My motivation to run the half-distance at Vadodara marathon is two fold. Firstly it’s my home town, and secondly this race works as a tune-up race for the New Delhi Marathon, which is held in February 3rd week.
As I ran the Vadodara Marathon as a tune-up race, it was included as part of the marathon cycle and thus there was no taper for this race. However, I tried to keep my mileage to ~65km during the race week (this included the race day kilometers). The three weeks leading up to the race week were ~85Kms weekly mileage, with 2 days of strength training. Weeks leading to the race week, I was working on longer tempo runs such as 3K4, 4K2. The focus during these tempo runs was to understand how much I can hold on to my paces.
Vadodara is special to visit during winters. The weather is chilly, windy and with just right race conditions. I went to the expo on 6th January as it was a day allocated for outstation runners. Bib collection was easy, with no waiting. Furthermore there were no stalls at the expo. From my running group I was the only one running the Vadodara marathon. However I did meet another runner from Bangalore at the Expo.
Flag off for the Half Marathon was 4:45am and thus I woke up by 2:15 am. I felt well rested and relaxed. Post my morning routine did some warm up. We reached the venue by 4:15 am. Weather was excellent at 16 degrees. Marathon runners were flagged off before us and thus the holding area witnessed runners warming up, and the tempo at the holding area was upbeat. As this is a relatively smaller race as against the usual metro races the crowd was manageable. The start line was inside Navlakhi Ground.
My plan was 7-7-7. Break down the race to 7km segments, and maintain a steady pace and push the last segment.
First 7 kms, avg pace 5:03 min/km
The frist 7kms are around the old city, the heritage buildings and sites like Sursagar, Nyaya Mandir, Mandvi Gate. These monuments were lit up in the morning, thus it was lovely to run pass them.
There was hydration every 2km and volunteers were present to guide us about the route during the race. As it was the first leg of the race, I was constantly trying to keep my pace in check.
There were a total of 4 flyovers on the course and the first one was around 6th kilometer. Training in Bangalore and then coming to sea level helps in easing the elevation.
I took Fast&Up reload every 3rd km and had 2 Unived gels, at 6th and 13th km.
Interestingly, the sunrises around 7:10 am and thus I ran the entire course before sunrise.
8th to 14th Kms, avg pace 5:03 min/km
There is one more flyover at 12.5km. Through the route there were a few cyclists volunteering for water apart from the usual hydration stations. These kilometers are fairly quieter as the initial rush has gone and runners have got their rhythm set and are pounding carefully.
I was very careful to not go beyond my planned pace, as it gets tempting with distance between runners increasing and our mind constantly wants to either overtake the one ahead of us or at least get closer to them.
As this is a non metro city race, I did not cross any known runners. This is something I missed throughout the route.
Also, the 10km and 5km runners merged with Half Marathon runners at the 14th Kms and stayed till the end. This created a lot of issue as the 5km runners were making “human chains” in the middle of the road, not giving the faster runners way.
14th to 21st Km, avg pace 5:03/km
There are 2 flyovers in the last leg, one at the 15th km and the other at the 20th km. As the 5km runners merge here, there was a lot of dodging through the crowds. This will automatically reduce the pace.
The 20th km is the last flyover, and then a full throttle 500 mts sprint through the finish line.
Once the race is over, looking at my paces, I was happy to have maintained as per the plan. My official finish time was 1:47:03 and this is also my personal best. It was a lovely feeling running in my home town and refreshing my childhood memories. I ended up meeting a few friends from school who were running and some Baroda runners.
I met a runner who recognised me as “GeeksonFeet” that made my day 😀. My mom was running 10km so I waited for her to complete. Post which we took a few pics and got on with our day!
One thing that worked well during this race was “running my own race” by keeping paces at check.
Baroda is my home town and thus coming here is always special and running the routes I grew up to.
Few things that can be improved is crowd management and better facilities in terms of baggage counter to be opened before the runners start coming in. Further there should be more toilet facilities in the holding area.
Start time for the marathon, half marathon, 10K and 5k to be spaced out this will automatically improve crowd management.
Now back to training and looking forward to my next race, New Delhi Marathon 2024.
Aditi Pandya is a life long athlete. She was born to run and play sports. Aditi is the co-founder of geeksonfeet.com.