Run Update 29.11.2015

This morning's run felt brutal! When my alarm got me out of bed at 4:15, I had had only 3 hours and 45 minutes of sleep. I was determined to run today and got ready despite feeling extremely sleep deprived. This was a bad idea in itself but to top it off, I didn't have any bananas - my usual pre-run energy snack - on hand at home and so had decided to run on an empty stomach. Some experts on weight-loss recommend running or working out in a fasted state for increased fat burning... but no one, absolutely NO ONE would recommend it for running long distances. My goal was 19.5k. 

Sleep deprived, feeling dehydrated and absolutely depleted of energy, I trudged through kilometer after kilometer  - yes, like a crazy person. The first 7k were ok... the pleasant weather made for easy running and I was going at a pace considerably slower than my last couple of LSDs. I had covered 7.5k by the time I reached the beach and the sea breeze and the lovely being-at-the-beach feeling kept me going till my half-way point. 

At 9.75k, I forced myself to take a long pause. By this time, the only thing that was keeping me going was my energy drink in my fuel belt - my sugar & salt water concoction. I took the opportunity to take my first ever "running selfie", a few deep breaths and a little stretching before deciding to plod on. 

I ran the entire stretch of Marina Beach Walkway and back (6k) and felt better when I came to the beginning of the return leg of my route. I was at 13.5k at this point and I don't really know how. I think I was sleep-running by this point and my pace was at an all-time low. To make things worse, it was around 8:00, the sun was out nice and bright making it uncomfortable weather to run in. At 16k, and afraid that I would pass out otherwise, I slowed down into a walk to complete the target distance. 

I just about managed to crawl up the stairs to my apartment and somehow did my cooling down stretches and within about half an hour's time collapsed into deep sleep.

Never Again.

Being Bad

My training schedule is looking pretty dismal these days with a lot more red crosses than green ticks.

I've not been out there running hugely because of the way the weather has been but - and here I must confess - also a little because of my laziness... For instance, today was perfectly good weather for a run but I just didn't feel like getting out of bed. I gave myself a mental talking-to and I did get up the motivation to squeeze in some indoor running drills before my hectic day swallowed up all of my time.

My insanity 60-day workout program has been an utter failure... Most of the time I can barely get through the 30 - 40 minute workout. I think I will give another crack at it in the new year.

The Dusk 2 Dawn Night Marathon has been postponed to a later date thanks to the weather forecast for 28th & 29th. I'm being very hopeful here and am thinking of getting in my 19.5k (which I missed last weekend) on Saturday morning. Stay tuned.

Less Than 4 Weeks to Go

There is less than 4 weeks to go for the Chennai Marathon. 

To recap, I had planned for it sometime in September giving me about 13 weeks to train for my second half marathon. My training plan looked good starting out. I had scheduled 4 weeks of warming up (with 2 runs a week) - to fully recover from my foot injury followed by 9 weeks of "proper training". This part of the schedule had me running 3 times per week with an LSD (Long Slow Distance to clarify - standard runner lingo) on the weekends progressing each week by a kilometer and a half. 

At the end of my warming-up period, I registered for the race feeling confident that my foot was coping fine and that it was fully recovered. That not being the case, I found myself having to cut down my running days. By Mid-October (and several tweaks & re-tweaks to the schedule later), I was running just once run a week - the long one over the weekends. To sum up, I'm 9 weeks in and I have only gone on 11 runs since my "training" started - in contrast to the 25 runs that I was meant to have done by now. My total training distance to date is 87.6 k instead of the 231 k that I would have racked up if the original plan was to have been followed.

The misbehaving foot, the rains, and the general being-a-lazy-bum-ness have all contributed more or less equally to this low-key training. 

Just for fun I googled "running half marathon with no training" and came across quite a few articles by runners who had done just that... I loved this one particular blog post and thought it was quite humorously written. The search also threw up a lot more articles on why it was a bad idea to run a half marathon with little to no training. 

Come December 13th, I will be standing at the start line. I am hoping that all the LSDs that I've been consistently (more-or-less) running will ultimately count and that I will be able to see the distance through.

#fingerscrossed

Run Update 14.11.2015

I was hoping against hope that it wouldn't rain this morning. Even though it had rained all through Friday (and crazy amounts at that!) right up till bedtime, I still had a teeny tiny hope that it would dry up by morning. And what do you know? 4:30 am and the skies were clear(ish) and most of the water on the roads had dried up. 

It was late by the time I started (5:45) and it took me 2 hrs and 1 minute to complete my goal of 17k (walked an extra 400 meters to get home - I'm not counting that extra 0.40) yet, woo hoo! I felt awesome at the end of it! I had to be a stick-in-the-mud last night and stay at home while my friends were partying but it was so totally worth it!

I ran an extended version of my usual to-Marina-Beach-&-back route which included a bonus 3 km stretch along the beach. That turned out to be the best part of today's run. The weather was perfect - pleasant, not too humid and so breezy! Alongside the Marina Beach Promenade, and straddling the wide sandy beach, the rains had created a temporary inland water body which though probably icky looked very pretty rippling away in the morning breeze. There were many points along this 3k stretch when I wished my phone wasn't strapped on and that I could click a few pics but I had to satisfy myself by just taking in the sights and I kept running along.

It was an OK run - not helped by the fact that I had gotten just 4 hours sleep the previous night but I loved it all the same.

Running Drills

We've been seeing crazy incessant rains here in Chennai for the past week or so. I missed my long run on the weekend and all this week I've been getting up early in the hopes of doing a short tempo run only to end up standing in the balcony gazing at the bucket-loads pouring out from the sky. I usually wait around for a couple of hours in the vain hope that the rains would let up enough for a quick dash and invariably would find myself crawling back under the covers by around 6:30 with the rains still going strong.

Apparently there are a few strange souls in the city who like running in the rains and if you are crazy enough to get out in these rains and if you find yourself sploshing along through the mucky puddles, you might come across a few other crazy runners from my running group braving the weather in the name of training. I love running. But not this much.

But still, I couldn't just let my training schedule get all those red crosses, so today when it poured like it has been for the past so many days, I decided to do a running drill at home and ignored the calls of my warm bed. 

I did a 30 minute workout of Jogging, Butt-kicks, High Knees and Fast Feet in a 2 1/2 easy + 30 sec intense combo. According to my Nike+ App that was the equivalent of 4.28 k run. I'm counting that! I completed the workout at an easy-medium effort - but hey, it sure beats not-running. 

Run Update 31.10.15

When the alarm went off at 4:30 yesterday morning, it took all my will power and then some more to not crawl right back into bed. And as luck would have it, none of my usual running gear was washed and for the second time since the alarm went off I considered falling back into bed. Sleep deprived and feeling very low on motivation, I found myself changing my mind even as I stepped out the door. "Lets at least do 3k", I told myself and somehow, talked myself into hitting the road.

Once I hit the road though, my mood changed entirely. It was the perfect weather for a run. It had rained all night and the air was clean, with a crisp, cool breeze blowing throughout the route. I felt completely on top of the world as I ran through my route, passing the familiar scenery and jumping over the thousands of tiny little puddles that had been left behind by the rains. I finished 3k and then another 11k - finishing the 14k as per my training schedule at a decent average pace. I felt super at the end of the run. I should hold on to the memory of that feeling for the next time I feel like not running.

Woohoo! Next Week 16k