10 days to go (plus, a shoes update)

I'm halfway through tapering now. In about 10 days, I'll be lining up at the start line.

Its time to really get race ready. Training-wise, I've done all that I can, its now time to wind-down and recover enough so that physically I'm rested enough to take on the race on "fresh legs". So when I say really race-ready, I'm speaking mentally, nutritionally as well as gear-wise race-ready.

Mentally, I'm in a really good space right now. After my 19K run in Trivandrum, I feel confident I can run the full 21.1K, strong and at a reasonably brisk pace. I just need to keep other stress factors at bay from now till the 20th and continue to feel good about running the distance. "I got this"!!!

Nutritionally, I've always been weak on the hydration front. Getting my requisite water intake during regular weeks itself is a challenge since my thirst drive isn't very strong and setting reminders on my phone to drink up hasn't proven effective enough. Hydration during race week is that much more pertinent which means I somehow, simply, MUST drink more water. How though?. On the other hand, carb loading has never been an issue since our regular meals are generally high enough in carbs. Need to get in more protein than usual though, for the strength. 

Planning my race-day outfit is one of the most enjoyable aspects of my race-readiness process. While I haven't yet settled on what I'm going to be wearing, I do know which shoes I'm going to put on.  :)

During the course of my training I had to unexpectedly retire two pairs of running shoes. The outsole on the dark grey ones ("Smoky") had become worn out and had no traction left. I would find myself skidding in it on my runs. The outsole on the red & white ones ("Capsicum"), while otherwise good & dandy,  just came apart one fine day. I did try sticking it back on, but that (as expected) didn't last. Smoky only had a mileage of 348 km on them and Capsicum was fairly new with just 266 km on them and both their uppers were still in great condition so it was quite disappointing to have to give them away. With two pairs out of commission, I was left with just one pair ("Guava") to train in and with more than half the training left to go. 

I never really need much of an excuse to go shoe shopping and here was a perfectly legit excuse! Introducing Salt & Pepper! :) Salt is an ON model I hadn't tried before (Cloud X). It has more cushioning than the Cloud Flow model that I'm used to, but looks way more cooler if you ask me. To be perfectly honest, I bought it solely for its looks but after going on a couple of short runs in it, it feels like a winner all around. Pepper is the current edition of the Cloud Flow. The mesh on the upper is more close knit than the previous version but that doesn't seem to affect anything other than the look of it. It also seems to have a higher "roll" on the outsole from mid foot to fore foot which I think helps but it may be too soon to tell. The last long run I did was in Pepper and that went well, so I'm thinking it will work just as fine on race day. Now I just need to plan the rest of the fit around it.

Ooh! Excited! Before I know it, race day will be upon me!

Time to Taper

And just like that, the hardest bit of the training plan is done. I started tapering this week - gradually decreasing the running volume so I can recover and run the half with relatively "fresh legs". :)

I am in Trivandrum currently so for a change, my long run didn't have to be 20 odd loops on a 900m loop. In fact, on Sunday, I had the best long run in all of the training. Weather was nice - cool, slightly rainy, breezy, the route was a nice long 10K which I repeated twice, and even though the roads had many, many uphills and downhills, I really, really enjoyed the run. My pace was quicker too than last week so it has boosted my confidence somewhat. I will be very lucky to have the same weather conditions on race day (I'm expecting hot and muggy) but the route will be much flatter so I'm hoping it will be a good, strong run on 20th.

Pace-wise, I'm adjusting my expectations. A lot. 2:10 looks highly impossible. If I can run at an average pace of 7'00" and finish under 2:30, I will still be very pleased - even though its not a PB.

Peak Week is here!

3 more weeks to Race Week and next week is Peak Week! The highest running volume week in the whole training period, the last week of the last-big-push, the come-on-you-got-this-week - well, you get the picture!

I'm going into Peak week in a much better mindset than I was in last week. Last week I was ready to throw in the towel. I've recalibrated somewhat after today's long run. Ran 18K and there was no funny knee pain and miracle of miracles, there was no post-run migraine either. It wasn't easy or elegant, but I did manage to complete that long, long run on a maddening 900m loop, on this very hot Sunday morning. 

I ran it at an average pace of 7'23". Come race day, I doubt I'll be able to go any faster than that. Between now and race day, I doubt anything's going to magically happen to bump up my pace from 7'23" to 6'09". Even though I'm able to do a 7K at that pace now, its only possible with the many, many breaks in between. Race Day is going to be as hot and muggy as this morning was, so weather-wise its not going to help either. Plus I'm sure the course will have at-least one flyover en-route. The only plus point I see which might be to my advantage is that the course will be 1 large 21.1K loop and not several 900m loops and the novelty of that, plus the general race ambience and energy may propel me a little faster. 

Anyhow... next week I'll have a better idea of how close or far away I am from my goal pace. 

