Goal upped
As Feb rolled around, my running mojo had gone up a lot. So decided to take the next step and plan for the first Half Marathon. Goal was to do my first HM before I turned 40 in August! And wanted to complete it within 2:30. Needed some serious training to be able to achieve this goal though. So in Feb signed up for a 16 week Runkeeper Sub 2:30 half marathon training plan. 16 weeks would have meant my first HM would be sometime in May. Well within my goals.
The Runkeeper training plan was reasonably intense. And varied as well ... first time I learnt about 'tempo' runs, 'strides', ' interval training', etc. Training was 4 runs a week. Tue, Thu, Sat and a long run on Sunday. On average 25-30 km / week of running for the first couple of months. Long runs started at 8 km and went all the way to 21+ km in the 10th week or so. Really good training plan for my first attempt.
I followed the training religiously except for a few times when I did some other activities with family like weekend Sinhagad hike. Did total running of about 95 km in Feb and increased to 125 km in March - my max monthly running. There were days when I felt that I should just quit the plan and get back to my normal routine. Especially Sunday runs were getting tougher and longer. Doing a 13-16 km run on Sunday was quite tough and that too after a 5-7K on saturday. The coach of the plan Jeff Gaudette's idea behind this was that you simulate fatigue with the saturday run at the start line on Sunday. So even if you dont run the 21 km distance, you are simulating the effect of it as your fatigue level is already high. All said and done it was tough ... toughed it out with the plan at least 85-90% of times till end of 8th week.
During this quest did my first 15k+ run on March 16th. At a reasonable pace of 7 min/km - on track for a 2:30 hr HM. The first 10 km were fine ... but the final few kms in this run were a reminder how tough the half marathon was going to be. It was also a reminder how the mind adjusts to the longer distances. Running a 10K distance was almost becoming a second nature now physically as well as mentally. I could go out any day and run a 10K without too much planning. Above 10K was still a mental barrier as I was just getting adjusted to the longer distances.
Running Injuries
As the distance increased though, another issue started manifesting for the first time ...
As Feb rolled around, my running mojo had gone up a lot. So decided to take the next step and plan for the first Half Marathon. Goal was to do my first HM before I turned 40 in August! And wanted to complete it within 2:30. Needed some serious training to be able to achieve this goal though. So in Feb signed up for a 16 week Runkeeper Sub 2:30 half marathon training plan. 16 weeks would have meant my first HM would be sometime in May. Well within my goals.
The Runkeeper training plan was reasonably intense. And varied as well ... first time I learnt about 'tempo' runs, 'strides', ' interval training', etc. Training was 4 runs a week. Tue, Thu, Sat and a long run on Sunday. On average 25-30 km / week of running for the first couple of months. Long runs started at 8 km and went all the way to 21+ km in the 10th week or so. Really good training plan for my first attempt.
I followed the training religiously except for a few times when I did some other activities with family like weekend Sinhagad hike. Did total running of about 95 km in Feb and increased to 125 km in March - my max monthly running. There were days when I felt that I should just quit the plan and get back to my normal routine. Especially Sunday runs were getting tougher and longer. Doing a 13-16 km run on Sunday was quite tough and that too after a 5-7K on saturday. The coach of the plan Jeff Gaudette's idea behind this was that you simulate fatigue with the saturday run at the start line on Sunday. So even if you dont run the 21 km distance, you are simulating the effect of it as your fatigue level is already high. All said and done it was tough ... toughed it out with the plan at least 85-90% of times till end of 8th week.
During this quest did my first 15k+ run on March 16th. At a reasonable pace of 7 min/km - on track for a 2:30 hr HM. The first 10 km were fine ... but the final few kms in this run were a reminder how tough the half marathon was going to be. It was also a reminder how the mind adjusts to the longer distances. Running a 10K distance was almost becoming a second nature now physically as well as mentally. I could go out any day and run a 10K without too much planning. Above 10K was still a mental barrier as I was just getting adjusted to the longer distances.
Running Injuries
As the distance increased though, another issue started manifesting for the first time ...
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I had my first black toe nails on both my thumbs. Also on 2 other toes. Forget how it looks for a second ... its quite painful at first and running becomes quite tough. Its basically blood clotting below toe nails. So injury happens due to the toe hitting the front of the shoe over a long period of time. Happens due to bad fit of shoes or bad form. Not sure which in my case as I was on my Nike Air shoes which I was loving so far. Blisters on the feet were also getting to be common now. This was also a sign of ill fitting shoes. I started focusing on landing on midfoot while running after this. The injury didnt go away and the black toenail took a few months to go away as well. |
And then on a run in 3rd week of March I went out for a run and had to stop after a few steps with shooting pain in left knee/thigh. Later after some research found out it was due to Iliotibial Band Syndrome (ITBS). One reason it happens is on roads if you run on the same side of the road all the time (left side in my case), then due to the banking of the road the (left) leg's IT band is stretched all the time and long runs exacerbate the injury.
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| source: www.moveforwardpt.com |
In my case the pain was shooting up from the outer left knee along the outer side of the thigh upwards towards the hip.
This is when I discovered a lot of resources online for runners and got hooked on to these. Runnersworld, active.com, running.competitor.com etc. Did some good amount of stretching for the next few days geared towards easing the ITBS pain. Some good resources on ITBS - http://running.competitor.com/2011/06/injury-prevention/ask-the-running-doc-how-do-i-get-rid-of-it-band-syndrome_29758, http://www.runnersworld.com/injury-treatment/treating-itbs and a few more.
This was just the 8th week of so of the training plan. Due to the injury I became slightly skeptical if I would be down for a few weeks post this injury and miss the plan altogether and may have to start from scratch after coming this far! Weather had also started heating up a lot so realized my original goal of running my first HM in May would be a mistake.
Moment of truth hit me ... should I quite the plan ... take it easy for a few weeks then regroup and plan for another training plan which ended around my goal of August for the HM? This would have been an easy option, and one I would have chosen 6 months back when my motivation levels were very different. I was getting the same advise from family and friends to take it easy as I was doing too much.
But now that I was supposedly a runner and not a quitter, I decided to go for it!! Decided to take it on and do my first half marathon at the end of March - organized by Pune Running for Last Sunday of Month on March 31st.
Took a break for a week or so. During this time even a smallish hike was quite painful. Did some indoor cycling and small run.
While all of this mental and physical roller coaster was going on, on the side due to the 200+ km of running I did in Feb and March my weight goal for the entire year was achieved in March itself. I reached 155 lbs or 70 kg by end of March. This was my goal for the entire year 2014! :) Three cheers to running!!
Looking forward to the end of the month for the first Half Marathon in Hinjewadi.