The Twin Cities Marathon

Minneapolis, Minnesota

7th Oct 2018

Hello friends,

So this is the joint run report of our attempt at Minneapolis. Hope you all enjoy reading it as much as we relished writing it down. Readers’ discretion is requested as it is meant to be bit of a travelogue with report of running a marathon thrown in for a good measure, to add spice!!

Ankush & I visited my cousin Ritika at Minneapolis on a long vacation for two months and as runners we had thought to include running a marathon there. The whole idea was that we follow an active running & fitness regime and also let this event be the grand finale to our vacation! What better place than doing it in US where conditions were so much ideal. Having made an initial plan was just the small step, which was quickly followed up by doing a bit of research on which race to attempt in the given timeframe, fitting into overall plan of our stay which also has plans for a bit of internal travel. A little discussion with Vinod, Ritika’s husband who’s himself a runner & the search was narrowed down to a few. Finally, Twin Cities (Minneapolis-St. Paul) marathon was picked as it seemed to be the best fit. The usual process of signing up for the event, booking passage and duration of stay all fell into place. We were ready to start!!

Come 14 Aug, Ankush & I embarked on our vacation. Reached Minneapolis with summer in its full glory and by the time we could settle into doing some serious training, it was time to go to North Shore to see Lake Superior. On return, next day we travelled to New Jersey to visit Sudip(Brother-in-law) & family. During our 11 days stay there, also made a quick dash to Washington DC to witness some amazing Smithsonian Museums & a city tour on a Hop on-hop off & by metro. Training wise it was erratic with little done with no time or energy left. We were behind schedule but felt we should be able to catch up as almost 45% of the training was completed before we travelled to US. On return to Minneapolis, slowly started getting back into training. The temperature was 20 degrees C, more akin to Bangalore but other running conditions such as quality of air, road surfaces, traffic conditions were far superior, hence the training just got better!

At the west river parkway On the Mississippi riverfront Ridgewood trail, New Jersey

We stayed 2 blocks away from Mississippi riverfront which provided an ideal running path, on the West & East river Parkway. Since we had to be self-contained I worked out couple of routes around the river for our speed workouts & long runs. The long one ran around the river upstream upto Washington Avenue passing through University of Minnesota running downstream on the East river Parkway upto Lake street Bridge for a 11 Km loop and the short one via Franklin Avenue bridge for a 5k+ loop. Every workout loop would have the returning point to our house(rear deck) serving as aid station. I would stock it up with water, bananas, gatorade & home-made sweet-salt-lemon water, energy bars/trail mix. The joke in the house was that if we didn’t step out for our training then either the day was bad somehow or we were not keeping too well!! Ritika had made known to her friends that we’re here to run the Twin city marathon & everything else pretty much was by default! Her parents who were also visiting around the same time(the house looked like some carnival happening all the time, given that so many Bongs were cohabiting!!) would walk into the living room, throwing the first greeting at us with so much as, ‘what happened, didn’t you go out for your workout?” looks!! I realised that we got ourselves in some real pressure situation here where expectations were running high & we could hardly miss any of our training!! Jokes apart, by now the training indeed picked up momentum, quality of workouts got better, the recovery was good & long runs served up the right motivation to wind up the weekends with family dinners out, watching cultural events, shopping & sundry. A word about nutritional regime-Ankush was having a whale of a time as Ritika, the quintessential non vegetarian in the house would pamper him with all sorts of meat-eating experience and I would end up sorting out even my salad or sandwich to look for prohibited items like tomatoes, baby spinach, etc,....my gouty arthritis flared up twice, and I needed to be very cautious now of every food intake.

By late September & with falling temperature, the summer was coming to an end and fall colors were increasingly becoming evident all round. In fact, during the race week we drove up one plus hour to see falls colours in a state park.

Ankush after 6k easy run Fall is here Fall colors at State Park

The Race plan

As a run-up to the race, I had to make a note of few things which were different from running conditions back home. The first was the temperature which was predicted to be around 6 to 8 degrees on the race day, hence required changes in the running gear & getting used to it. Ankush had to order one full sleeves compression tee for himself. Within three weeks of the race day, the temperature kept steadily falling, I started moving my runs from 6.30 to 8.00 am(start time of the race day). There were certain days, when we could not even step out by 9-10 am as the temperature was fluctuating, getting colder on such days. A week before the final week, the temperature hovered between 8 to 11 degrees but in the race week, it dipped to 6-7 degrees as we were winding up with an easy 30 minutes on Tuesday and a 6k easy on the Thursday before Sunday race day. Indications were there for a cold & wet conditions for Sunday! However, the idea was to keep ourselves acclimated up closer to the start time(of the race day). The second consideration was to see how many layers of clothing will be just right, paying attention to more sensitive parts(ears, hands) and also trying them out to get the right fit during our training/long runs. My hands were very sensitive to the cold and I was advised to wear either mittens or gloves, which I tried & settled for the latter. Running on the riverfront provided the ideal conditions of temperature & humidity, which replicates the race route, running around four lakes & the riverfront makes up for three quarters of the race. The next was to train without the salt pills and working out the right nutrition for the race day. As I mentioned earlier, we trained ourselves for at least three weeks on a mix of gatorade, Sweet-salt lime water, energy bars & trail mix, occasional banana. And also sustaining for a minimum of 5.6 k loop as a constant was difficult in the later part of 25+k runs, however didn’t bother me as the race day aid stations were to be at every 2 miles(3.2k). But training wise, it was better. The last but not the least was to train for the pace. In the overall, we were definitely faster than our goal pace in the shorter runs but mostly stuck to goal pace average on longer ones. As if post run recoveries were any indications, we were on course for a good race ahead and just needed to keep ourselves calm & composed going forward. Ankush showed his calmer side taking the training in the right earnest, never complaining of anything, yet I could feel he was gearing himself up well to run a race on foreign soil and without the usual camaraderie of his running friends that he was so fortunate to have grown up with back home. I was used to running by myself as I do it very often with or without any external support. In the hindsight, I realised he has had a more daunting task to attempt it as he was completely aware of the growing expectations around him from his family, friends, taking solace of the fact that his dad would be running alongside making all the backup plans for him. His body language showed that, so I was not too concerned. Everything we could do at our end was done & we waited for the race day with eager anticipation.

