Time for the next one!

Two days ago I registered for my next Half Marathon (Thats right! I did!). This time its a trail run as opposed to running on the road. This Chennai Trail Marathon has been called the toughest course in South India and takes place in the villages & hills surrounding the Cholavaram lake by Red Hills on the outskirts of Chennai. 

I have been seeing pictures of the runs held in the past years and it looked beautiful! I was tempted to join but being so far out and not having anyone to go with, I had sort of decided I wouldn't register. But on Tuesday some of these guys from Nungambakkam Nitros said they were going so then I figured why not. 

I did get some fair warning from Mudit, one of the runners in the group, that it was a tough, tough route. He said I should expect to finish my run in half an hour to 45 minutes later than my last half marathon time! Ooh Daunting!! Wouldn't hurt to try though right?

That there is my training schedule for CTM. The "Hill" Workouts are going to be with the Nungambakkam Nitros on the Cathedral Road Flyover. It sounds a bit risky to me but I guess the group knows what they are doing. The race organizers have also arranged for practice runs on the actual trail over some of the weekends in August & September. May try to squeeze one of those in into my schedule.

Okay... so here we go again!

My Foot!

I find that my feet are the most vulnerable to injuries and soreness after the run. While (touchwood) my knees have never given me any issues in all my running my feet are often tired, sore or achy especially after long runs. 

When I walk, my feet are naturally cross footed and the same applies to when I run. (Very clear to see in these pics below.) I think thats the main cause of the strange aches around the ankles that I feel.

I've been reading up on exercises to strengthen the foot muscles and not surprisingly there are quite a few of them out there. I really like this article from Breaking Muscle and the exercises described in this article from Sports Injury Clinic. This article from Active is meant for tennis players but I think it has great use as general advice for the feet and plus it also has other links to great feet articles.

I must try and incorporate some of these foot exercises on a regular basis. 

The Nungambakkam Nitros

After much facebook crawling I found a chapter of Chennai Runners that run in Nungambakkam (called the Nungambakkam Nitros) and I joined them today.

Running with others (as I had previously discovered) is phenomenally better for me than just running by myself. This group has a good mix of beginner & seasoned runners and they meet on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays every week for organized training sessions. Trying to keep pace with the faster runners really helped me improve my pace.

They start their runs at Haddows Park and today the easy recovery run was done till the over-bridge on Cathedral Road and back to Haddows Park - a total of 5 km. Adding the 1.7 k jog from my place to Haddows park makes my run total of 6.7 k on a day that I had planned to rest and take it easy.

It was a good run followed by a quick coffee session at Raj Bhavan which was fun, light and quite informative too. No one in my immediate friends circle is into running so it felt great to be part of conversations centered around running.

I hope this is the beginning of something awesome!

Now to Get Better

I'm still riding my runner's high from having completed my first half marathon yesterday. I still can't believe I did it!

The site has posted the results and here they are...

While I'm still thrilled with my run, as timings go, I think there is plenty of scope for improvement. The top times for women this year were 1:35:08, 1:46:08 and 1:50:57. With every half marathon I complete from now I want to improve my timing by at least 10 minutes until I can finish it under 2:00. But now I think I should take my training up a notch and join a running club where I could train better and benefit from the advice of experienced runners.

So the hunt for a running club is now on!

I Did It!!!! :-)

Run a Half Marathon : Check!!! :-)

I did it! I ran 21.1k and did not die... :-) :-) :-) Absolutely thrilled to bits.

Had a carb-heavy meal at 6:30 and then went to sleep at 7:30 last night. Woke up early at 3:00 am had a light meal of toast and banana and a coffee by 3:30. Got into my gear for the run (which was already laid out and set the previous evening) and was out the door by 4:20. Reached the venue well in time at 4:40. Took a selfie (of course!) with the hubby (who was running the 10k) and joined the starting line-up - ready for the flag-off.

I had spotted my 2:30 pacer and was all set to run with that lot. The Flag-off was on time. There was a 40 sec countdown to the 5:00 am start and we were off. Err... sort of off. Everyone literally shuffled towards the start line. It took me a minute to get to the start line but even after that, the route was packed with runners and for the next 200 meters I was slow jogging in a sea of runners. Once we hit Eliotts Beach Road there was more room to breathe and space to run. But of course by this time I had completely lost sight of my pacer.

