gearing up...again!

It has been a slow start for my training for the Bombay Marathon in January; for starters I have found it difficult to get off the blocks and get started. I guess the enormity of the effort involved in training for my first race, the ADHM had taken its toll. The first week of training after my return, I could not complete the targeted distance on my Sunday long run and the cycle repeated itself on the following Sunday. I think these were the first occasions when I had aimed at a mark and failed. Have started strong this week and what with the placements having been taken care of (!!!)I plan to devote more time to training.

Exciting news trickling in is that the Bombay marathon would include the awesome Bandra-Worli sealink as part of the course. I'm sure its going to be a mind blowing experience to run along this latest addition to the city's skyline!

post mortem

I guess every major activity deserves one, major atleast in the eyes of the person concerned. I must confess I did think a lot about the run in the couple of days immediately following the run and the conclusions are predictable; ills that ail the first time participant in a major run.

1) I started too fast. There was a little 'twitter' inside my head which was telling me to take it a tad easy in the beginning, but as I saw a lot of runners passing me, as its wont to happen in an event participated in by thousands, the temptation was just too great to resist.

2) I could have conditioned myself better for the last 5 kms or so of the run. This I thought became really critical though a lot of what I had read during training seemed to suggest that its not actually important to run the entire distance planned in training. Well, time to customize!

3) I should have pushed myself harder while training. This must be a common refrain from almost anybody who takes this pastime too seriously!

Thats about it, no use fretting about it too much. After all now that one has another excuse to invite those aches and early mornings back again: The Bombay Marathon.

The aftermath

Didn't come across a lot of advise on coping with a marathon aftermath, but trust mr, you can certainly do with one! The weeks of intense prep, endless 'crack of dawn' starts, fighting the grogginess and stiffness, the litany of aches and pains, all build up to a crescendo on the eve of the race. Its at fever pitch as seconds remain for the race to begin. The run itself remains in your memory as a blur; the fatigue leaves you able enough to just run, not strain your synapses to retain specific memories.

Once you cross the finish line, its an anti climax. You collect your medal and sit on the ground to much your fruits while not particularly thinking about anything. Then the thought of getting a transport back occupies your mind in case if you're not lucky enough to have a car waiting. And you come back and focus on tending to the inevitable aches and stiffness. So much for resting on your laurels!!!

the finishing line!!

I relived the past four odd months of my life in a span of a little over two hours; I had done it, the half marathon had humbled me!

Although I expected a better timing than the 2:13:55 (net time, the gun time being 2:16) it was my first marathon, even if a half one and the sheer thrill of having scaled this mountain was intoxicating. As I queued up to enter the venue and to the holding area for athletes, I could almost feel the buzz in the air; the atmosphere was nothing short of electric despite the unmistakable early Delhi nip in the air. I tried not to get overawed by the occasion and started limbering and warming up in the holding area. The sheer diversity of age, size and background was mindboggling and the number of senior citizens who had signed up was inspirational. Every muscle and sinew in my body was taut with anticipation as seconds remained for the starting gun to fire, signalling the commencement of the race. It was as if I was reigning myself in, itching to be let loose so that I can sprint like Usain Bolt and finish the 21 kms in 10 minutes! Eventually when I did cross the starting line the digital clock overhead indicated that more than one and a half minutes have passed since the race had started. I had something which could be termed as a strategy for the race; I marked the location of each water point (there was one every two kilometres) mentally and hoped to pass one every ten minutes till I reached the fifth and if lucky the sixth point. This roughly translated to a speed of about 12 kms per hour and I was going to need that if I was to finish the thing under two hours. The scenes along the way during the first couple of kilometres were unbelievable; people thronging the side barricade and cheering us like we were heroes. There was a makeshift stage as well with rockers belting out hits to pump the runners...it was a total carnival!

I ran a little faster in the initial part than I should have, but I guess it was expected given that it was my first race and that it takes a little experience to realize that outrunning your fellow runners for small stretches matter less than figuring out a plan which ensures you save your breath for the last 5 – 6 kms which is really the most gruelling part of the race. I fared reasonably well for the first 10 odds kilometres although I didn’t cover the 11 kms that I had planned in the first 55 minutes. I began to lose steam around the 15th-16th km mark and the last couple of kilometres I was literally on my quadriceps. I dug deep for a near sprint in the last 200 metres which made for decent snaps...I was happy and relieved!

the countdown

This is it...as I write this; it’s less than 24 hours to go for the Delhi Half Marathon!

Reached the capital yesterday in the morning and judging by the chaos at the station, it’s hard to believe this is the city which is going to host a global sporting extravaganza in less than a year’s time. It was good to be back here, the air had a pronounced nip in it and the route we took from the station was almost identical to the half marathon route. It felt quite exciting...
We decided to check out the venue so that there no last moment glitches in getting to the start line. The venue was a scene of frenetic activity with the marquees going up and stalls being set up, athletes limbering up, officials scurrying about. The place had energy about it.

The expo presented the usual scene of pandemonium; stalls belting our guitar riffs, amateur volunteers clumsily trying to coax visitors to their stall. The collections of the running bib and timing chip happened efficiently enough, although they could have done without making participants run around the entire compound to collect the entire stuff in instalments. But the buzz sounded attractive...

So this is it...everything will boil down to these last 21 kms, you may have pushed yourself while training, did your sessions regularly and with dedication, ate all the right foods and been on track more often than, but its your surge in the last few miles that will decide whether you finish with elation of just finish.

the home stretch

I managed to get through that terribly frustrating week; I had the exams to keep myself occupied. I was looking forward to the end of this week when I’d travel back to Calcutta with the semester ending. I was hoping that the blister would dry up by then and I could the penultimate week count. I had used the inactive week in reading up further on marathon nutrition. I must say that I can claim to be some sort of an expert on what to eat while preparing for your first marathon. Some of the general misconceptions on which foods are ‘fattening’ is quite astounding!

Although the blister was not completely gone upon my arrival at Calcutta it had subsided quite a bit, sufficient for me to wrap the affected area in bandage and hit the road. I took the Sunday run a little easy doing about 8 kilometres at a trundling effort. The day after I was back in my groove and I ran from my place to the ‘Lakes’ in Calcutta. I must say that I’m glad that I took this route as its one of the most scenic running routes possible. With an early nip in the air this year in Calcutta, running next to the waterbody felt almost an out-of-body-experience for me! It can get a little crowded in the mornings but hey, after four months of dodging rogue auto and marauding bus drivers, I can manage a little bobbing and weaving!

The week turned out better than I expected; I mixed things up well with tempos, four mile stretches at a couple of notches above race pace and a fartleck. The almost week long layoff didn’t seem to have made that much of a difference as I exceeded 60 kilometres for the first time in a week. As the day of the race draws close, I’m invaded by a number of unanswered questions: how prepared I really am? Would I be able to hold my own against what most definitely would be a very competitive field? Only time will tell I guess...

Ouch!!!

Finally came the inevitable hiccup...and this one nearly threatened to derail my entire training effort. This came in the somewhat unexpected form of a blister in an area which made running impossible for almost an entire week. It reared its head a couple of hours after my long run on Sunday the 11th of October. I made the mistake of running in cotton inners, a warning that I had read on numerous a, about not using any apparel made from cotton since it absorbs a lot of sweat and dries very slowly, thus rubbing and chafing the skin it is in contact with. I thought the blister would subside in a day or two and I could resume training, but that was not to be as any attempt to even walk caused it to hurt angrily. As it so happened I missed out on the entire week with the only high point of the week being the 18 km run on Sunday which happens to be my longest run yet.

Despite the frustration of momentarily losing my rhythm, it added an extra dimension to this endeavour of running in a marathon. After I had made impressive strides and come a long way from trundling a couple of kilometres to covering close to 20 kilometres in my long runs, it was difficult for me to digest the fact that something as low as a blister should throw a spanner in the works, but frustrate it did as all I could do was vegetate in my room and dread the pounds that I figured that I was adding back on. I should have known better and taken precautions like applying skin cream as a preventive measure....

the leather hunt

I decided to take it easy this week, it being the week after three weeks of hard, sustained running. The week consisted of the mandatory long run on Sunday, the only difference being I had to do it indoors on the treadmill and did a distance of 10 kms...so it was a long ‘short’ run! I was happy with the effort though; I clocked 61 minutes 20 seconds in covering the 10 k and had touched the 5 k at 27:37. Now that the adhm is just around the corner, the idea is to cover long distances at my targeted race pace. The difficult part is always regarding the kind of goals that you should set for yourself; there is always this pitfall of setting yourself a superhuman target just because you’ve trained your heart out! This being my first half marathon (and my first competitive race for that matter) am setting my sights on a sub two hour finish, which I know will be no cakewalk. For starters, my pace will have to be a notch above 10 kms for almost two hours at a stretch, I have no idea how my body would react to that kind of oxygen debt. The other option is to perhaps really push myself at 12/13 kms for nearly an hour, take a 5 minute breather and then finish off at just above 10 k/hour. Either way, its not an easy choice to make, which just gets compounded by the fact that there is no way to know your exact pace while running outdoors, atleast newbies will never be as good as seasoned runners whose instincts are way better. Truly this is the leather hunt!

the joy of running!

I’m almost in the last throes of my preparation for the Delhi Half Marathon to be held on the 1st of November. My original intention was to start my competitive running career with the Mumbai Marathon in January 2010. That is supposed to be my first marathon, or was but a combination of events ensured that I’m yet to register for my first full marathon, not that 21 kms will be a cakewalk...

I have managed to clock 55 kms last week and 50 kms consecutively in the previous two weeks, so mileage wise am feeling quite confident. My long runs have also been shaping up quite well with runs of 14-16 kms every Sunday for the last few Sundays, I can just hope that my body is getting tuned into a nice weekly rhythm and should peak just at the right time. My running stints when I resumed at the beginning of the year was quite random with little thought going into building mileage schedules and ensuring that the tempo is built up gradually. I just went into the gym and drove myself on the treadmill...now when I first went through this site I counted myself lucky that I didn’t pick up an injury! In fact I was surprised that there was so much to learn about running that one wouldn’t be far off the mark by terming it as learning about the ‘art’ of running! One practically learns about how the body functions, metabolizes, the foods that provide energy and does the repair work etc. Initially I started shunning rice in the belief that it would just hold me back in my quest for shedding excess baggage...imagine my surprise when I discovered that its one of the primary source of carbohydrate for people into serious running.

.As promised by numerous running ‘gurus’, once you get into a nice rhythm and habit of running, it becomes a part of you, it becomes addictive. It’s like a daily fix; you itch to get out in the morning and hit the road, crunch those miles and come back after the days run with a glow of satisfaction on your face. If for some reason you miss a day, there is almost a sense of loss (I’m not exaggerating folks but it kinda feels like that!) So once I got the initial weeks out of my way after the resumption, I seriously began to wonder how I existed without it. However its important that one keeps enjoying the very act of getting outdoors and letting oneself go; a competitive edge can very quickly nudge you into a zone where running can become a burden.

back to the grind

And thus the journey began once again. The very next day I reached Bombay for the third semester, I was back at the gym...trying to grind out a robust enough run. What I had not factored in was how difficult it would be to start all over again! The momentum was gone, some of the flab was back and I was back to square one. I started slumming it at the treadmill and found out that my body was getting into oxygen debt quicker than I anticipated it would be. I realized that I can’t be hasty and that it would take some time to get close to the kind of fitness and form that I had achieved even three months back. I managed to make it to the gym almost everyday – now that I was in the hostel, this was not difficult – and clocked about 3 – 4 kms everyday to notch up about 25 kms every week. I managed to do this for about three consecutive weeks.

breakthrough!

I started making rapid strides and as the results gradually begun to show, my motivation levels began soaring. I could see the excess weight gradually slipping away and I generally felt better and fitter. Soon I was clocking on an average of 4 – 6 kms on the treadmill and at the end of each session I would be dripping sweat from my garb! Since scheduling the gym session on a daily basis was a bit of a hassle what with classes and all, I made sure that I ran at least every alternate day. By the managed end of my second semester at the institute, I had to shed a mighty 16 kgs!!!

