My experience at the Boston Marathon 2020 virtual experience

My training

With the initial postponement and later cancellation of the Boston marathon, registration for the virtual event scheduled for 13 Sep 2020 was done. Having been injured for most of 2019 and early 2020, I had been focusing on strength training, conditioning and diet through the lockdown. A lot of easy runs with increasing mileage were put in to build up aerobic base with adequate recovery. Despite the lockdown, and Covid duties in my hospital, I was fortunate to be able to run outdoors and focus on strength using bodyweight exercises and home-gym. To continue the process of recovery and build up endurance, I decided to run the virtual event, just focusing on the distance, with no pace targets. Not having had an injury free event for more than a year, I was more keen to be at the start line, pain free and confident of finishing strong. I shared this with Ash and a plan was accordingly put in place. Within the constraints of time and space (especially during the covid duties and multiple quarantines), I did most of my long runs, tempos and HIIT/Plyo workouts and felt good about them. Delhi had got warmer and humid through Jun-August making it difficult to train harder, so I just stuck to time on my feet and distance assigned. I could do some 5k fast runs, thanks to the Project CITIUS, and stronger long intervals during the last two months of training. That gave me confidence to go run harder than what my slow long runs showed. 

1.  State of mind coming into my race.

Having had an uneventful training, feeling strong through the speed workouts, and long distance running paces improving steadily through the weeks of training, and having been able to do 3x30k runs and a faster 25k, I was confident of being able to finish the distance, if I ran within my capability for the training I had done, and didn’t make any foolish mistakes. I tapered well in the last 2 weeks, kept myself upbeat mentally about being able to run the dream event finally, albeit virtually. Considering the weather, and Pune being a runner-friendly city with a group organizing a run for us, I decided to club it with a short family vacation. A short 5k run on Saturday morning helped me get used to the elements, and shake off for the run next day. All fueling and hydration plans were set in place and I settled down to a relaxed evening before the event and felt positive.

1. Thoughts in my mind through various stages of the race:

Morning was early, thanks to a 0430h start. After adequate pre-hydration and a snack, I reached the venue at 4am, in time for the short warm up and dynamic stretches. The arrangements at the start, the energy of the pacers and support crew was exhilarating. A printed bib, posters, start and finish tapes with Boston logo, made it all feel so real. After a short briefing and start point pictures, the race got underway, bang at 0430h. it was largely a flat 10k loop to be done 4 times followed by additional 2.2k to finish back at the start point. First loop was done mostly in dark, with street lights, and escorts on cycle and cars, dishing out fluids and gels made it very convenient. In my subsequent loops, I was paced by Krishna Sirothia and Kavitha Reddy, both Boston marathon qualifiers themselves who did 21k each. 

 I had decided to start at around 5:30 pace and keep it mostly even paced through the race. Considering the fade in the last loop, I did run the first two loops a shade faster. Mentally, I was pepping myself up thinking about all these years of effort I had put in to qualify and subsequently being able to run it today. And realistically, I wanted to settle my mind about haunting injuries, and finish this one strong. The second loop with Krishna was strong, and crossing 20k at around 1h48min, I was feeling strong and hopeful of a sub 4hr finish for sure. Third loop run with Kavitha and Krishna was more of a social one, just to take my mind off the running and was good to greet fellow runners who were doing their usual Sunday long run. I was expecting the crunch period to follow in the fourth loop, and had taken all my gels and hydration diligently till then to be good to go through it.

 Fourth loop with kavitha, and partly with Neelam, did bring in increasing perceived effort, and km33-38 proved to be one where I had to grunt and could just manage to jog through. I was determined not to stop, and just put my head down to the task. Doing all the mental exercises to stay on course, I took my last gel and some Reload, and decided to push through the remaining distance with all I had.

 Although fatigued, I was happy that there was no pain and I was happy to gather pace through these last few miles to finish well within my intended target.

Having been able to push through these last stages with faster paces was a first, in the many marathons I have run and that gave me the greatest confidence following this race today. 

Post finish, true elite style, it was emotions taking over for a brief while before I did some much needed stretches and got into the celebration mode so thoughtfully planned by the organizing team.