Run Update

I got back to running on Wednesday after my half marathon on Sunday. I got out pretty late in the morning (6:00 am) for a 30 minute, easy, "recovery" run. Recovery runs are meant to be light, short distance runs to ease you back into your training. Being able to get back to running 3 days post the half marathon has to mean that my run was a strong one. Its a good sign.

The recovery run went well enough. Covered 4.3k in the time of 30 minutes at a relaxed pace of 7'00". The morning heat is always a bother but just something that you have to deal with while running in Chennai.

I have a weekend of hill running and trekking with my running gang coming up this weekend. We're taking a trip to Yercaud and the weather is supposedly much more pleasant there. Looking forward to some good running.

Race Day - DRHM2017

Yesterday had me running my first half for the year (and most likely my last one for the year too). The weather was 35 degrees C and the humidity at 63% (I am talking 6 a.m). It was not an easy run. Even at 4:30 when the race was flagged off, it was hot and stuffy without even the slightest whiff of a breeze (even though the initial stretch was along the beach). 

I tried desperately to keep my pace just under 7'00" the whole time in order to get to the finish line in under 150 minutes and thereby PB. And I did manage that more or less for the first 15 kilometers. In fact when I reached the halfway point at 1:12, I actually kidded myself into thinking it was possible. But with the rising sun, it got exceedingly tough and I had to stop at every aid station to hydrate and sip on electrolytes (which made me want to pee - to add to my misery). 

At around the 16k mark (after several why-am-I-doing-this-moments) I actually got to my give-up point. Its true what you read - long distance running actually has nothing to do with how physically able you are. It is really all about your mind. Ten thousand stories I had to tell myself to just get one foot in front of the other. (Perhaps in another post I'll retell them). Honestly its a miracle I got to the finish line.

Turning that last corner and seeing the giant red clock hanging in front of you a mere hundred meters away is an indescribable feeling. Its over. You're done. From nowhere there is a surge of energy that just takes you forward. I always love sprinting that last 100 meters or so. Its worth it. Even if it means not feeling anything waist below for a while after that.

Post race it was nice catching up with some of my running buddies and the personalized medals were a nice touch too! 

Even though I was 4 minutes away from a PB, I was still damn kicked with my time and the fact that I pushed myself through it. I know I gave it my all and thats all I could ask for. Everytime I run, I'm just trying to beat myself. So theres always a next time and theres always scope to win - whether its at an event or otherwise.

Week 8 DRHM Training - Race Week

Tomorrow I'm going to be running my first half marathon in nearly 9 months and to be honest, I'm a little nervous. Chalk it down to my nervous energy maybe but I've checked off all my pre-race activities that normally take me the whole day.

Collect bib & race kit - DONE
Clean Shoes - DONE
Sort out Race Gear - DONE
Take Picture of Race Gear & Post on Instagram - DONE
Buy Bananas, Peanut Butter for pre race snack - DONE
Stretching / Yoga - DONE
Figure out transport to Race Venue - DONE
Suss out race route - DONE
Sort Music - DONE

Yep. Its been a productive morning.

During the week I have been allowing the butterfly population in my stomach grow. Been doing some strength training and ran a short 3K (sans music, sans gadgets - it was weird!) which should have helped with the breeding insects but everytime I thought of the race or read a notification or post about it, they just kept multiplying unheeded.

Which brings me back to today. Jittery. So jittery.

I worked out the route on google maps against the rather skeletal plan published by the event organizers. I did it mainly so I could mentally visualize the kilometer markers and know the distance covered during the race just in case my app froze (which it does quite often).

My working shows the route to be only around 19K. I worked it out as per the landmarks given on their map. Start at Olcott school, turn down 4th avenue, down Elliots beach, back up 5th Avenue, along 3rd & Besant Avenue, to Adyar circle, then Madhya Kailash, then Tidel Park, loop back to Adyar, cross the Adyar Bridge run along MRC Nagar (three little loops there), back along Adyar bridge, Besant Avenue, 3rd Avenue and finish back at Olcott School.  

I can understand my workings to be off by a couple of hundred meters maybe but to be off by 2K? Thats fishy. Either google is horribly wrong or I have misread the DRHM map. Has to be the latter. In any case I have to make damn sure that I don't miss out any loops and that I cross all the timing mats correctly.

I've been enjoying carb loading today. I love carb loading because I get to treat myself with things that I normally steer away from. Nothing too disastorous (like pizzas & junk) but things like chocolate (mostly dark), sweetened yogurt, extra helpings of rice, fruit juice, peanut butter. Later I might just indulge in some ice cream. :-)

My shoes are cleaned, my race gear is all set (I'm loving this particular outfit) now all thats left is to stretch some more, eat some more, relax and hit the bed by 7:00

Current Butterfly population: Fifty million.

Week 7 DRHM Training - Taper Week

Taper Week - my favourite week of all the training weeks. Running is at a comfortable volume and the workouts are at a manageable intensity. Taper week is inserted into training plans to give your body a chance to heal & recover so it is ready when race day comes along.

Ran on Thursday and Saturday - a good 300m x 10 speed session in SDAT on Thursday with the Nitros and a solo 4k Tempo run on Saturday. I had a meet up with the group on Saturday morning which left no time for a long distance run. The Tempo run was fun. I spilit the distance into 1.5k x 2 which was run at a steady 6' something pace and the last kilometer was run at a faster pace of 5'30". The heart - it was ready to fall out!

