CTM training is going full swing and its been so far so good. Pretty high on motivation and I'm trying to keep the momentum going. I am also being very careful not to injure myself - making sure I don't skip my warm ups & squeezing in a lot of stretching throughout my day. Here are my run updates for the week.
Monday was Fartlek day. Its been a long while since I've run a Fartlek. For me, running a Fartlek routine is as fun as the name sounds. The running term is derived from the Swedish word meaning Speed Play. Basically you break up your run by incorporating short bursts of high-speed sprints. There are no specific rules, you can go as fast as you want for whatever distance you want. For example, full-on speed from this lamp post to that tree or super-fast till I catch up to those two walkers over there... :-)
I broke up my 5K distance by adding approximately 200 meters of fast running for every 800 meters run. I did this because very conveniently Kothari Road has a nice "box" of lanes with each leg working out to around 200 meters. After the fast stretch, the next 600 meters was done at a relatively slow jog to allow me to catch my breath. 5 rounds of that plus a 700m warm-up run and a 300 m cool-down jog made up my 5K and very neatly dropped me off at my door step. Despite of the fast bursts where I was going at around a 5'30" pace, the average pace of the run wound up at a moderate 7'09"
Wednesday was supposed to be a Tempo Run 3K x 2. I always seem to get these wrong. A Tempo run is meant to be run at an effort or pace slightly higher than race effort. Basically fast, but not too fast. So a light effort 3K for me would be run in 22:00 - 23:30 minutes, a medium in 20:30 - 22:00 minutes and a high in 19:00 - 20:30.
I started off my first 3K too fast. I was supposed to have targeted 19:30 but I would have finished it in about 18:00 minutes had I been able to sustain that pace for the whole distance. I realized my folly pretty soon and so mid-run decided to switch my tempo workout to an interval workout of 1K x 6.
I did 1K at 6:02, 2K by 12:02, 3K by 18:09 and 4K by 24:09 with about 3 - 4 minutes of rest between each interval. I was depleted by 4K but decided to attempt the 5th K. I had to cut it short at 4.5K. Was still a pretty good work out. Managed to maintain a pretty consistent pace averaging about 6'02" and am pretty pleased with that.
For some technical know-how here's an article describing the difference between a fartlek, a tempo & an interval run.
Friday was meant to be a hill workout. Hill workouts add resistance and push your endurance. You are forced to run at a harder effort while running uphill though your pace will probably drop. There aren't any hills within the city so most of the runners use the fly-overs to incorporate hill workouts in their training - which there are plenty of. Hill workouts are especially important for me right now since the CTM run is definitely not going to be on a flat terrain and it would help to add some elevation to my running route.
The last time I did a Hill work out was with the Nungambakkam Nitros last year - post which I had my peroneal tendon injury. Safe to say I never attempted flyover repeats after that. Come Thursday night I had a brainwave to do a stairs workout instead of the flyover repeats which would also save me the trouble of running the 4K distance till the cathedral road flyover.
My building has five flights of stairs and my workout simply involved sprinting up and down these stairs for about 30 minutes, resting for a few seconds every time I felt winded (which was very frequent). I felt that it was a good workout judging by the effort I had to put in and how soon I felt tired. Given that it was the first time I was doing this, I was very cautious and didn't try anything tricky. There are many benefits for this type of workout and lots of variations you could try as a quick internet search will reveal. I liked this one stairs workout which I might try the next time. I also found this pretty in-depth post on using staircase workouts to condition your body in different ways which I'm linking for future reference.
Before I started my staircase workout, I ran a fast 1K up and down Kothari Road as a warm-up. My "fast" run took me 6 minutes - I didn't push myself very hard. Plus this 1K "dash" was also meant to serve as a break-in run for my new shoes.
Earlier in the week I had bought a pair of Puma shoes especially for the CTM run because I'm very "my-precious" about my other On pair and don't want to ruin them on the trail run. This time I made sure I bought a size larger than my previous Pumas which had given me those terrible toenail woes.
This new pair seems good - has reasonable cushioning and flexibility. There is enough wiggle room in the front for the toes. Not tight nor pinching anywhere. I will have to take it on a couple of more runs before CTM to fully break it in. I'm hoping that switching between two pairs will not lead to any complications.
Today (Sunday) I was scheduled for a moderate-easy pace 12K lsd. My legs were all kinds of sore from Friday's stairs workout and I knew before I started itself that it was a tough ask. The plan was to run till Marina and back. When I got to Marina it was very pleasant and breezy so I decided to continue along the promenade. At the end when I came to the MGR memorial I decided to go in and explore the gardens there. It has always looked pretty but till date I had never ventured in. I had completed 9K at this point at an easy to slow pace. I had decided to finish the balance 3K with a walk/run combo. So after exiting the memorial gardens I was walking back along the promenade when impulsively I decided to get off the walkway and make my way back across the beach.
