On Sunday, I finished my first marathon, New Delhi Marathon, in 5:47:13. It was 42.195 km of fun, pain, and runner’s high. If the bib numbers are sequential in order of registration (I suspect they are), I’m the 8th person to register for the full marathon. That’s how excited I was about a full marathon right in heart of Delhi. The criticism in this post is because we want you to do better next year. You guys managed great things for the first edition and we’d love to see a better event next year.
From the onset, the quality of this race would depend on its route. Having it pass through some of the major landmarks of Delhi was great. You guys pulled this one off, hats off to you. Extra points for the course being AIMS-approved.
At the start of the race, there were a good number of race marshals and police; they stopped traffic and guided us. This was a great feeling. The people in cars and bikes on the route were cheering us on too!
From about the 30K mark or so (at 9 am), I only saw three aid stations with water. The rest of them seem to have run dry and the volunteers were just sitting in chairs and chatting. To be clear, until this point, the race marshals and police were extremely helpful and cheery. As I was preparing for the race on Saturday night, I decided I’d rather carry extra weight than not have water. In retrospect, that was the best decision I’d made. My advice to fellow runners, when in doubt, carry your own hydration.
The website seemed to say that roads would reopen by 11 am but I’m pretty sure we were navigating traffic around 9 am. I understand that this is not in your control, but an early warning would have been nice. What could have been in your control though is having route markers and/or race marshals until 11 am. This did not happen, as far as I could see.
As my first marathon, I’m not happy with the last 2 hours (12.2K) of the race. This is when I was reaching my breaking point, which is my fault, thanks to less than ideal training. This is also when the support from the race organizers dwindled much less than what I expected. It took me 2 hours to complete the remaining 12.2K. I look forward to the next edition where I can better my own time at the New Delhi Marathon. I hope the organizers will also give me a better experience.
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