for a pee.

 I warmed up and stretched. And was enjoying the experience of being amidst all those half marathoners and in complete awe of the full marathon runners! Imagine 42k on your two feet!

I must admit that the first few kms were tough for me - I was annoyed at myself for being so fat and felt that was slowing me down  lot. I felt fatigued easily - unlike how I usually felt strong and good during my practice runs. I was sure the lack of running during the preceeding two weeks was the one that was stunting me so badly! Then I saw people who looked much fitter and thinner than me also slowing down, struggling and walking. That when I decided to forgive myself and just run between the water stations.

At the 6k mark, I felt a strange pain in the deep seated muscles of my left hand. Its a pain I've never before experienced. I did some arm swings and rotations to ease it out and kept moving. I consciously took electrolyte at every water station and even cooled myself down by splashing water on my face, neck and hands. The weather was humid-hot and that made running the tough trail pretty hard. Lots of people walked and ran alternately. I kept going in the same way until I saw the 10k mark.

In my head I expected to turn around at 10k. But the turn around point was at 11.1k and that felt like the hardest 1.1k EVER!!! On the way back, it was more walking, though I felt a surge of strength from the 121 k mark till the 15k. After that, I was just counting down kms to finish line. I forgot about how slow I was. I just did what I could  ran/ walked. My feet were begging to be taken out of shoes.

The last 2-3 kms were treacherous. I was thinking that it would be the last time I'd ever do something this crazy. Then in the home stretch there were people cheering at every 100m point. And the thought of actually finishing it up fueled me till the finish point.

The good things were:

• I did not cramp 
• no injury except knee pain which I felt for 2-3 after the race too
• I did not faint/ vomit like many others
• of course - that I finished
• the awesome medal at the end!

The bad were:

• I took more than 3 hrs to finish which I thought was embarassing
• I walked wayyyyy!!! more than I expected to
• by the end my feet were crying 

But the best is - that I am contemplating running the Wipro Chennai Half Marathon in December this year - for better timing you see?

Here are the official race pics: