Hello there muchachos!
Well, I happened to be in the country of Chile a few months back and participated in the Santiago de Chile Marathon. So here's a race report - of the before-s, the after-s and the during-s of the run.
It is also, sort of, a long(-ish) article. The kind where the box on the scroll bar looks stuck but actually isn't. So here's a tl,dr version - I ran the Maratón de Santiago (fasted!) and it was bee's knees!
For those of you undeterred still, I like you already. Here's a hyperlinked index to help you navigate between sections. Read on, you badass.
Contents
Diet and Nutrition
Elevation Profile
The Marathon - Maratón de Santiago
About
The Maratón de Santiago is the annual marathon of the city of Santiago, the capital of Chile. With 30 thousand participants, across difference distance and categories, it is one of the largest marathon event in all of Latin America. I chose the full marathon distance to run.
The date of the race was 28th April 2024 - when Chile is smack dab in the middle of the autumnal transition from summers to chilly winters.
Why Santiago Marathon
Well, long story short (p.s., long story), I planned a 40-day long backpacking trip to Chile. And I wanted to start off the trip by running the Santiago marathon, and in the process discover Santiago by running through the most iconic streets and avenues of the historic city.
I also reasoned that this participation would ensure (well, kinda) that I pay some attention to my routine and diet in the days leading up to the run, which otherwise, knowing I am on vacation, I would throw out the window with a loud chant of "YOLO".
Running in Santiago would also check-off my bucket list task of participating in an international marathon event.
Win, Win, Win.
The sitch
So here’s the sitch. This participation would be very different to the other marathons I've participated in, by the very basic virtue of me having to travel to a different country altogether. And a faaar one at that.
a. Jetlag. Arriving in Chile only 4 days before the run meant cutting it close, in case I was struck by a case of "the lag". But arriving with more days in hand would disrupt my itinerary for the rest of the travel that I was to undertake in the days after. So, I Que-Sera-Sera-ed it and would cross that bridge (jetlag) if and when it came.
b. Packing. All I decided to carry was a 30-litre backpack (more on that here) and the clothes I was wearing. I couldn't pack an extra pair of shorts or a t-shirt and planned to run in the only pair of shoes I was carrying/wearing - my good old running shoes - that I would wear throughout, running or no.
c. Food. Chile has strict regulations not allowing vegetables, fruits or any animal products into the country. This practically ruled out all food that I was allowed to carry - including gels which I suspected would be scrutinised at the airport.
d. Pacing. Like I said, I had a whole month of hiking, backpacking and hitchhiking ahead of me after the run. "Racing" the marathon would mean soreness and a risk of injury. So I settled that it would be best to run at a moderate pace - a sustainable pace to avoid risks of injury, reduce post-run soreness and also to enjoy running in the city and soak in the atmosphere - which was one of my prime motives for participation to begin with.
My best marathon time being around 3h23m in Mumbai (Strava link), I decided to target 4h00m to 4h15m for the big day in Santiago.
Meanwhile, I also began thinking, (insert a round and bubbly thought-bubble) 'if I am anyway not "racing" the run, I could try out a dietary experiment I've been wanting to for some time now - run the marathon fasted.' No carbs before or during the marathon on the big day. While I tended to this thought seriously, I deferred the decision to later, based on how I would feel when I reached Chile.
Training
Nothing extraordinary, really. Since I wasn't "racing" to challenge my personal best anyway, the preparation looked nice and relaxed. I targeted a mileage of ~30kms per week, for 4-5 weeks, along with some strength sessions and did not fret too much if I missed this target either. I was also recovering from a bad injury on the left-knee from a cycling accident and could not increase my weekly mileage abruptly anyway. Worked for me since I am not a big fan of running as a workout. (blasphemy much?)
In Santiago, I did a slow jog (Strava Link), exploring a part of the city a couple days before the marathon, no more than a shake-out - clicking pictures, chatting with people, waiting at traffic signals and what not.
Everything about this training block was wholesome.
Diet and Nutrition
Training Period
The approach was similar in training - Nice and relaxed with no strict rules. I was having regular home cooked food while in India with infrequent incursions by alcohol and desserts. I did not mind.
However, knowing that I might end up running the marathon fasted, all my running sessions in training - fast, slow, long or intervals - were done fasted, mostly supported by just water sips during the workout.