On Saturday, Vinod took the extra trouble of taking us around the route from the start point. What a fabulous route it was, starting @downtown Minneapolis, running past Sculpture garden @ Walker Art Centre, running west on Douglas Avenue to the south passing 4 lakes namely Lake of Isles, Lake Harriet, Lake Calhoun and Lake Nokomis(halfway mark), then passing by Minnehaha Falls, a rare sight of cascading water body in the neighbourhood(history has it was fed by a retreating glacier at Wisconsin) meeting downstream Mississippi river flowing close by, and further continuing on to the west river parkway to the North-East, finally crossing over at Franklin avenue to the East river parkway, moving back south to head into its final approach of last 5 miles on the uphill Summit Avenue with its last mile running right down to the finish @Capitol downtown St Paul.

The Race day

As usual, I got up at 5.30 am to start preparation to leave the house by 6.45. With morning routine done and the pre-run snack consumed, we’re ready to step out. The temperature outside was 5 degs, we wore our compression tees with a singlet over it as the 2nd layer and a fleece to keep ourselves warm till as close to the start time as possible. Vinod was to drop us at the closest point to the start point, then walk up to our enclosure on foot. Everything went like clockwork precision and we found ourselves ready 5 minutes to the start time at 8 am after depositing our bags at the baggage counter & loo break. The sky was overcast, humid yet cold enough to be felt. Now without our fleece jackets, we badly wanted to start as each passing minute was painstaking at 5 degrees C. Finally the race started, we crossed about 2 minutes later despite being in the first enclosure Corral 1.

At the start line… At the Expo… At the Expo...

As per the plan, we were allowing ourselves to warm up into the race but after about 2k found the going pace was quicker than expected. Tried to slow down a bit but to no avail. Ankush & I got separated at the 1st aid station in the melee. For next 5 miles, we ran separately but since Vinod was to meet us at some point on the way, I could pass the word to Ankush about my whereabouts. At 11 miles he caught up, overtook me and running way above his goal pace. I tried to slow him down but he went ahead and finished halfway mark in 1:42, something which was to prove detrimental in the second loop. I caught up with him at 17 Miles, found him tired out. I had to slow down to be with him for some time so that he regains his confidence. At around 18 miles, Ritika & family were rooting for us. After a quick photo session, resumed with Ankush, constantly reminding of the familiarity of the current portion of the route on which we’ve practised all our long runs for past 5 weeks. He on his own was trying to ward off the fatigue and keeping pace with me. At 20th mile, I surged ahead not before letting him know that we had a good lead of time from the first loop and he should try and keep up so that minimum sub-4 finish can be achieved. This was the test of strength for him & he did put in his best against heavy odds of extremely cold conditions with high chill factor, building fatigue and an uphill climb for the next 3 miles & next 3 miles of rolling course heading into upwind. Somehow I felt that with good training behind him & also, past experience of running 2 back-to-back marathons, the latest being at Mumbai in January this year, he should be able to run a sub-4 which he eventually did! My race had actually started after all this stoppages put an end to the rhythm I had prior to this and now found myself literally struggling to get back into a desired pace due to given conditions. I did run decently upto next 3 miles but then the cold suddenly got the better of me and I found myself struggling. I immediately decided to run the next 3 miles by a walk-run strategy as cramping became imminent. I started to finish my energy bar, took some sweet candies from a child with her mother cheering us on. Nothing seem to be helping but kept up with it nevertheless. I wasn’t really thinking of my goal of a 3:40 finish now, instead wanted to grab that Finisher tee, wait for Ankush to finish & go, grab a few hot cups of soup! Finally, 700m short of Finish line saw the downhill going to the Capitol, stopped to catch a breath but was quickly egged on by a couple of runners, a women & a man to go for the finish. All of us sprinted down to the 26 mile marker, touched the timing mat & then headed down to the last 200 m for my 3:48 finish. It was simply teeth chattering cold, totally exhausting & numb in the end but what a feeling. After collecting the medal and an insulated synthetic cover, waited for Ankush to finish. Felt extremely proud of his achievement as I saw him crossing the line in a sub-4 finish @ 3:54, a Personal Best(PB) clipping 13 minutes from his Mumbai timing in January this year. The conditions were definitely far from ideal and he showed off his own strength and resoluteness to complete one of the difficult races with a remarkable timing. We did the Hi fives & embraced, not to mention my reminding him that he had just finished running his first marathon on a foreign soil in only his 2nd year of running full marathons. As father & co-runner who trained together for the last 2 months, nothing else really mattered than this very special moment- not even the final timings or the finisher tee or any cups of hot soup! As they say, it was truly a ‘Runner’s High’ and a double at that!!

Such is the beauty & essence of running and a metaphor for life.