The Power of 2

Given my past few days of sickness and the forthcoming marathon, I need to ramp up to fitness level - 1 ( level 1 being the highest) at a very fast pace. In accordance with that, my coming week's runs are scheduled to be like so:

Day	Distance (KM)	2n
Tue	8	23
Thu	16	24
Sat	32	25

Table 1. 17th-23rd Aug 2009, Week's Distance Goal.

I did a measly slow ass 5 KM run yesterday at NGV. I finished the distance in 30:33. Though it was mostly a slow run -- that was the plan -- I was basically flying the last 400 m or so (see graph below).

5 KM Pace Vs Distance Graph

And that was truly exhilarating. I feel running is freedom in its purest form. Thanks for bearing with me.

How important is warming up?

Coach Joe English along with coach Dean Hebert run an excellent website called running-advice.com . They tackle many running related issues ranging from nutrition, to training, to injuries, to a lot more. And all of this coaching experience is coming to you ... FOR FREE! Thank you, the internet lords.

If you haven't already, shine the tractor-beam of your RSS aggregator towards the aforementioned site and grab everything. Also, while you are at it, also go and watch all of their Desert Series videos on vimeo. The videos are fun to watch and insightful.

"But, hold the phone", you say, "I thought you were going to be talking about warming up and its importance, not about some website." Yes, yes, smart one ... we are. See as it turns out, I asked a question about the same on running-advice and it was featured in one of their posts. So there you go, here's what Coach Joe writes:

A reader named Rohit writes in with an super-duper excellent question that I am so glad was asked. Here’s the question:

“During a lot of my long runs, my fellow runners rarely warm up. Most of the time the attitude is, we will get warmed up while running and that warm up is only required on race day. I understand that warming up is important while doing intense training runs, like intervals or hills. But if I’m doing a long run, or an easy run, how important is warming up?”

First, let’s just get this out there. Warming up is absolutely essential and should be a part of every workout.

Read the rest at running-advice.com

I feel all important right now. Let me bask in this glory for a while.

A month to go and I fall sick

There is a month left to go before my planned first full marathon, and guess what ... I fall sick. For the past two days I have been running a temperature -- nothing too much; all around 100 F; no flu symptoms. Learning from my past mistakes, I saw the doctor right away and got medicines. I have been careful; on medication; and as of right now, the fever is not there.

Now, this has come at a very crucial stage. I could only do 1 training run out of the 4 in the week. There is a scheduled 14 mile long run on the weekend, but I'm not sure if my legs will have it to carry me through that distance. Also, do I really want to exert myself and do the 14 miler right away? I don't know.

But more importantly, I'm concerned as to how seriously this will have an affect on my performance in the Kaveri Trail Marathon.

I think it's fine that I didn't hit all my training goals this week. But the coming week's long run -- a 20+ miler -- is going to tell me a lot. The problem is, if I fail in that run, I will lack credible confidence going into the marathon -- not knowing whether I'm fit enough to finish the race.

Why? Because after the coming week is over we go into taper mode -- wherein the weekly running mileage falls and runners train less so that their legs are well rested for the marathon distance. The question really then will come down to, do I sacrifice on taper and lose out on physical strength but gain mentally? Or do I train hard in the taper weeks, and gain mentally (confidence), but lose out physically?

Trade-offs trade-offs, how I hate them.

All is not lost and as one great Bollywood hero once said, "Haar ke jeetne waale ko hi Baazigar kehte hain*" (screw you, if you don't understand Hindi).

To new challenges ... we march ... ONWARD!

*Of course, in the end our Baazigar friend has a very sorry demise, but let us not focus our attention on minor details.

Treadmill 20 Miler

Once upon a time, I didn't wake up on time and did a half marathon on the treadmill. Similar story today.

As soon as I woke up today morning, I knew something was wrong. I wasn't feeling sleepy -- which usually is not the case when you wake up really early. When I checked my phone, to look at the time, I saw it was dead. That moment, I also realized that the alarm hadn't rung. When I parted the curtains, I could see some ambient sunlight. Surely it wasn't 4:45 AM (my scheduled wake up time). Of course, it was in fact 6:00 AM.

When I put my phone on charge, I started getting messages and missed call alerts from my running companions querying my whereabouts. I responded telling them about my phone alarm fiasco -- sad but true.

But then, I wasn't going to just give in to circumstances. I wasn't going to say that the universe doesn't want me to run, so I will not run. Screw my phone! Screw the universe! For today's run, I ATE PASTA YESTERDAY NIGHT! And run I shall!

The idea of running it on the treadmill just came and I never questioned it. I guess having done the half-marathon on it instilled some confidence.

The bad part about running on the treadmill for so long is that it's excruciatingly boring. The good part though is that you don't really need to worry about water, food, electrolytes -- they are all right there, because ... well ... you aren't going anywhere, are you?

