DNA Ican Half Marathon

My first Marathon run was a 10k organized by DNA last year. Exactly a year later, ran the 21k at the DNA Ican (half) marathon  on Sunday the 10th of March 2013.

The folks at DNA were kind enough to feature me along with fellow runners in their newspaper, few days prior to the run . Extra copies of the newspaper were bought and promptly dispatched to Chennai to Naina & Aatha. 

The Ican Marathon route is a flat surface with no inclines. Fairly simple. That's what I thought until the clock struck 8 (the run began at around 6.20 am). The heat killed me as the minutes progressed. Thankfully unlike  last year, the organizers were very well prepared with water stations across the route stocked with enough water.

There were fewer women than I thought there'd be at the 21 km run considering there were quite a few at the Mumbai Marathon in January. The 10 and 5k runs had more people participating. 

As I was struggling to run at the 12 km mark, there was someone who was on the other side of the road bend running, waving and cheering. Realized it was actor Mandira bedi after a few minutes. She ran her first half marathon at DNA ican and managed to finish with an impressive timing of 2 hr 20 minutes.

Kiran Tiwari won the Half marathon with a timing of 1 hour 24 mins. Neelam Rajput and Nikita Nagpure were the runners-up. Read about them here .

So it's been four half marathons in four consecutive months for me. Feeling super good about completing all four what with the timing having improved with every run. The next half is likely to be in July. Summer is here and we are all set to Swimmadi Aathadi till then.