I had decided to take it nice and easy (being my first run and all) and ran unhurriedly just enjoying the sights and doing lots of  "people-watching" along the way. Somewhere on the Rajiv Gandhi IT expressway, I saw the pacers again on their return leg. I watched the 2:00, 2:10, 2:20 and 2:30 pacers pass by. The 2:30 pacer was ahead by a good kilometer or two but I spotted the 2:40 pacer up just a little distance away from me. 

I found myself finishing the 10k mark, and then the 15k mark still feeling strong. I did not experience the omg-I'm-gonna-die feeling that I had experienced during my previous two 10k races. I had followed all the race day tips and first time half marathon running tips that I had been reading up on and found myself finishing strong with absolutely no aches and pains and feeling like I could run another five kilometers. My official finishing time was 2:45:30. I am absolutely pleased with myself and couldn't be happier with the experience.of my First Half Marathon. I can't believe I did it!!

I'm not signing up for a Full Marathon in a hurry but there definitely will be more Halfs in my near future.

Race Route

Dream Runners have finally posted the race route for tomorrow!

The Map isn't very clear and the route is illegible in most places but it serves the purpose. Of course my obsessive, nerd brain had to analyse the route on Google Maps to get a real sense of the distance. And OMG is it daunting!

I even broke the route down into smaller segments so at every turn I will know approximately how much I've covered and how much is left to go. :-). Just had to.

I will have my Nike+ app with me but sometimes its not so accurate.

I have butterflies in my stomach already and I have started imagining pains around my feet and ankles... :-) Can't wait!

1 more day to go!

Fueling Through

While I was training for my 10K, fueling was not a concern. Most of my runs were under an hour and all I needed was to hydrate. I would keep a bottle of water at the lobby of my apartment and stop there for a quick drink in between my rounds. I only needed to hydrate every 3-4 hours and I would take a few sips (probably 100 - 150 ml) every time I stopped.

At the beginning of my half marathon training I did a lot of reading up on running tips, good running form etc. On all the forums you are advised that just hydration is not enough on runs that last longer than an hour because the longer you go and the more you sweat, the body loses a lot of salts and must be replaced with suitable electrolytes. Most of my research advocated sport gels and fancy sport drinks and being American websites, the products recommended were also mostly American which are of course not available here. 

I was very nervous when beginning and truly wondered that the lack of these sport gels in my system at the start and during my run would seriously affect it or worse prevent me from going the distance. I definitely didn't want to "bonk" having read a lot of articles on what it was like to hit the wall and feel like you just can't go on.

However I use a quick fix drink during my long runs which has served me well. About 4 Tablespoons of Glucon D and a teaspoon of table salt mixed in a 600ml bottle of water does the trick! Glucon D has been around in India for ages and is very accessible. So on my long runs I keep two bottles one with this drink and one with plain water. 

I'm not sure what the organizers of the run will have at the aid/water stations. The race website said "isotonic sport drinks" - I'm wondering if I'll be okay with that. They will also have high energy fruits like banana at these stations, but I've never eaten during the middle of a run so am not going to try it now.

Fueling also involves what you eat on the night before and the morning of the run. The body will need enough carbs to store as glycogen in the muscles to power you through the run. There is only so much that the muscles can store - so somewhere during your run when these stores get depleted is when lactic acid builds up in the muscles leading you to bonk.

Usually I eat rice and curry the night before a long run or pasta which has worked fine so far. In the morning (45 - 30 min before the run) I have a banana, maybe some chocolate and definitely a cup of coffee.

I've read lots of interesting articles on fueling for a run including this very colourful & visual one from BBC Good Food which I found most helpful.

2 more days to go!!

Almost There!

Today was my last run before the Half Marathon. Over the next couple of days its going to be just light exercise & lots of stretching to get the body rested and ready for running the 21.1k. Maybe I'll even get a good foot massage done today.

