Retrospection and Planning

Retrospection

After 5 weeks' worth of training for the Sunfeast 10K, I fell short of my sub-50 min target. My main mistake was to not get a timing-chip, as the timing-chip folks were let out on the track before the rest. I got very less stretches in the race where I could maintain a constant pace, as evidenced by the following chart.

Figure 1: Sunfeast 10K, Pace vs Distance

Notice how uneven the pace is across the whole distance. Other than from the 2KM mark to the 3.5 KM mark, the whole race is full of spikes. There is an exceptionally large one near the 7.5 KM mark, where I seem to have spent more than the usual time in avoiding slow folks. Even at the last 1KM stretch there is no change in the pace, forget a sprint.

Planning

Ever since I started training for my first half-marathon in August of 2008, the full marathon had always been in my mind. Of course, when I ran my first half-marathon, I realized that it wasn't that easy.

At the end of last year, when I was just recovering from 2 weeks' worth of fever, I decided that I will do the full distance in 2009. And now that the Sunfeast 10K is over, it's the ideal time to start training.

I have chosen Hal Higdon's Novice 1 plan for training. But as the marathon which I'm planning to run is sooner than the duration of the plan, I have skipped 3 weeks and started from week 4.

Training goals (other than covering the distances in the plan):

1. Do strength training -- I have neglected this quite a bit.
   
2. Reduce the amount of crap which I eat.
3. Drop a few kilos to run better.

Race goals:

1. As this is my first, the goal is just to finish. It's an automatic PB.

And, oh yeah, I plan to run the Kaveri Trail Marathon organized by RFL and the Bangalore Hash on September 13th. Hopefully it will be a good way to celebrate one year of running.