Last Big Push

5 weeks to race day. This is my last big push - and I will really need it.

Last week I fell ill (again) but this time it was a full-blown flu, complete with temperature, body ache, cough and congestion. It might have been Covid, which, apparently is doing the rounds again. It took a while to get over it and the aftermath ran into this week. To top it off, mid week, I got my period and my body felt extra-beat this morning as I set off on my long 18K run. Of course, as was to be expected, I could not complete it. Around 12.5K, (to my absolute dismay) I developed a funny pain in my left knee which would stop as soon as I stopped running. The pain was too intense to be ignored. Ended the run at the 13K mark. 

Was (still am) feeling quite bummed out about not just today's run but also the way the whole training is going. Actually considered (considering) stopping the training and not doing this event at all. These past 6 weeks or so, after every single long run, I would develop migraines later on in the day. Migraines of varying degrees. The longer the run, worse the migraine! I'm guessing its the combination of heat and exhaustion. I believe I've been pretty good with my hydration and fuelling but obviously there are still some gaps to be filled. 

Currently as I'm writing this, there is a dull throbbing in my head which makes me think:

Is it all worth it? 

Should I keep at it?

3/4ths done

 ...well, almost!

Time is flying by and just like that I'm almost at the end of the 3rd block in my training plan. Today I ran 17K. It took me 2 hrs, 9 minutes and 59 seconds. Which funnily enough, is my race day goal time (for the whole distance of 21.1K). Which means to say, I am running short of 4.1K! I have 7 weeks to go to race day. I'm not sure that I can improve by that much over the next few weeks, in order to close that gap...  This feels like a really, really, tough ask!

7'39" pace today.  6'09" goal pace.  6'17" was my 7K pace on Tuesday - which is much closer to 6'09" but I did take quite a few untimed breaks. I am barely able to sustain 1 mile at 6'09" and I think I should be able to sustain at least 4K at goal pace at this point in my training in order for goal pace on race day to become a reality.

Last week, my Garmin race time prediction dipped down to 2:36:35. It is currently showing 2:33:58. This is a bit of a bummer. The prediction times are supposed to go up not down! 

Oh well, we trust in the process and plod on!

Half way there!

11 weeks of training done and 10 more weeks to go. While the 1st 7 weeks went visibly well and I could see clear progress at the end of the "base-building phase", I'm not sure if the last 4 weeks of "picking-up-the-pace phase" has contributed to any significant progress. I'm sure there is incremental progress, for example, a 7'05" pace doesn't feel so bad now while it used to feel incredibly tough even 4-5 weeks back, but impatient me is looking for significant progress. Alas, thats never the case. Slow & steady: I must remind myself.

This week had me running 1Kx3 @ goal pace and while it was hard effort, it was doable. I managed all three sets at goal pace which is an improvement over the huffing-and-puffing 800mx2 @goal pace that I did 3 weeks ago. Small victories.Then I think that I will have to do 21 sets like than on race day without the rest intervals between sets and I'm back to thinking, maybe this is not enough progress.

It doesn't help my mental space that my Garmin's race time prediction hasn't improved at all in this time. In fact it keeps bobbing between 2:31 & 2:28. The hardest two blocks are coming up, hopefully that will be enough to shape me up and have me race ready by the time I'm lining up at the start on July 20th. We'll see. 

Training Blues...

 I'm nearly at the end of the 2nd block of my training and I'm not feeling the best.

Even though I've managed to check off most of my workouts this block, I've hit on some troubling spots that has slowed me down a bit, and managed to give me a bit of the training blues. I've always considered the long run of the week to be the most important one and when that doesn't go as planned, I feel a bit bummed out. The last two weeks, I've had to swap out my 90 minute run for an indoor run of the same duration. Its better than nothing but I feel a bit less "trained" than I ought to be. I know that that bit is mostly in my head, but still!

To elaborate on those troubling spots that I mentioned : I've been having a bad run of restless, sleepless nights. No idea what might be the cause of this, but I feel less recovered going into the next day's workouts. I've been feeling flu-y since last Thursday. Its just an itchy throat and a general feeling of bunged-up-ness but it doesn't feel great. This also comes with a side of lethargy which is simply not helping. The worst of all, Friday morning I woke up with a pain in my right knee! No idea why. I went to bed with the knee feeling perfectly fine, wake up, and its throbbing! I'm thinking I must have slept funny and that might have stirred up old feelings in the knee - which has never really been the same since my injury back in 2018.

All that being covered, this week is cutback week - which is ideal. The knee thing seems to have subsided now and though I'm still feeling flu-y, I have enough energy to handle this week's low intensity, lower mileage training. Although, I do plan on getting in that skipped tempo WO from last week for good measure. Good thing thats only on Thursday - I'm hoping I'll be well and recovered by then.

More notes down the line.