My outdoor runs are usually in and around the Nungambakkam area where I live. Kothari Road & Sterling Roads are nice stretches of road to run on and there are usually other runners and walkers out in the early morning which is nice. I plan a circuit of about 2 to 2.5k before I start a run and do about 3 to 5 rounds of it depending on the target distance. Sometimes when I feel the need to change it up a bit, I explore other lanes and new routes but mostly this is my go-to route. When I need a longer circuit I use College Road & Haddows Road both of which are nice long stretches. Whatever the route though, I have to be very careful that I'm facing the traffic so as not to get run down from behind! :-). And yes there is traffic even at 5:00 am,

The Half Marathon will be run in and around the Besant Nagar and Adyar Area like last time - still waiting for the race route map. 

3 Days to Go!!!

How Long, How Fast?

My primary goal for this race is to just finish. Having said that, I do have a time goal at the back of my mind. The goal is not set in stone just because I don't want to be disappointed if I don't meet it and take away the joy at having completed my first half marathon.

Last year, the podium finishing times (women's) for the half marathon was 01:34:21, 1:35:15 and 01:41:28. These are some incredible times and I seriously doubt that I will ever be able to run that fast. Like Ever!

Going by the time & pace of my longest training run thus far (19.5k in 2:20:42) I should be able to finish the Half Marathon distance in a time of 2:31:55 which I would be very thrilled with. My training run times have always been better than my race times so its probably going to take me longer than that. Bets anyone?

The organizers have set pacers for various finishing times and I'm thinking of hopping on the 2:30 bus. I've never run with a pacer before but like the idea of it.

4 days to go and I can hardly wait!

Ready and Set to Go

I registered for the Dream Runners Half Marathon on the 6th of April this year. I figured that would give me plenty of time to train well and run the distance of 21.1k when the day arrived.

I started training mid April (for the run scheduled for July end) based on a schedule I created after hours of research. I wanted a schedule with only 3-4 days of running with 2-3 days of cross training.

Most of the schedules I came across were for seasoned runners had you running on all the days with no options for cross-training like this one I found on Cool Running but was good in terms of the progression and variation in run types.

I really liked Hal Higdon's training schedule for the cross training and rest it includes but didn't like that it didn't allow for tapering in the last couple of weeks leading to the run. In the end my schedule was a mash up between his schedule and this one that I found on Runner's World.

And this is what it looks like...

On Week 7, I had to stray from the original schedule (shown in grey) because I was travelling. I sort of lost the momentum a little after that disastrous week and found myself running indoors (denoted on the chart by an (i) next to the distance) very often mostly because I couldn't get out of bed early enough. I did make sure that at least on Saturdays, the day of the long run, I woke up early enough to run out on the roads.

I also included more runs in the last few weeks in an attempt to increase my miles per week.

I've got 5 more days to go to the big run and hope this training has been enough to see me through the distance...

So Many Miles To Go

I've been running earnestly now for the past year and a half and it occurred to me that I have no record or log of my experience as a runner except for the activity history on my Nike+ app. I imagine that at some point I would find such an account useful. Or maybe somebody else would.

Like many others I started running as a means by which to shed the excess weight I had packed on. But on my very first run I realized I loved it and knew that I would continue running even if I were to become skinny as a rail. This was back in Jan 2013. I started out right in front of my apartment where I would circle the building a few times. One round is approximately 150 meters. I weighed 72 kilos at the time and was so unfit that on my first run, I couldn't even complete half a round of the building.

For a month I kept at it alternating between running and walking and gradually I was able to run about four or five rounds at a stretch. I realize now that the pathway around my building was probably the worst place to run because it was paved with concrete blocks and being badly maintained was uneven in places and on the whole a very poor surface to run on. I used to get terrible pain on my shins thanks to that. Also, I was running in shoes which I had bought for the gym and general work-outs and I'm pretty sure they weren't made for hard running.

Back then I had no clue about pace and interval training and fartleks and what not (I'm still pretty clueless) and I also did not bother to read up on running as a sport or access the world of information out there on running and training properly. I don't remember exactly why (the shin pain and lack of information being likely causes) but after a couple of months I stopped with the running and switched to Zumba and Tae Bo instead to lose weight.