Long story short, I did the 20 miler (32KM) in 3:27:01 (inclusive of water, food, electrolyte breaks). I split the distance in 5KM intervals, wherein I would take water breaks. At each 10KM interval, I would munch on something as well. At the end I finished strong.

Oh and by the way, the real pain starts when you stop. If someone drew a line from my heel all the way to my neck, every muscle on that line was paining (the good pain though).

A good run. Onward!

P.S: I pay my humble respect to Pasta. Without your contributions, my today's run wouldn't have been possible.

One year of running

Yesterday saw me celebrate one year of running. That day last year, I ran my first 5 KM as part of the training plan for my first half-marathon.

• Total Mileage -- 1809 KM
• Three Half Marathons, One 10K.
  
• 3 Shoes

So much sweat and pain.

But that aside, I enjoy the sport for its sheer simplicity. The fact that you can take it anywhere you want with minimum hassles.

I enjoy the feeling which you get when you are on the final stretch, your shirt drenched, you can hear yourself heave; heart thumping, and then you decide to push a little bit more -- teeth clenched.

This year also introduced me to the excellent community of runners here in Bangalore. Believe me, Bangalore is the place to be running. Be it weather wise, the places to run, the people, and the beer.

Going forward, I'm looking to successfully complete my first full marathon at KTM (training is going good, thanks for asking). Following which I'm going to focus on developing speed.

Let's see how that goes. ONWARD!

Routine Post

Coming back after a long time ... (like Lance Armstrong and Michael Schumacher, but a much shorter period):

• My training for the full marathon has been going good. I'm in the 9th week of training and I had a pretty fulfilling 30 KM run last Sunday. Everything went according to plan and I did the distance in just over 3 hours -- including water breaks. My prospects look good for the Kaveri Trail Marathon.

• The dates for the 2009 Tour Of Nilgiris have been announced and I have decided to participate. Unlike last year's TFN, this time around the distances per day have been reduced to 80 KM from 150 KM. It still poses a challenge and should be fun. As part of the training, the longest distance I have done till date is 70KM. But I think 80KM shouldn't pose much of a problem. Of course, if you put hills in between, it's a totally different ball game.

• I had been avidly following, for the first time in my life, the Tour De France. Lance Armstrong came back this year and gave a good performance. It was not a fairy tale ending for him, but he did manage a respectable 3rd place -- though no individual stage wins. The 1st place was taken by Alberto Contador, Lance's teammate and rival (oxymoron-ic, but true). Armstrong has already announced that he is coming back next year with Team Radioshack. My suspicion is that his team will have Mark Cavendish, the British sprinter, who won 6 stages in the tour this year. Here are some beautiful pictures from the event.

• I have been reading Jared Diamond's : Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee. A book which answers "why humans are the way they are?" The book tackles the question by drawing from various sources: evolutionary biology, history, anthropology, archaeology, etc. In spite of having little knowledge about those subjects I find the book extremely readable.

That's all for now. Till next time, it's bye bye.

Cycling Trip To Chikkatirupati

Chikkatirupati is a town around 30 KM from Bangalore (Koramangala, to be precise). Yesterday, we -- a group of 4 cyclists -- decided to make a trip to the place.

To get there you first need to hit Sarjapur road; cross the outer ring road junction while continuing down Sarjapur Road; take a left somewhere ahead, and follow the road. As is obvious, I wasn't the one leading the pack (or good at giving directions). But fortunately for you, I had a GPS.

Here is a map:

Figure 1: Map -- Bangalore to Chikkatirupati.

Other than Sarjapur road you don't face too much traffic, as the roads are really bad and I guess no one wants to go to Chikkatirupati. The route is scenic, passing through villages; with farms on either side. People in the areas are quite amused at seeing these "weirdos" on bicycles. We had quite a few kids wave to us, saying "Hi" and "Bye". We reached Chikkatirupati in around 1 hr 40 min and proceeded to have breakfast.

There is a nice small breakfast joint inside the town, where you get Idly-Bonda, Coffee, Chitranna, and -- if you are not too early -- Dosa.

Figure 2: Breakfast at Chikkatirupati

After having breakfast we started the return journey. There was a strong headwind and there weren't too many downhills. Fortunately, the weather was pretty good. The return journey took us around 2 hours.

Total Mileage: 65 KM

Highlights

1. Using the gears on the front of the cycle for the first time and reaching close to 40 KM/H (38.3 KM/H to be precise).
2. All the kids in the villages cheering as you pass them.
3. The yummy bondas at the breakfast place.
4. Just off Chikkatirupati a gentleman coming to us, when we were taking a water break, and asking, "Why did you cycle all the way from Bangalore?" Good question. Neeeeext.
5. Finding out that there are some new muscles in my legs -- I'm sore.
6. And finally, my longest cycling trip till date -- a good ride!