The end of my summer internship was followed by the happy interlude of my marriage taking place. I must say that Sujatha has been a big pillar of support to this endeavour of mine by just not scoffing at it! She follows my schedule with interest and keeps reminding me to apply everything under the sun to keep the nagging aches and pains at bay. The receptions meant that my running shoes were put on the backburner for a good fortnight or so, but given the hectic travelling that I had to do – from Delhi to Calcutta to Vizag to Calcutta then honeymoon at Digha, back to Calcutta to Vizag and finally to Bombay (phew!) – prevented any additional baggage from clambering now, apart from the wife of course, by virtue of my changed status (bad joke!) Once I was back in Bombay, I realized that in order to prevent my running effort from going off the rails, I had to start right away...

getting into the groove

And that was it...belying my own expectations, I soon got into a great rhythm and started making rapid strides. I also followed a punishing diet...not sure how much of it was actually healthy; I made it a habit of skipping lunch (that itself was not much of a sacrifice though since the dining hall grub didn’t take a lot of persuasion to desist from) I also tried to ensure that my daily visit to the gym was not the only workout that I was getting. After I was done with my classes and assignments for the day, I would trek back home...a walk all of nearly 3.5 kms. The fact that this helped me save my auto fare too was no small consideration...

I registered for the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon sometime in July. Did not have the guts to register for the full 42 km distance as in my mind, the distance rose like a Goliath and threatened to smash my self-confidence into smithereens, so I played safe by registering for the 21 km half-marathon. I had managed to fritter away most of the gains made at the beginning of the year by some reckless drinking while completing my summer internship in Delhi; with the searing cowbelt heat providing the perfect excuse, I made it a habit to start gulping beer around the middle of the week and rounding it off in style by the weekend, while lounging around and catching some cricketing action on television. I tried to sustain the momentum by running regularly; Delhi is perhaps the best city if you’re a running enthusiast with sidewalks wider than most of the roads in Mumbai, but the summer heat was just too much for any meaningful running to be carried out. The result of all this was that the spare tire was back in place and my running form had been hit out the ballpark!

baby steps

And so it started. I dusted off my running shoes and hit the road (or the belt to be precise!) Initially I was careful not to overdo it as the memory of the abdominal pain after a strenuous workout was still fresh in my mind. As expected the initial runs were no more than six-seven hundred metres as I would run out of breath easily and the temptation to break stride and settle into a leisurely walk was just too great. Soon I realized that the trick was to run slow gradually work up a speed. This ensures that one manages to stay within the ‘aerobic’ zone long enough to reap the benefits of a sustained run.

I thought that from this post onwards, I’d just keep moving the clock ahead to the present day to chronicle how I’m faring with my current running regimen. I must say that since the time I had realized that my BMI had gone for a toss (about three years back while in Vizag) I had always planned to eventually beat my recalcitrant body back to shape! So once I managed to shed quite an amount of flab by the end of March, there was a voice inside my head telling me to not stop and go on. I had always been fascinated by sports; the achievements of men on the field of play always seem to have a sense of purity about them. I liked to believe that my stamina is not too bad and that once I get into a rhythm I can really sweat it out. Thus, once I slowly but surely started to get back into shape, the idea of someday competing in a marathon was definitely a great motivational tool. Initially I would pooh pooh it as I never thought would be able to achieve the kind of superhuman fitness that I believed would be required to undertake such an endeavour, but slowly the tide was turning...

belt or concrete?

Thats it! I had finally worked out a schedule to get back into shape. I figured if I could squeeze in even three gym sessions in a week to use the treadmill, it would be a huge improvement over my current plan. I initially explored the option of doing it in the morning before classes. That still meant I needed to solve the problem of disposing off the sweaty gym garb, getting a shower and dressing for class. The sheer enormity of the load that I would have had to lug around threw a spanner in the works. The other option was to get to the gym at the crack of dawn, finish the session and rush back home for the shower and the change, followed by the quick dash back to the campus for breakfast followed by lectures. This however did not look as rosy from the financial point of view...I may well be on my road to fitness but the autowallahs of Deonar would be laughing all the way to the bank!