About a year later (and 12 kilos lighter), my friend Mallika got me enthused about a race called Pinkathon. Essentially a "fun" race organized to promote awareness and detection of breast cancer, Pinkathon is meant only for women participants. I signed up for the 5K distance completely motivated and inspired by Mallika and began running again. This time I took it slightly more serious. I invested in a pair of Puma running shoes, downloaded the Nike+ app and ran every alternate day for about half an hour covering a distance of  4 to 4.5 kilometers.

The run was held on March 8th, Women's Day and it was a really great experience. I finished my 5K in 34:08 but what really stood out was the experience of running with thousands of women and being cheered on by random strangers. I felt like I had achieved something momentous.

On the very same day of the 5K I registered myself for a 10K event organized by a Chennai based group, Dream Runners. The run was scheduled for June 22nd which gave me enough time to train. I began my training with great enthusiasm but it was quite disorganized and uninformed to say the least. To sum up my training, I just ran as much as possible whenever I felt like it. As a result, I suffered many injuries (most of which I could have avoided by just stretching properly post & pre run) including a very painful and awkward groin pull, an ankle injury and many minor others. I also developed a very strange recurring issue with my foot (I looked all over the internet but didn't come across anything similar). It was a pain right behind my toes and hurt all the way to the balls of the foot. If I stopped running the pain would go away over time and come right back when I resumed running.

Thankfully none of the injuries were serious enough to keep me from running on the day of the event. The run started off well enough but by the time I had crossed the 4 km mark my strange-foot-pain returned. I ofcourse continued running with it but it became more painful with each passing kilometer and I had slowed down to a slow jog the last kilometer. But heres the awesome part about running in an event with thousands of others - the last 200 meters or so of the course is filled with cheering spectators yelling out encouragement and you can't help but give it your all. The last 200 meters I ran my fastest possible and crossed the finish line feeling elated (runners high? maybe). I clocked 1:19:43 - 10 minutes longer than my worst training time but it was okay. I was still pretty kicked.

Here's something I learnt from that race. Baggy pants for running - terrible idea. I had chafed so badly that both my inner thighs looked like they had been burnt and stayed that way for a week. My foot continued to hurt for another week but slowly disappeared with rest.

I had big plans of doing a half marathon later that year in December. But good sense prevailed and I decided to do another 10K instead. I only ran sporadically in July and August and once I was sure that my foot was ok, I started training in September. This time round I did some research online and looked up training schedules by professional trainers and runners. I really liked the beginner training program by Hal Higdon and tweaked it a little to suit my fitness level and schedule.

By November I had figured it wouldn't be possible to take part in the race so all training came to a complete stop.

I started running again in January. I didn't have a race to look forward to but I stuck to the 10K training schedule that I had worked out previously. Sometime in March I got to know that Pinkathon was holding its 2nd event in Chennai on April 12th. I registered for the 10K this time around. Since my training was going well anyways, I really had no worries. I got a couple of my friends enthused as well so had lots of company going for the run.

In the last couple of weeks leading up to the event, my friend, Nishani joined me in training. Running with a friend is so much more fun than running alone. Its not like we were chatting away or exchanging gossip mid-run but having someone run along side you pushes you on and keeps you motivated which is great.

April in Chennai is sweltering hot. By 6:30 am the temperature is already 30 degrees plus. The race started late. It was 6:00 a.m (my training was always during 5:00 to 6:00 a.m) when the 10K runners were flagged off and midway through the run, the sun was beating down in fury and I felt it acutely. Had to hydrate more than usual and that led to wanting to pee badly which is a major distraction when you run. I finished the run in 1:11:05 which was not bad given the torturous weather.

A few days before the race I had registered for my first half marathon. The thought itself was daunting to me. After Pinkathon it felt even more daunting because I had felt completely exhausted and depleted by the end of the 10K itself. And a half marathon is more than double the distance!

I've been training somewhat diligently for the past 16 weeks and the event is a week from now. Its the 4th edition of the Dream Runners HM and I'm excited and nervous as the event draws close.

Watch this space.