Race Fuelling
a. Carbo Loading
This was a struggle. (A longer rant here) For the desi in me, food in Chile was a culture shock, nay, a culture jolt. I just could not make sense of the food for the first couple of days. Add to it my linguistic disability and expensive food, for a lot of meals I was restricted to any recognisable names I could spot on the menu - hamburgers, steaks, pastas and risottos - mostly ordered from Uber Eats. But lucky for me, it was still all carbs and that was exactly what I needed to inject my glycogen stores with before the run.
I also went big on fruits, for they were the only edible items on the shelf I could easily identify and consume with surety.
And while all this was happening on one front, I was struck by the newness of the place and was exploring the city and walking huge distances on foot everyday. This meant that as I was trying to figure out on how to increase my calorie intake, I was also burning much more than I would usually do, creating an even greater deficit.
By now, I was convinced that I wanted to run the whole thing fasted - on zero carbs. And so, this phase became all the more important, since the stored energy from this loading phase was what I was relying on to get me through to the finish line.
b. D-1
Large portions of pasta, bananas every few hours and some bread with my meals!
c. D-Day
This one's easy. Nothing. Nada. Kept some salt tablets (that I had bought from the marathon expo) in my pocket and I was through with the race-diet checklist. I consumed a salt tablet every 45 minutes or so and picked up water from the aid stations.
Gatorade was the official sponsor of the run and so there were moments when I accidently picked up a gatorade instead of water but had to throw it away when I looked inside the cup. No glucose was consumed.
Sleep
I waited for two days and then triumphantly declared that I had successfully dodged jetlag altogether. I had moonwalked right into their time-zone and made it mine. Ended up sleeping well in the hostels and took a cheap private room the night before the marathon so I could ensure no disturbance at night. And it worked. I slept well and performed my morning race day rituals and there I was, at the starting line, in a sea of runners.
Psychology
Being a tourist on vacation in a beautiful country - I was in a state of elation since I had arrived. Sure, they were teething issues around diet and language, but they only added to the touristic thrill.
I was nervous about doing the marathon unfasted, but then again, I knew I wouldn't be hard on myself if things didn't go as I charted them out. There was intrinsic happiness to be harvested from just the fact that I was in Chile on a vacation. Not having a great run seemed inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.
Race Conditions
Course
A single loop of 42.2 kilometres, the route started from the centre of the city and would turn towards the east, take a turn north and then west again on Providencia, the most iconic boulevard of Santiago, before arriving at the finish line.
Elevation profile
Santiago, which lies at the foothills of the Andes mountains, is like a crooked house. There were two stretches of elevation - the first, a slight uphill gradient from 5k to 15k and then another from around 18k all the way to 33k, with a heavier gradient. To my relief, the last 10 kilometres to the finish line were on a decline.
Temperature
Oof! *chef's kiss*. 12-15 degrees with overcast weather. Gods, all of them, were in a good mood that Sunday.
The Race
With an overall target of 4h-4h15m, I decided I would start easy and get to the 25k mark on an easy Z2 pace. I would then assess if I was feeling fine being fasted and then buckle up the pace a little, also to counter the incline until 33k. If I felt fine at the end of 33k, I planned to start picking up pace and keep upping it, taking feedback from my body every now and then.
Km 1-25
As is usually the case, the atmosphere at the start line gave me an extra zip and I started well - quickly recalibrating my target to 4 hours or just under. I was running at a convenient pace - on the upper edge of Z2 but never really tipping over.
A bit bothered by other runners overtaking me, because it has usually been me who overtakes through the crowds at the start line, I did end up speeding here and there, getting swayed by the mood around, but I would then calm myself down and stick to my zone.
I would stop at every aid station to get a glass of water, even if I didn't need one.
I clocked an average pace of around 5m30s, which meant I was en course for a 3h55m-4h finish if my pace held. So far, so good. But it was the big and long incline stretch next.
Km 26-34
Emboldened by the great first half, I decided to increase the effort and move into Z3. This did not translate into a pace increase since this was the beginning of elevation gain on the course, and so the extra effort helped maintain the pace on the incline. The incline, while gradual but long and continuous, was not very pleasing to the legs.
I call these marathon kilometres the doldrums - the windless kilometres, where the highs of enthusiasm and adrenaline dry up. Time slows down and the miles feel longer. The very same atmosphere and charge is not stimulating enough anymore to give you a push like it did at the start. I had to put my head down and kept on choogling, one stride at a time.
