Phase Two.

I figured if I posted any more entries featuring pictures of scenic running routes in breathtaking mountain vistas, I would be giving a horde of city-bound runners reasonable cause to form a lynch mob and string me up from the nearest convenient electric pole the next time I set foot in urban municipal limits.

So, yeah. No more of that...

...for now ;)

Besides, it’s the anniversary of this blog, so I might as well write some shit up instead of filling the page with pretty pictures, yeah?

It was an year ago, almost to the day, when spurred by an unexpectedly satisfying race at the 2014 Airtel Hyderabad Marathon, I unleashed the horror that are my musings as a runner, on an unsuspecting internet.

Ah nostalgia!

That was the beginning of a ruinous quest for Boston Marathon qualification, which went up in flames after a catastrophic systems failure on the roads of Mumbai in January.

Now recently, I descended from my hilly perch and came back to Gurgaon for some ill-deserved leave, at the end of which, out of uncharacteristic sentimentality, I planned to race in Hyderabad again. A half, this time.

For the past four months, I have been doing a kind of slow-burn base-building... low-to-moderate mileages and efforts with no particular aim. Not having trained specifically for the race, I intended it to be a sort of fitness test, to maybe help me figure out training volume and intensity for the next five months.

I managed a fairly satisfactory 1:35:14 at Hyderabad yesterday, which is a tad more than four minutes slower than my best at ADHM last year. Still, given the vast contrast in conditions and topography of the two races, I would like to think that there is equivalence there.

In effect, I am now willy-nilly about as strong a runner as I was at the end of November last year, about three-fourths of the way through my last marathon training cycle.

This is good news. To me, it means that I now have a take-off point significantly higher than last time... a fitness base strong enough to bear the pressure of a more demanding new training schedule.

What next?

I'm registered for the Dubai Marathon on 22nd January 2016. It's time to train.

For the past two marathon training cycles, I have been following the online training schedules provided by Runner’s World SmartCoach. The first time, this training saw my marathon timings improve by a giant leap, from 4:14 to 3:38 at Hyderabad in 2014.

The second time, a similar investment saw me make a disappointingly modest hop to 3:35, in comparable (honestly, slightly better) racing conditions in SCMM 2015. While many factors are responsible for that, most of them attributable to my own lack of sense, I cannot help but think that there might have been  a 'Law of Diminishing Returns' at play. All I did was amp up my training intensity, while sticking to safe mileages and frequencies.

Since one popular definition of insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, expecting different results (and I'm not insane despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary), I am bidding adieu to SmartCoach.

There’s much to be said for shaking things up. The body adapts beautifully to repeated stimuli of the same kind. If I want to up my game, I know I will need to change my whole approach to the race instead of just turning things up a notch. 

This time, I intend to follow a plan laid out by Pete Pfitzinger and Scott Douglas in their book ‘Advanced Marathoning’ which I happened to read some time ago.You can also have a look at the plan here.

It’s an ambitious plan that starts at a mileage close to my peak mileage (about 90km per week)  in my last training cycle, and then goes higher. It calls for training six days a week, and includes runs as long as 24 kms mid-week :O It gives a priority to endurance vis-a-vis speed, switching out most of the speed intervals for tempo-effort runs, and calls for long runs with strong finishes... something that has always been my Achilles' heel.

And as I sit here and look at those distances, I kid you not, I'm terrified. 

A thousand 'what ifs' are floating in my mind. Am I asking for trouble? Injury and burnout?

I have admitted to myself that once I am on a plan, my obstinacy in following it knows no bounds. This time, that has to change.

I have resolved to be very mindful of what my body is telling me. And be flexible in execution. Bite off the plan in small, two-week chunks and carry out necessary modifications without any unwarranted regard for machismo and pride. Let's see how that works out.

The plan starts with effect from 21st September, three weeks from now, and I’m looking forward to running with a purpose again. 

I’m also registered for the Airtel Delhi Half in the end of November and the half at the Goa River Marathon in mid-December just to get medals for training runs.

But for now, it's back to the mountains with my sorry ass. As I had bravely promised myself earlier this year...

Time for Phase Two.

The Jai Ghati Run.

Sometimes, a run deserves it's own blog post, like this one.

Almost exactly 21.1 kilometers away from where I stay is a place called Jai Ghati (translation: Victory Valley).

It is a beautiful, isolated basin, surrounded by lush green, forested slopes and carpeted with rolling emerald meadows. A sparkling, crystal-clear stream divides it, spanned in a couple of places by quaint wooden foot-bridges. The water is ice-cold snowmelt, good enough to drink.

Picture perfect and true to the words of the poet...

Gar Firdaus bar ruh-e zamin ast

Hami asto, hamin asto, hamin ast …

Yep, it’s heaven.

Did I mention that it’s on the other side of a 8 thousand foot pass… that’s 17 and a half kilometers away from where the route starts, at an altitude of about 5 and a half thousand feet? Yep, that’s nearly a 6 percent incline… more than three quarters of a kilometer of ascent in that distance. Here’s the elevation profile…

Phew!