My drill seargent & trainer, Dom had set out strength workouts on Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday which weren't as crazy intense as the previous week given that I was on taper-mode but was effective all the same. Everyday now I "flex" in front of the mirror imagining (hoping for) better definition in my muscular structure. :) :)

On an impulse I got myself a new pair of Reeboks. (It looked really cool, felt great and it was on Sale! Plus it goes great with my race-day outfit!). Broke it in on Sunday with a 12K run. Weather was brilliant. I had a nice and easy run at medium effort and finished the distance in 01:27. Shoe behaved well. 

In other headlines - I twisted my ankle (again!). It had barely healed from the injury back in April and I had another mishap on my Saturday run. The road was badly maintained & was all dug up and to avoid all the rubble on the side, I was running almost down the middle of the road (it was early and with hardly any traffic). I didn't see a small dent in my path and mistepped. Twiiiisssst! Same ankle, same point. Shook it off and continued on my way.  It hurts the same way as before - in an annoying but very manageable way. There is no swelling and possibly because I've been living with this injury for three months now, I guess I've just become used to it and am treating it like a mild irritant. 

We're in race week now and the intensity gets gentler. Have got emails & messages from the race organizers regarding bib collection and the race expo. Butterfly population in stomach: 1.

Week 6 DRHM Training - Peak Week

Most Training Plans will have a "Peak Week" two or three weeks before the race week. Peak Week is where you will have the highest weekly mileage of all the training weeks. This should set you up properly to tackle the distance on race day.

My peak week was truly intense. On July 3rd I officially started taining with my personal trainer, Dom the trainer! (aka. hubby). He's put me on a 8 week training plan where I will be working with free weights, barbells & body weight three times a week with the aim of making me more toned, stronger and more powerful than before. I have never in my life lifted 32k barbells or loaded my muscles with 47k weights but it was nice to see that I could do it. In Dom's own words - "You're stronger than you give yourself credit for" :-) :-)

As for my runs, I got in an intense tempo run on Tuesday, an easy short run on Thursday and my long time favourite, beach-to-beach-to-beach lsd run on Saturday.

Thursday's run was a cross between a Tempo run and interval training. I did 1k x 4 at goal pace of 5'55" (This is the pace I need to run at in order to complete a 10K under 60 minutes - thats the goal for this year). Running 1k at this pace is uncomfortable to say the least. It is high effort for me and I am really pushing it. Not an effort that I can sustain for even 2k let alone 10k. Which goes to show how far away I am still from my goal. 

I think I've confessed before to my not knowing cycling and also about my attempts at learning it afresh earlier last year. I've had a cycle with me for the past year - and some more - and now and again, I take it out to try and improve my skills. I cycled for 20 minutes on Thursday (very wobbly but managed to stay cycle-borne) and then did a short easy jog for another 10 minutes. Though it was a light workout, it left me feeling very pleased with myself.

On Saturday, I did my beach-to-beach-to-beach run. I had run this route last year once when I had to meet a friend of mine at Thiruvanmyur for breakfast. Now another friend of mine lives in Thiruvanmyur and I invited myself over for breakfast on Sunday just so I could run this route again... :-) I was very sweetly obliged and my smelly, sweaty, post-19.5k-self was tolerated and fed a hearty South Indian breakfast. (Thank You Priyanka!).

Sunday turned out to be a bonus work-out-all-day day. My running group had their annual running event - The Nitros Running Festival at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium and all of us were volunteering. Apart from actually running, there was a lot of running around, walking and heavy lifting to do all day (5:00 am to 9:00 pm) which was a terrific workout in itself.

I was pretty pooped at the end of the week and took Monday off (no workouts at all). Which is just as well since this week is taper week. I'll be reducing my running volume and recovering so I can be fresh and pumped for race day.

Week 5 DRHM Training

May not have been the best but this week went a lot better than the last couple of weeks.

Had a great tempo run + hill (flyover) training on Tuesday. Everytime I run with the Nitros, I try and keep pace with the faster runners - it leaves me exhausted but its a great way to push myself. On Tuesday, I managed 6 repeats of the Cathedral Road flyover. The 500 meter flyover has an elevation of 80 meters at the top and though it may be a gentle slope for some, its pretty killer for me. Club the 6 repeats with my mental block of doing flyover workouts (on two occasions I've suffered foot injuries due to incline running), I consider it quite the accomplishment. 

On Thursday I put myself through a pretty intense 30 minute stair workout. If you have a flight of stairs in your building.I really recommend this. Its handy (the stairs are always right there!), its convenient (you don't have to go far or pay a membership) and its brutal (super calorie torcher and a great workout for the hams, quads, glutes and calves). If you can tolerate the strange looks you get from the rare neighbour who also uses the stairs (most people just take the elevator), this is totally perfect. My building has five flights of stairs and my workout consists of Rundown + Runup + Rundown + Runup 2 steps at a time + Run down and this is repeated as many times as my beating heart will allow it. Ofcourse it goes without saying that you have to be careful to land lightly (on the balls of your feet) both while going up and down so as not to injure your knees. Also try not to trip and go sprawling face first down the stairs.:) (That has never happened - I'm just saying)

Today I had the Pinkathon 10K event. Even though it fell during my DRHM training weeks, I had signed up for it a couple of weeks earlier to keep my friend company (not that we ran together in the end). I would have been better off just doing my LSD training run today. For Pinkathon, this is their 4th edition in Chennai and every year it seems to get a bit worse than the previous year. (I have run all 4 editions now). Today the route was so badly managed that I'm not sure if I even ran the whole 10K. Didn't get an official timing from the organizers so I'm guessing I must have missed one of the timing mats. (Whose fault is that?).

Couple of HIIT routines, a total body strength training session and a yoga workout made up the rest of the week. Green ticks for all 7 days! Nice!  The coming week is important. Its week 6 and its peak week for me. Which means max mileage & max intensity. Let's go!