The Marina beach is wide. From the walkway to the water is about 300 or 400 meters of beachiness. I very quickly learned that my On shoes were not made for walking on the beach and soon "my precious" was filled with sand. I tried to get as quickly as I could to the water where the sand would be more packed and easier to walk / run on. Even on the wet, packed sand it was tough to run along since the beach sloped down to the sea so you were running at a weird angle. To make matters worse, just a few seconds after I reached the waters edge, a nice little wave lapped up my shoes. Such a bad idea!
So I took off my shoes (and socks) and ran/walked along the water's edge barefoot. It was so much fun! Definitely the most relaxed "run" that I've ever had. Then it came time to put my wet feet back into my shoes. Did. Not. Think. This. Through!
My shoes look a mess now but I'm sure they'll clean up well. Post Run, I iced my feet and all my sore muscles. I feel good and relaxed and ready to take on week 3.
Friday was meant to be a hill workout. Hill workouts add resistance and push your endurance. You are forced to run at a harder effort while running uphill though your pace will probably drop. There aren't any hills within the city so most of the runners use the fly-overs to incorporate hill workouts in their training - which there are plenty of. Hill workouts are especially important for me right now since the CTM run is definitely not going to be on a flat terrain and it would help to add some elevation to my running route.
The last time I did a Hill work out was with the Nungambakkam Nitros last year - post which I had my peroneal tendon injury. Safe to say I never attempted flyover repeats after that. Come Thursday night I had a brainwave to do a stairs workout instead of the flyover repeats which would also save me the trouble of running the 4K distance till the cathedral road flyover.
My building has five flights of stairs and my workout simply involved sprinting up and down these stairs for about 30 minutes, resting for a few seconds every time I felt winded (which was very frequent). I felt that it was a good workout judging by the effort I had to put in and how soon I felt tired. Given that it was the first time I was doing this, I was very cautious and didn't try anything tricky. There are many benefits for this type of workout and lots of variations you could try as a quick internet search will reveal. I liked this one stairs workout which I might try the next time. I also found this pretty in-depth post on using staircase workouts to condition your body in different ways which I'm linking for future reference.
Before I started my staircase workout, I ran a fast 1K up and down Kothari Road as a warm-up. My "fast" run took me 6 minutes - I didn't push myself very hard. Plus this 1K "dash" was also meant to serve as a break-in run for my new shoes.
Earlier in the week I had bought a pair of Puma shoes especially for the CTM run because I'm very "my-precious" about my other On pair and don't want to ruin them on the trail run. This time I made sure I bought a size larger than my previous Pumas which had given me those terrible toenail woes.
This new pair seems good - has reasonable cushioning and flexibility. There is enough wiggle room in the front for the toes. Not tight nor pinching anywhere. I will have to take it on a couple of more runs before CTM to fully break it in. I'm hoping that switching between two pairs will not lead to any complications.
Today (Sunday) I was scheduled for a moderate-easy pace 12K lsd. My legs were all kinds of sore from Friday's stairs workout and I knew before I started itself that it was a tough ask. The plan was to run till Marina and back. When I got to Marina it was very pleasant and breezy so I decided to continue along the promenade. At the end when I came to the MGR memorial I decided to go in and explore the gardens there. It has always looked pretty but till date I had never ventured in. I had completed 9K at this point at an easy to slow pace. I had decided to finish the balance 3K with a walk/run combo. So after exiting the memorial gardens I was walking back along the promenade when impulsively I decided to get off the walkway and make my way back across the beach.
The Marina beach is wide. From the walkway to the water is about 300 or 400 meters of beachiness. I very quickly learned that my On shoes were not made for walking on the beach and soon "my precious" was filled with sand. I tried to get as quickly as I could to the water where the sand would be more packed and easier to walk / run on. Even on the wet, packed sand it was tough to run along since the beach sloped down to the sea so you were running at a weird angle. To make matters worse, just a few seconds after I reached the waters edge, a nice little wave lapped up my shoes. Such a bad idea!
So I took off my shoes (and socks) and ran/walked along the water's edge barefoot. It was so much fun! Definitely the most relaxed "run" that I've ever had. Then it came time to put my wet feet back into my shoes. Did. Not. Think. This. Through!
My shoes look a mess now but I'm sure they'll clean up well. Post Run, I iced my feet and all my sore muscles. I feel good and relaxed and ready to take on week 3.
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