I decided to play safe (financially I mean!) and start frequenting the gym sometime in the evening, after classes. That would also mean preventing my system from the jarring experience of waking up at an insane hour and subjecting my body to an experience which it has been alien to for nearly a decade now. I would just have to stuff my already bulging backpack (containing my laptop and texts) with gym garb and hump it along all day long. At that point I hoped I could just sustain my motivation long enough...

man at work

After a while I kind of started getting used to the routine of going out for a spot of jogging after the day’s classes and assignments were over. However, it was difficult to gather any kind of momentum as I could barely maintain a streak and thus would feel that I was not achieving anything. I sought some advise from people whom I knew had a spot of knowledge about running and working out and was told to take it easy by alternating walking and running every five minutes. Walking was fine, but running even three minutes at a stretch seemed to tear my lungs out...

I was beginning to think that trying to resume running by doing it outdoors was perhaps proving to be my bane. My legs, which had by now collected a generous amount of adipose tissue, was now ill-equipped to handle the stresses and strains of running on a rough, hard, uneven surface. Resuming after such a long layoff meant it was difficult to concentrate and minor things like a bus looming up from behind or a flock of goats grazing ahead would easily put me off. I realized I had to head for the gym and try and use the treadmill for the even surface it provides...as to how I would manage the timings with the campus being more than 4 kilometres of and what with the hectic schedules and all was another tricky matter...

the sputtering start!

I finally had it in around December of last year. I was running out of excuses without doing some actual running and still didn’t have anything to show for it. I had all the usual challenges that you may have or had before you kicked it – access to a safe running environment, time etc – but I think the biggest hurdle is that of inertia. That’s right, the same law of motion applies to humans as well. If you’re out of shape and willing to correct the unhappy situation, you’ll just have to grit your teeth and push yourself out everyday early in the morning. The pain of that can be enormous, but as the cliché goes – there’s no gain....

And so I started, initially it was the adjoining roads around the building where I shared an apartment. I quickly realized that it was not just about munching away at the miles and feeling the calories melt away, it was also about dodging marauding buses and sidestepping shit piles. I was surprised at how easily and quickly I was running out of breath and that my shins and knees felt that someone had poured concrete in them. The temptation to give up was just too great.....

thinking back...

Happily enough, I was not exactly a couch potato when I was a kid. I used to play a spot of cricket and although nothing to set the pitch on fire, the running drills and the physical workouts were enough to lay the foundations for a fit body which, even if a little rusty after more than a decade of inaction, could be coaxed into action after the resumption of a physically demanding schedule. Thus you can take heart if you indulged in a bit of ‘action’, even if it was eons back.

Last year, when I decided to take a break from work to complete my master’s, I wasn’t exactly ship shape. In fact far from it, I was tipping the scales at over three digits! Suddenly I was conscious of this ugly fact and badly wanted to do something about it. The first attempt to break inertia was painful to say the least as I suffered from a bad bout of ‘abdominal stitch’. That ensured that I stayed away from the treadmill for a while...and any suggestion to ‘hit the open road’ would have met with such an expression of incredulity from yours truly that would have rivalled an effort from any thespian that you can think of. The road to redemption, at that point in time was still as far away as one could imagine...

initial thoughts

Getting off the blocks is perhaps the biggest challenge, you may have made the dire promise to yourself the umpteenth time, burnt some good cash to invest in a snazzy set of uberlite vest and shorts to ‘guilttrip yourself into running and imagined your less than flattering figure to acquire some menacing rip in the not-too-distant-future, but pushing off is harder than you can imagine…

However, once you get those old pistons pumping and you put a few hundred yards behind you…things begin to look up infinitely…especially if were into some kind of physical activity in the past. The breathing is labored, your shins ache as the dreaded lactic acid buildup rears its ugly head and there is a knot in the pit of your stomach…but to counter that, you realize that a heady feeling is slowly welling up…from somewhere in the deep recesses of your being…a part where your mind and body both combine to propel you forward…that is what addiction to running is all about, although it may just be easier to let the moment pass, let the eyelids settle back and log one more hour of shuteye!