You know it been a good year when your home run, the Dubai Marathon does not feature in the title of the year-ender!

The Dubai Marathon in January of 2018 was a harbinger of things to come. A good one at that. It was supposed to be treated as more of a training run in the running plan made out for me by my dear friend and de facto coach Mohandas Putthukattil, himself an accomplished runner and always humble and happy to share his immense knowledge. To me, he symbolizes the essence of the running fraternity. Getting a structured training plan emphasizing quality over quantity meant I improved on my personal best by over 30 minutes and finished the run as targeted both in terms of pace per kilometre as well as the heart rate despite the humidity in the last hour. That run helped me realize that it was possible for me to keep following a pace as long as an expert could actually figure out what target I should be aiming for.