My experience with AHM 2021
Today I did my half marathon conducted by AHM (Airtel Hyderabad Marathon). This is the 10th edition of AHM. The half marathon route is awesome. It’s the toughest route as well. This route starts from Necklace road adjacent to Hussain Sagar lake. Morning is scenic. It’s peak wintertime now. At 6 am it is still dark and kind of full moon. It’s so awesome with bright orange color.
AHM conducted so well. There were police stopping the traffic. Full 21km road in the heart of the city is only for runners. Volunteers and kids cheering up, awesome. SAG is many places.
The route starts from Necklace road, Kairathabad flyover, Somajiguda flyover, KBR Park, Jublihills flyover, Durgam cheruvu bridge, bio-diversity park, Gacchibowli flyover, and the endpoint is Gacchibowli stadium. This route is famous for uphill and elevation of flyovers. Luckily there is greenery too.
I liked the quotes “fly on flyovers”, “Run like Brahma (Brahmanandam)”. In two places people were cheering with funny noises. It was fun. In two places small kids were so cute and cheering up. NIFT institute students were cheering up at Durgam cheruvu bridge. They were so bright. Drums music and traditional dancers, traditional singers, all awesome. On the way to Gachibowli from Madhapur, there is an NCC gated community, they were so awesome, small kids properly dressed in traditional dancing costumes and performing Kuchipudi and Bharatanatyam dance that too early Sunday morning. Kudos to all.
The last flyover is Gachibowli flyover, there many many were just walking, no jog and run :). That’s so tough for many.
Many participants became more hygienic this time. At SAG support, they were not just throwing on the road after taking water. While jogging they were checking for bins and put empty cups in bins. That’s wonderful. Indian mentality is changing, I am happy :).
I could make my HM in 2 hours 30 min 46 seconds. It was a lot difficult for me on elevation parts. Of course, in 2 years my timings improved by 20 mins :) . I feel lots of practice is required. Not just a run. There is a lot of science behind the run. Training is a must for anything. Knee strengthening, breathing improvement each and everything matters.
There are many good runners in India too. In Hyderabad, there are inspirational runners, who could run in 4 min pace too. Many are inspirational.
By seeing them I feel India will also make it to the Olympics. It is making it up. Still achieves more. Hope all of you wish for that and work towards that.
One suggestion to AHM: T-shirts’ quality, fitting, and color should be changed. Compared to 2019, quality and fitting were reduced and the same color repeated.
Another suggestion is SAG support and Cheer up at Gacchibowli flyover which was kept after completion of climbing, it would have been good to move this to the place where we climbing up.
