Chasing the Two-Hour Mark

The two-hour mark was getting closer

By the time I reached the Apollo New Delhi Half Marathon 2025, I had started seeing a pattern in my running.

My times were coming down race after race.

2:47:17.

Then 2:14:40.

Then 2:15:56.

And then 2:11:01.

Every race was teaching me something, and every few months I could see the timing getting better.

Now I had a new thought in my mind.

Can I finish a half marathon in under two hours?

For the first time, that target didn’t feel completely impossible.

It felt close.

But getting those last few minutes out was proving to be much harder than I had imagined.

Every minute was getting harder

My timing was improving, but the improvement wasn’t coming easily anymore.

Taking three or four minutes off my previous time sounded simple when looking at the numbers.

In reality, those minutes required a lot more work.

I started paying much more attention to my diet and food.

I became more careful about what I was eating and how it affected my running.

I also started going to the gym, mainly because I wanted to work on my strength training properly.

Running had started becoming much more serious for me.

Earlier, I would simply run.

Now I was beginning to understand that if I wanted to run faster, I had to take care of everything around the running too.

Training.

Food.

Strength.

Recovery.

Consistency.

Everything mattered.

2:08:22

The race finally came on 23 February 2025.

I went into it with that two-hour target somewhere in the back of my mind.

And when I finished, the clock showed:

2:08:22.

Another improvement.

Not the three or four minutes I had become used to seeing, but still 2 minutes and 39 seconds faster than my previous half marathon in Lucknow.

I was getting closer.

The two-hour mark was no longer some distant number.

It was sitting just 8 minutes and 22 seconds away.

And honestly, at that point, I started believing:

“Maybe next time I can actually do it.”

The finish line was getting faster, but my body was starting to ask for something else.

The problem I couldn’t ignore

There was one thing happening in the background that was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

My legs were starting to trouble me.

The injury issues were beginning to affect my training.

Some training sessions weren’t going the way I wanted.

I wanted to run.

I wanted to improve.

I wanted to chase that two-hour target.

But sometimes my body simply wouldn’t cooperate.

And that was frustrating.

Because the numbers were telling me that I was improving.

But my body was telling me that something needed attention.

I couldn’t just keep pushing harder and expect everything to work.

Running started teaching me another lesson

Until this point, I had mostly looked at running through one question:

How fast can I get?

Now I was slowly learning to ask another:

How can I keep running without breaking down?

That was a completely different way of thinking.

I had started focusing on strength training.

I was paying more attention to food.

But I also needed to understand my body better and address the issues that were affecting my training.

The two-hour target was getting closer, but I was beginning to understand that chasing a number without taking care of the foundation wasn’t going to work forever.

Looking back

When I look at this race now, 2:08:22 is obviously an important number.

It was another personal improvement.

But I remember this race for something else too.

It was around this time that running started becoming less about simply finishing faster and more about learning how to become a better runner.

The easy improvements were beginning to disappear.

Every minute was becoming harder to earn.

And my body was making sure I understood that.

I had started running because I wanted to lose weight.

Then I accidentally entered a trail race.

Then came my first official half marathon.

Then faster times.

And now, the two-hour mark was sitting in front of me.

Close enough to chase.

But not close enough to take for granted.

I thought I was chasing two hours.

I didn’t know yet that the next part of my running journey would be about learning how to get my body ready for it.