While browsing through some running websites, I noticed an interesting one. Its called CoolRunningNewbie and has lots of useful information for newcomers to this field. The following phrase on one of the pages caught my eye:
“Run your own Race”
BTW, I am getting a Sony DSC P200 pretty soon, hopefully that will make this blog a bit colorful as well.
Chitra Narayanan, a reported with The Telegraph, Calcutta was looking for some amateur runners to interview for an article on the Delhi International marathon (Feb 12th, 2006) and somehow managed to find my running blog. An email interview followed, and some of it made it to the Telegraph article, published on Feb 11th, 2006. The complete article can be referenced at the Telegraph website.
A snapshot of the article has been attached below.
The world’s top five marathons have come together to launch a World Marathon Majors (WMM) series (source : coolrunning.com). The series will be launched with the start of the Boston marathon this April. The marathons part of this series are:
Points will be awarded to runners for top-five finishes in these events (over two years), and the overall mens and womens winners will share the $1 million prize.
I would say that an idea like this would be great for India. The problem is that we need to have a few big races of our own to make this popular. We have a big one in Mumbai marathon, which is now an annual event. There are others which are also annual events, like Pune, Thane, Allahabad and Chennai, but they lack the organizational infrastructure, sponsors, and the attracting power of a big city marathon, like Mumbai. Events in Delhi and Bangalore hold promise, but they still do not have an annual calendar.
It is ripe time for the right people to step in and take us to the next level. Launching a series like the WMM for Indian athletes would be a great step in this direction. A problem with that is a limited season of running here, given the climate in India, but I am sure this can be worked out. October to April is a reasonable six month duration to put it all together.
An analysis, courtesy MarathonGuide.com
The Men’s record is currently in the name of Paul Tergat of Kenya with a time of 2:04:55, set in Berlin Marathon in 2003.
Berlin is currently the most popular place to set world records, having 4 of the top 10 timings in the world. This is followed by Chicago (3), London (2) and Rotterdam (1).
All these top 10 times have been set in the 1998-2003 time period. Are’nt we overdue for one!
Khalid Khannouchi is leading the top 10 finishes, with 3 entries in the top 10. Paul Tergat is the #2 here, with 2.
Another amazing fact: The top 200 times are set in a time range of 2:04:55 and 2:08:17. Wow, its really tough out there!
Paula Radcliffe (U.K.) heads the ladies timings, with a 2:15:25 at 2003 London Marathon. She has an amazing 4 of the top 10 timings in the world (including the top 3!), really amazing given that she has started so late in her career with running marathons.
Amongst the ladies top 10, Berlin, Chicago and London are jointly top of the list with 3 entries each. Beijing rounds up the list with 1 entry. All the top 10 finishes lie in the period 2001-2005.
Mumbai marathon came, and went. The return to Mumbai after 6 years was memorable, and brought back fond memories of the good times gone by. I used to work here, my office being located in Andheri, East. Unfortunately, most of my colleagues from there had already left for greener pastures in all this time… so could not meet anyone out there. I used to stay at Warden road when I was here, and I made it a point to go to the place and just take another look at the building I had spent a few years of my life in. Silly me… I know… but sometimes, your urges overpower you, what can we say.
As for the marathon itself, it was a great satisfaction to reach the finish line. However, there was some emptyness inside me as well, call it the weight of overexpectation. I had thought that I would be able to do this within 5 hours, and it almost took me an hour more. I was hurt… not because I was not able to run towards the end of the race, but because I never thought that I would reach a stage where I would be forced to walk. I never had to walk in trainings, running upto 4 hours, and upto 32 kms. So, it was a personal shock to me, one, which I realized, was due to false expectations. With experience however, I hope I will do better.
So now that this is over, I am feeling a bit restless. After not having 100% satisfaction from my first attempt, I am itching for another go… soon. And the earliest I can see that happening is Bangalore, which should have the event in May, hopefully. I tried searching to see if there is a web site, nope, nothing there. I am trying to find out where and how to do the registration. Hopefully, I will be there.