It was also sometime during this period that I was just patting myself on the back for having done wonderfully so far not having taken any carbs so far, when a strong stray aroma of a cheesy pizza, probably from some nearby house or an eatery on the way, hit me like a wrecking ball.
It was a scene right from those cartoon shows, when the steam from food assumes a life, gets fingers, gets through your nostrils and sensually tempts you, as you levitate in the air, in a blissful stupor, towards the food. (this, if I wasn't articulate enough)
The aroma had gotten to me right at the moment of my vulnerability - not having had eaten anything since last night. I kept on running, REALLY wanting to eat but also knowing that the best time to have it was AFTER the finish line, as a treat-yo-self reward. Sounds like a comical situation, now that I think about it in hindsight.
Km 35-40
What goes up, comes down. Having finished the uphill kilometres, I was rewarded with the decline. With manageable soreness, the legs still felt fresh enough and the body wasn't asking for external carbs either. I figured it was time push the effort a bit. I entered zone 4, which translated into faster speed, which became even faster assisted by the downhill part. I was finally overtaking runners and that gave a nice little confidence boost.
I was, at times during this phase, skeptical of speeding too fast too soon and run into cramps, but my body signalled a thumbs-up at every pace change I changed my gears into. So I marched on!
Km 40+ (Strava link for the run)
I had covered 40 kilometres now, with the last 5 kilometres having gone much faster than the average.
Now this was the home stretch! Adrenaline was back! "Bring it home, son!". I could not help but launch myself into an even faster zone. I was running at sub 4:30s now, positively surprised how the body had held good getting me this far, so I could switch on the boosters for the last miles. I was chanting expletives in Hindi, loudly, under the pretext of pep-talking myself, knowing well no one around would understand.
I entered the last couple kilometres, and dug into even deeper reserves of energy I didn't know I had. I wondered how I was running this fast, much less in the 41st kilometre of a marathon. Food was not a concern now. Soreness of the legs was forgotten. My heartrate was an inconsequential number. I was in overdrive. Runners and volunteers and marshalls and policement were cheering the runners with screams and chants of "Vamos!" all around. Oh what a day! Oh what a lovely day!
I see the finish line now a few hundred metres ahead. I sprint for it. And I was past the finish line in 3h 44 minutes.
I hold back the barrage of emotions, collect a banana from a stand, then my medal and a bottle of Gatorade. I figure out a desolate corner and collapse with my tears, sobbing my guts out on a job well done. Time to go to a pizzeria.
The Blood Glucose Response : Running the Marathon Fasted
I have been guilty of writing some really long drawn articles, like this one (or this one), on analysing my glucose graph after races - mapping the timing of foods, their carbohydrate content and then using them to explain the variations in the curve.
But not this time.
Nuh, uh.
There was no food to map anything against. And it turns out, there were no variations. The glucose curve from the Santiago Marathon was a thing of beauty. It was so steady and flat, that looked at on it's own, without any context, I could not tell this graph from any other activity like working on my laptop or sitting in a cab.
Analyses of the curve
The blood sugar, which was a bit higher before the start of the race, probably from the excitement and anxiety before the race, came down in the Optimally-Fuelled range within 30 minutes. And then continued to stay within the range throughout the duration of the run - without any sharp spikes or dips.
This corroborates with my feeling during the run too. At no point did I feel like I was hitting the wall or that I needed to ingest carbs to keep going.
Observations
Running without consuming any calories, especially condensed carbohydrates like gels and Gatorade, spared the blood glucose from going on the sinusoidal roller-coaster.
I am inclined to believe that consumption of gels during a marathon is counter-productive to the cause, since it causes more doldrums in otherwise calm levels of blood glucose. After the first gel has been consumed, blood glucose spikes and then inevitably dips - both with sharp gradients. The consumption of second gel becomes a necessity in order to clean the mess left by the gel prior.
Might I also add that this held true for me in specific conditions - running in a specific zone for the majority of my run, weather not being hot or humid and I having trained fasted for a long time now, among others. Only more experimentation by different people, testing different scenarios can tell us more.
Possibly, the body was able to finance the massive energy needs of a marathon - all from the stored glucose and the fat reserves. This may be helped by the fact that I was running at my fat-max zone - the heart-rate/zone when fat becomes the most preferred fuel to finance your energy needs.