I’d been looking forward to doing this run all last week, but as I turned in last night, thundershowers started raising merry hell on my tin roof, and chances of execution looked mighty bleak. But come morning… Hallelujah!

Hallelujah for clear skies!

I poured a couple of bottles of Gatorade into my new CamelBak , kitted up and stepped out instanter.

I'm a lot of things..."Color-coordinated" is not one of them

While most of the country is reeling under loathsome heatwave conditions, I set off in pleasant low twenties on my weekend Long Slow Distance.

This run was intended to be a spiritual experience. Timing was not a consideration, but I set myself an easy goal pace of 6:30 per km for this. The route, as you can see, is too amazingly beautiful to not stop and stare at the scenery every so often.

Nice work here, Mother Nature.

I ran through a couple of small villages and hamlets as the road climbed, enjoying the incredulous stares of farmers, housewives and shopkeepers, to say nothing of cattle, mules, dogs and sheep...

You'll all be sweaters soon, guys...

When I waved to a bunch of curious children on the roadside, I was rewarded with raucous peals of laughter. I can imagine what a strange sight I must have been to them. Crazy man in shorts and shades sucking on a tube and running up a hill… Ridiculous!

Halfway through my run, I had left whatever little habitation there is in this place, behind. Just me, the unforgiving slope of the road, the wind in the trees and the valley laid out beside me. My legs were killing me from the climb, but the sheer splendor of the environs kept me in the zone.

What goes up, must come down, as the common aphorism goes. I crossed the pass and praised the lord for the downhill, and finally, after about two and a half hours of running, at a pace a mite slower than planned, I landed up here…

Coming...

...and Going.

Worth every single aching muscle fiber.

As I sat around resting my aching feet, some of my friends (all of whom think I’m insane, of course) joined me for a picnic by driving up. I dipped them in the water of the stream until they were numb. My feet, I mean...not my friends!

Yes, some cold water did creep up my buttcrack. Not pleasant.

Having breakfasted on a gigantic omelette, I set out to explore a bit. And do other stuff.

"Other stuff"

To my acute delight, I discovered that there is a prominent, very runnable pony trail that runs right through the valley...

Shahrukh ain't got nuthin' on me, yo.

...and another that leads from the pass back along a continuous ridge to a place very close to where I live.

Finally, I have somewhere to do something about the irksome virginity of my Salomon Fellraisers!

...not for long, my beauties. Heh heh heh.

I was almost on the verge of selling them on OLX...

Location, Location, Location.

A military man soon comes to terms with the inevitable orders that come every few years to pack up and move out.

I must admit that when I got my most recent marching orders, what was uppermost in my mind was whether I will be able to train where I was going.

Well, I've been here a few weeks now. My fears have been laid to rest as I have been running on some of the most beautiful routes imaginable.

Since pictures are worth a thousand words (...and since I'm too lazy to actually write stuff...), here is a ten thousand word essay on my current running spaces...

Room with a View

Cloud Nine

Up the creek without a paddle

Event Horizon

Right up my Valley

Road to Nowhere

The Wild Blue Yonder

Turning Point

Be Mine, Incline

Don't miss the Forest for the Trees

Honestly, I do miss the company of the running crowd in NCR. Distance running is definitely a social sport.

But nowadays, when I step out all alone in the mornings on empty hill roads, and the cold air fills my lungs like sweet iced champagne, and my ears fill with the music of the birds and the winds through the trees instead of engine growls and horns, I can't help but feel truly blessed to be here.

Moving On...

Ran a 56-kilometer race. On a whim. That makes me a kind of baby ultrarunner.

*Applause*

Thank you, thank you...but...

Now, a month later, I'm thinking I probably shouldn't have.

I don't exactly regret it. I mean, as an experience, it was very entertaining. Ran slow and easy, taking near about seven hours to cover the distance. It was good weather and I ran in great company. Learned a lot about myself, which is one of the things long distance running is all about, I think. Finished tired and sore, but not really extraordinarily so.

Here's the nub. My recovery seems to be lasting forever.

The discomfort is peculiar, and arises only when I try to pick up some speed. I took two weeks off after the ultra. Completely. And then started my slow and short distances, midweek. All systems seemed to be go, so I thought I'd do something a little faster. So one weekend, I decided to do a quickish half.

Crashed and burned.

Just couldn't take off. It was a disaster. No pain, but a completely inexplicable fatigue seemed to set in just a few kilometers into the run. It was almost like I was hitting the dreaded Wall. But just 5 kilometers out! Mid-run DOMS, something I haven't experienced since a long time, plagued me as I plodded along.

I cut that run short at 15, rested for a few more days, and then tried a fast 10. No...that didn't work out either. The same weird weariness quickly crept in and slowed me down.

