My running journey from 5 km to Half Marathon

My journey of Half marathon started from TCS50 billion steps challenge which was organised on completing 50 years of TCS. It was a 10 days billions step challenge from 28/Sep/2018 to 07/Oct/2018 for all TCS employees globally. During the TCS50 billion steps challenge I joined a TCS internal running group of around 10-15 people made by Bilal and Prakash. During this 10-day challenge, every morning we all gather at one place, do some warm up and start running/walking and after finishing run/walk we do some cool-down exercise and then back to home. We continued this routine for 9 days and daily we used to do around 5 km run/walk. Last day on 07/Oct/2018, we planned for a long run of 8-10 km and that was my first day when I ran 10 km before that I never ran 10 km. I enjoyed this group and learnt a lot of things during these 10 days.

TCS50 Celebration Day on 7/Oct/2018

I continued my running routine. One day I saw an ad in the newspaper about Skechers Performance Chennai Marathon 2019 (SPCM) which was scheduled on 06/Jan/2019. SPCM is one of the biggest sports events of Chennai and 2nd biggest event of India after Tata Mumbai Marathon. SPCM started in 2013 and it was the 7th edition of SPCM in 2019. I planned to register for SPCM 2019, but I was in confusion to go for 10 km or 21 km because till now I had not done any official 10 km run so not that much confidence. I was in confusion till the last date of registration.

Finally, on 7/Dec/2018 around 11 pm I decided to go for 21 km (Half Marathon) and registration was done 1 hr before the closing date. Now I had only one-month time to practice for the Half marathon which was on 13/Jan/2019. I planned and started practicing to run 8-10 km, 4-5 days in a week. One week before the event I planned to go for a long distance above 15 km as a practice run and I was able to complete 17 km without any break, then I got some confidence that I can complete my half marathon.

I had collected my bib no 23599 and t-shirt on 05/Jan/2019 one day before the marathon. On 06/Jan/2019 marathon day, I woke up around 2:30 am in the morning and did my morning routine activity. As both the start and end point of the event are different, my friend Shahoul and my family also came to drop me till the start point by car. We started around 3:30 am from home and reached the starting point around 4 am.

Start Point of Marathon

Full Marathon started at 4 am and then at 4:30 am started our Half Marathon. As it was my first Half Marathon, I started running slowly. I was still thinking I would be able to complete it or not, I will reach till the end point or not. At the starting of the race till 5 km, I was running slowly and completed 5 km in 40 minutes. Then slowly I increased the pace and completed my next 5 km in 35 minutes, then drank some water and continued my run and completed another 5 km in 35 minutes.

Till now everything was good and I was enjoying my first Half Marathon as lots of people were there on the road for cheers-up. I kept the target to complete my first Half Marathon within 2:30 hrs. But after 15 km I was feeling a little tired and still 6 km was there to reach my target point. I did not lose hope and saw other runners and then pushed myself towards my target and completed the last 6 km in around 40 minutes.

My First HM

Finally, I completed my first Half Marathon in 2:29:57 Hrs and I was very happy after reaching the finish point. I started the race at 4:30 am and completed at around 7 am. After finishing the race, I received my medal and took some photos with my first half Marathon medal. After some time, my wife also came to pick me, then we had breakfast which was arranged by the organizer, then took some photos and came back home. After reaching home I took a rest. It was a really great challenge for me to complete Half Marathon with a practice of 1 month only.

I accepted the challenge and now it’s time for you.

Do you like to take this challenge?