The absence of any spikes also indicates that there was no hepatic glucose release. The body did not push the panic bell at the door of the liver when the intensity of my effort increased significantly in the last 7-10 kilometres. A possible explanation is that training fasted over months led to better body adaptation for using and switching to other sources of fuel. It needs to be seen if I can maintain a similar curve when I increase the pace much earlier, and run the bulk of my run in Z3 instead of Z2. But we can leave that experiment for another race. For now, safe to say, the test worked wonders.
Heart Rate Reading
The HR stays consistent with the pace - steady for the first 3 quarters of the race (~155 bpm) and then has concomitant rise with the escalating running pace.
Organisation
Overall, I would rate the standards of organisation very highly. As a runner, it was smooth experience right from registration to reaching the start point and everything after. I discovered several things - different and/or better - that I had not seen in the marathons I had participated in before, in India.
Communication
There were several ways to figure out information about the marathon - website, mass-broadcast mails, the Santiago Marathon App and news articles and forum posts.
Important details were all communicated by mail to all the participants - start time, start point, transportation and other less important details and posts about volunteers, green initiatives, community involvement etc.. The app came in nice and handy, and I found it better equipped than the Tata Mumbai Marathon App. It had options to all the major details and then also to check results in the same interface, among other things.
Expo
I love spending time and wandering around in the marathon expos. One gets to browse through what's trending in the athletic community these days - from gear, to organsiation to diet and supplement interventions. The Santiago Marathon expo didn't disappoint either. It rented a big space in the middle of the city (an iconic railway station) and had stalls, displays and engagement gimmicks for kids and adults alike.
I was surprised that the bib didn't come printed with my name. Instead, they picked up the next bib in sequence and mapped the number against my name in their system with a barcode scanner. Saves them printing effort and I don't mind!
Runner Performance
I was also suprised to see how well the overall running was when I saw my ranking. I ranked 1282 out of 3371 full marathon runners, barely making it to the top 40% runners. By comparison, if I had clocked the same timing in Mumbai Marathon this year, I would rank around 700 in a field of 8757 runners, easily making it to top 10% of the field.
As a running population, I realised, we, Indians, have got a lot of catching up to do.
Race Day Arrangements
Reaching the venue - Good instructions on leaflets and website and it was accessible by metro. They actually started the metro lines earlier and that allowed a cheap and easy way for the runners to reach the start line, unlike in Mumbai where they have 1 special local train on each line for the day, but is of no help to the full marathon runners who have an earlier start time.
Start Time - The flag-off time for the full marathon was at 7:30 am. Yup, 7:30 am. The weather in the city in April is kind enough to allow the late starts. Compare it with the ungodly hours of start times of New Delhi marathon (4:15 am) and Mumbai Marathon (5 am), you can actually sleep well the night before the marathon in Santiago.
Aid Stations - Every aid stations had two drinks - Gatorade (the marathon title sponsors) and water. Good enough.
Road blockages - Roads were sealed blocked for 6 hours from the start of the time of marathon, except for the emergency vehicles.
The Event Alert System - This was something I hadn't seen before anywhere.
The color-coded Systema de Alerta de Eventos (SAE) would communicate the status of course conditions to participants before and on race day. Levels ranged from Low (green) to Moderate (yellow) to High (red) to Extreme (black), depending mainly on the weather, as well as other conditions.
Atmosphere
Probably the greatest selling point for me - the atmosphere had bloody VOLTAGE. It felt like all of Santiago had descended onto the streets to cheer for us. They put up posters cheering us on - power-up mushroom drawings, foam baseball fingers, Hi-5 cutouts and so much more. People had brought out their music stereos - blaring rock and thumping metal numbers.
The people had brought their toddlers, who insisted on Hi-5-ing every single runner they could, and even infants in their strollers in the streets to cheer for the 30,000 corredores.
I could spot runners - making them out from inscriptions on their donned vests - not just from all over Chile, but all of Latin America - Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia and even a few from Guatemala and Mexico.
And at moments when I would snap out of the people and the energy around me, I would realise where I was running - snow-covered Andes mountains in the background, in the streets where history had transpired - right from the times of Spanish Conquistadors to the modern glass skyscrapers of Santiago today.
En conclusión
Today was a good day. Now that it was all over, the decoration and banners were being brought down and confetti brushed off, I felt lucky that stars aligned for me that day, and they could very well have decided not to. Things could have been different, mostly for worse. But now that they weren't, I soldier on! Onto the rest of my trip!
Udayan is a part of the CapitalTrails community and can be followed on Medium.
Muy caliente senor Indio