Feeling Tired

During the Base conditioning phase, one should feel running effortlessly. However, I was feeling very tired the whole day on Tuesday and the quads were having a wierd feeling of tireness. Due to some less important stuff I was doing on Tuesday morning, I missed my 8-9 miler run. I planned to compensate it in the evening.

I had to go to Aundh to drop my cell for 'microphone' issue. Plan was to drop @ 7, go for 1:30 hrs for running and pick up the cell phone. I reached there at 7 PM, but the technician asked me to wait till he investigates and I could see my evening run going down the drain. Finally he asked me to come back in 30 mins at about 7:20 PM. I quickly went to Rakshak Chowk and started my run at 7:30 PM. I had less than 1 hour, so though of doing the Rakshak chowk to Baner out and back. This route is nice, less traffic and somewhat hilly too. I managed a 4+ miler but was sweating profusely.

Today morning I spent a good 10-15 mins wondering if I should run given the wierd feelings in the quad. Finally good sense prevailed and I started my run slowly. For the past couple of days, I have been thinking of running Naked (sans Garmin and not clothes) but I also wanted to have data for easy comparison. So, I pressed the "Mode" button and started my run with slow and easy effort. Met Nishant mid-way and ran a loop with. Comfortably back home after completing 8 miles for the day.

Tuesday - 4 miles (PM run) @ 162

Wednesday - 8 miles (AM run) @ 156

Double

Double wammy or pain, I have started introducing easy recovery runs in the evenings whenever possible for a distance between 4 - 6 miles. My take on this is that this will help in faster recovery and forms a solid foundation to be utilized later when hill and hard workouts are added to the training schedule. This week is going to be crazy work hours, so I am suspecting how much I would be able to cover. Taking it one day at a time.

I have 2 buddies - Prawaal and Nishant. I usually run with Prawaal during long runs if he is consistent. With Nishant, I have a lot of discussions around running in general and some specifics. More towards disection of Arthur's training methods. One thing I firmly believe that a runner just cannot learn from other's mistakes. They have to make their own and use that as a feedback mechanism to fix the broken things. I had my share of mistakes and I am hopeful that this training is injury free.

Sunday - 5.39 miles (2nd run)

Monday - 7 miles

Following Arthur's modified plan

This being my first blog, I would like to keep it simple and small.
Background: I have started running and doing a lot of reading for the past few years. I find Arthur's method to be the best amongst available options and my plan is to follow it cycle after cycle for 3-5 years. This blog is to share the learnings from following Arthur's ways and prepare a log of how my training is going.

I am preparing for Mumbai Marathon called as Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon (SCMM) 2013, my best being 4:20 in 2012 event. My plan is to reach a sub-4 level. Honestly, it seems to be too optimistic given that I have missed most of my base builtup due to GI issues or office committments. I have realized that these problems are miniscule and one has to overcome such unprecendented events to move from average runner background to a more developed runner.

Why Arthur? While following Hal Higdon's plan 2 years back, I realized that just running short distances on weekdays and take rest is not suitable for me. Without having any background on Arthur at that time, I started adding daily runs and stopped taking rest days unless it is needed. I have had a small share of injuries with me, but I have also realized that gains multiply once you start running daily and slowly start increasing the weekly distances. In 2011, I broke the 5 hour barrier and started doing some reasearch on this. This is when I stumble upon Arthur's principles and started reading online materials, blogs, his books etc. This was inline with my conclusions and hence I plan to stick with what he has already invented.

Current Situation: I have just now finished 3rd week of Arthur's base conditioning phase. I am left with effectively 14 more weeks before the event and I plan to squeeze in as much as conditioning and hill workouts as possible to improve my timings. I also plan to share the learnings from my training with fellow Indian athelets as the level of fitness is very poor compared to other countries all over the world.

Mileage this week: 43 miles so far.
Run on 7th Oct : 12.5 miles in 2:15:32 @ 10:49 min/mile pace.

I just have to drop this by 2 mins/mile to achieve my target :) This seems like an enormous task, but I plan to stick to the plan and be patient with sub-4 in mind. I hope that with support from wife and friends (running and non-runnings ones), I am able to give my 100% in this activity.

Future Plans: My plan is to start a fresh cycle after a month of easy running after SCMM event. This time I will follow the whole rigorous cycle of base + hill and repeat it to time the speed workout and sharpening as per the next marathon event.