Race experience: TCS World 10K Bengaluru

The TCS World 10K Bengaluru is one of the key races of India and garners a ton of attention from International as well as Indian runners. We had our VP of fitness and nutrition, Yatish Tiwari, and our associate at Ascend, Sahil Patil, running the 10K this year. This is what their experience was in Bengaluru.

Expo experience

Both Yatish and Sahil mentioned that their expo experience was smooth and very convenient.

There were a lot of stalls and products on display and the crowd kept pouring in. Despite this, the BIB collection process was seamless and didn’t take more than a few minutes.

The one drawback that came up was that the expo had extremely narrow walking areas which meant that a crowd at a popular stall led to a bit of an issue.

But other than that, everything was simply perfect.

Pre race:

Getting to the race venue was pretty easy. However, entering the race venue proved to be a challenge. The entry points were pretty narrow and that led to crowding of runners and congestion.

But once they were through that ordeal, the holding area itself was spacious and quite accommodating. The crowd spread across almost immediately and you had a good amount of space to yourself.

One drawback that was pointed out was that the baggage counters were charged this year. Ideally, baggage counters are part and parcel of your race ticket which meant being charged for them came as a surprise and an unnecessary additional cost.

As we mentioned before, since you had a decent amount of space to yourself, you could warm up quite easily and get prepped for the race. There was no dedicated warm up session at the race which meant you had to do your own warm up regimen.

We got a mixed review when it came to moving to your designated corrals. Yatish and Sahil were both chasing different targets at the TCS World 10K and were in separate corrals. People in the faster corrals found it slightly difficult to move to the start line while the slower corrals had it a bit easy.

The race:

The key highlight of the race which we heard time and again from Yatish and Sahil was the relentless crowd support all through the route. There were cheering groups pushing you to run your best and the atmosphere for the first half of the race was absolutely electric. There was a short 200m patch on the route where it all went dead silent but that was the only bit where you could hear yourself breathing. The rest of the route was heavy on crowd support.

Another positive was the route support and hydration. The volunteers at the counters seemed well experienced and were amazing with the support. The placement of the hydration support was nice as well and on a humid day, it was an absolute blessing.

But all of it cannot be good, can it?

One major red flag during the race were the VIPs who were also running the race. Navigating your way through a crowd is a challenge in the first place but VIPs along with 4-5 bodyguards cordoning off a major block of space of the route wasn’t taken in pleasant taste.

Sahil was aiming for a sub 45 finish and began with 4:20 mins/km on the watch. He held that pace for 2 kilometres before the crowd and humidity got to him. He finished in a respectable 49 minutes.

Yatish missed the last 2 editions of the race and decided to make the most of this one by soaking up the amazing race day atmosphere and interacting with everyone along the way. He clocked 1:19 at the finish line.

Post race:

Once the race was done, collecting your medals and refreshment boxes was seamless as well. Given the number of runners who participated in the race and toed the start line, crowd management was a major positive.

The post race refreshment box was, however, the opposite. A cold sandwich, protein chips, masala buttermilk and a banana seemed quite inadequate for a race of this calibre.

Overall feedback:

A fairly average experience at the TCS World 10K. Barring the crowd management and the on route support, everything else seemed quite standard. Our guess is that running is taking its next step in India and races have to keep up to speed as well.