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!