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!

  

Week 4 DRHM Training

Week 4 didn't fare much better than Week 3.

Thats 2 weeks in a row that I've skipped my LSD and settled for an indoor drill instead. Other than that, all that I ran in the week was a speed interval session of 200m x 12. I also ended up skipping two other workouts in the week and so all in all; not good.

Dismal.  

:(

Although I did enjoy some good rains in Trivandrum care of the monsoons.
And lots of sleep.
And lots of food.

.

Week 3 DRHM Training

In the week that went by I didn't get in as many runs as I would have liked. In fact Week 3 was somewhat light and easy on the muscles. Inbetween sessions of Yoga, Upper Body Strength, Pilates & Core Strength, I was able to squeeze in one speed session at SDAT during the week. Over the weekend, social plans made me skip my regular LSD and I had to make do with an indoor run which is definitely less taxing. The highlight of the week though, was a really good, hour-long swim on Saturday.

While training for long-distances, the key workout is your LSD (Long Slow Distance). This is what will help your endurance and this one workout (if done properly) will ensure that you complete the distance (for no one likes a DNF). All the other workouts (speed, hills, tempo) are what will help your timing, your performance and your recovery. So while they are important (especially if you're looking to hit a PB) these shorter, more intense workouts are not absolute essentials if you're just aiming to complete a particular distance. So if you had to skip any workout for whatever reason, I would pick the latter than the former. (Clearly, missing out on the 16.5k run is still grating on me).

I use indoor running (on-the-spot) as a substitute workout whenever I miss an important run. It is a light impact, long duration (depending on how long you go) cardio workout and while it does mimick the running movement and test your ability to sustain the cardio activity for a long time, it is not the same as an actual run. Although the same set of muscles are engaged (quads, hamstrings, gluts & calves) the intensity is lower because of the lesser range of motion. And running outside also has the added advantage of inclines and declines (even the flatest roads are not completely flat) which makes it more challenging. But as they say, something is better than nothing.

I know what you're thinking and yes, running for 2 hours on the spot can be mind-numbingly boring! I have to play a movie or some videos to get me through it. You burn calories and get entertained!

:-) Here's hoping for a stronger Week 4.

Week 2 DRHM Training

Its nice to see the weekly mileage slowly creep up. Its also nice to see the consistent green ticks on my workout calendar.

Tuesday Flyovers - Done
Thursday Speed Session - Done
Saturday LSD - Done

Tuesday's Fyover repeats was quite an interesting session. The Nungambakkam Nitros joined forces with the T-Nagar Trendsetters (Yes, these CR chapter names truly deserve an eyeroll) for a refreshing change in the work-out. Like the Nitros, the TNTs (as they're fondly referred to) also do flyover repeats on Tuesday but with some 50 meter sprints thrown in at the beginning of the session. The sprints were fun but the flyover repeats were another story. The T-Nagar flyover is at a steeper incline than the Cathedral Road one that I'm used to and therefore felt way more challenging. Post-run, the group did a thorough & extended cool down routine which felt especially good after the exertion. 

Thursday's Speed Session was at SDAT as always but this week, one of the veterans in the group took a small seminar of sorts on correct running posture & techniques followed by some practise sprints where he gave all of us some advise on our form. It was an informaton-packed hour at SDAT but with very little actual running done. :-)

Saturday was my Long Slow Distance. Added 15K to my weekly mileage and finished happy. Took 1:51 to complete 15K (was aiming for 1:45) but still happy that I completed the distance. Theres something about completing these extra long distances - I get such a sense of accomplishment at the end unlike the shorter, more intense runs.

I got in three strength work-outs on the other days making Week 2 a good one.

6 to go.

The week that was...

Its been 30 weeks since my last half marathon and since then, I haven't run anything over 10k. So when I got out today to complete my goal of 12k, I wasn't quite sure how it would go. Maintained an even pace of 7'20" and it felt like a moderate effort. Ran all the way to marina, a little bit along the beach and ran back to Haddows Park to meet up with the Nitros folk. Having started at 5:20 (just a bit later than the sun), a kilometer into the run, things started getting hot and uncomfortable. Luckily there was a bit of a breeze now and then to combat the heat.

This week has been a good one - workout-wise. A few weeks ago, we bought a battle rope to add to our collection of ever-growing gym equipments at home. Although I thought it would be mostly used by Dom, turns out I love it as well. This Monday we took it up to the roof and had a short, intense session accompanied by some rain! 

Tuesday I had a quick tempo run. I was running with the Nitros and all I had to do was keep pace with one of the faster runners and voila - tempo for me. 4.5k in 30 minutes. It should have been faster but I am not going to push the pace until the ankle is a 100% ok. 

Kept Wednesday for a total body strength session with Dom. He went really easy on me and kept the workout light considering I'm still quite the novice. Skipped my speed session at SDAT and instead had a burn-out stair workout on Thursday. My calves were screaming the next day (remember: sore today strong tomorrow). A good HIIT & core workout on Friday and my 12K today brings the week to a close. 

Feels good to be consistent

This week officially kickstarted my training for DRHM2017. The event is on July 23rd which gives me seven more weeks to train for that elusive sub-2:30.

Here goes.