The wait for PB continues!

It is just a handful weeks to New Delhi Marathon and the training is satisfactory so far!

Just to test the fitness and also with a selfish desire to break my 5+ year old personal best in half marathon, I decided to run a local race here in Gurgaon last Sunday (Jan 8)!

Many people consider winter races are the ones to break the records because unlike the summer huffing and puffing, winters are comparatively comfortable. But the winter late December or early January is nothing comfortable. It is cold, freezing and in Delhi-NCR – foggy! For someone with least tolerance to winters thanks to the arthritis, I need layers and thick gloves to get out of the house.

Now to the plan for the race: I did a 12km pace run the week before at a pace 4:51 and I was confident I can easily break the old 1:45:10 (set in November 2017). I expected cold and foggy conditions on race day and I was placing my gels to pockets in hydration bag where I usually keep for my training runs. My fingers were already slightly swollen from the winter and I was worried about opening the gel packets during race. But I was confident since I didn’t have much trouble during training, I will be able to execute that properly.

Race Day

It was extremely cold and foggy as expected. I warmed up with double gloves and that was okay. When the race started I went with the regular running gloves. With 2 degrees that was not enough at all. I managed to get under the target during the first half, even got the gels right.

The fog and cold got worse during the second half and visibility dropped. And, my hands started freezing in the cold. I was to have my last gel at 15th split and I missed that because I could not get my hands to the pockets of the hydration bag. The whole thing also caused my pace to drop. In the end, finished at 1:45:19. Saving 10 seconds could have given me a PB, or, if I had run this as a pace run around the house, I could have had a new best.

But it was a race and I had to face the race conditions! Weather conditions like that anyway was not suitable for racing.

The positive from the race is I ended up winning and went home with a trophy.

Now, time to get back stronger to training and nail that marathon right! For the half marathon, the wait for a PB continues!