So I've been in a bit of a slump for the past week, trying to figure this out. Did manage to get a couple of 'twilight-zone' 10ks in, but it took a lot more effort than I remember from October/November last year.

More rest. That is, of course, the obvious answer. Reduced frequency. Short distances. Slow speeds.

To the mix, add more lower body strengthening. Should work, I hope.

Moving on...

Tomorrow, I will run a 10-mile race, which will bring my running streak in Delhi NCR to a close.

It has been a memorable two and a half years, during which I went from a hesitant novice to an inveterate running addict. For now, my job is taking me out to a remote beautiful place at a higher latitude/altitude.

This is probably a good thing. At 6000 feet, the slightly rarified atmosphere should definitely help with cardiovascular efficiency. Plus there are hills. A lot of hills....

I dream of myself doing something like this...

So when I write next, it will be from the far wilderness...

Au revoir, city running.

A Strange Place.

It’s been a month to the day, since the tragic event that will now and forever in human history be known as the Great Mumbai Marathon Debacle of 2015.

To my credit, I have recovered patiently and picked up the pieces of my shattered Boston dreams. It’s time to ‘stoop and build ‘em up with worn out tools’ in the words of Kipling. (Yes, I am aware that I am quoting Kipling's If for the second time...:p)

What now?

Obviously, a lot of rethinking and redoing is required, in context of specific lessons learnt over the past year.

Most of these ‘lessons’ are runners’ clichés regarding negative splits, summer training and recovery which I have, God knows, harped upon enough times before in this blog, so I will spare you, dear reader, the agony of reading the same again (For now. I really don’t have much material to work with.)

But one obvious lesson that I learnt last month is that I should pick my battles.

Mumbai is a great race. Lots of fun and festivity. But honestly, if one is serious about a PR/BQ, it’s less than ideal.

The problem is, we aren’t exactly spoilt for choice here in India. Kochi (It’s a confirmed USATF approved course...) seems to be the best option, clearly trumping the sarkari-organised, AIMS approved Pune, from what I've read and heard about these races.

After a lot of agonizing, however, I've settled on Dubai, on 24 January 2016, for my next Marathon. The course is flat, boring and straight. The weather is cool, ranging between 15 to 20 degrees centigrade. And I (probably) won’t need to sell my soul to the devil to be able to afford it. Unless I'm staying here...

So that’s almost an year to go before I take a crack at a BQ again, and I intend to go into it with just one 20-week long training cycle.

And mentally, that puts me in a very strange place.

I now have seven months, until September this year, to run without a target race in mind. No paces to attain. No mileages to achieve. No times to beat.

Just to run, for its own sake.

Now, as a theoretical concept, it really sounds very good. No pressure, man... just run!

What it actually feels like...I suppose I’ll find out as I go through it. If I don’t lose my sanity in a couple of weeks.

For now, I’m happy that the winter has lost its teeth, just as I resume regular runs. It’s back to shorts and T-shirts... I really despised running in layers, I tell you! I've also stopped taking my GPS watch along for my runs, doing them completely by feel.

I’m planning to run my first ultra, a slow, easy 56 k on the Manger trail, four days from today. Should be fun.

I’m also registered for half-marathons all the way through May, at the rate of one a month, which I intend to run at moderate paces.

Now, here’s a funny story...

At the 2^nd Annual Runner of the Year Awards, the jury decided to give an award for a runner’s blog to the charismatic Anupriya Kapur (you can find her much more balanced, sensible and better written blog at www.momontherun.in).

Then they got drunk, or high, or probably got hit on the head by something heavy, (or all three!) and decided to give it to me too.

Too late, guys. I’ve got the certificate now.

I’m not giving it back.      

Phase One.

First, the bad news...

I’ll be continuing to write this abominable blog for another year or so...

Tough luck, you guys :p

So, SCMM 2015 done... 3:35:02.

In the true spirit of sportsmanship, I will now proceed to make implausible excuses and whine about my experience.

First there was the fog. 

My 7 AM flight on Saturday finally left Delhi at 11 AM. In the intervening period, I had a lovely time sitting in a aeroplane seat with enough leg space for a LEGO person.  As per a recent technical study on the effect of airline delays on runners that I read somewhere (I forget where), every hour of pre-race flight delay adds an average of eleven minutes and twenty seven seconds to a full marathoner’s finish time. So I guess I did pretty well, considering...

I reached Mumbai at around one in the afternoon on Saturday, collected my bib, went to my room and then sat around twiddling my thumbs between short naps and bouts of HBO. Probably shouldn’t have twiddled my thumbs so much. Really depleted all the carb reserves I had built up by diligently wolfing down fourteen metric tonnes of pasta in the past week. As per a recent technical study on the effect of thumb-twiddling ... Okay, you know where this is going...

I reached the start line well in time to meet friends and fellow runners who would soon be blocking my way when the race started. 

I wish I could say they did, because contrary to expectations, I had a reasonably smooth start. That obviously contributed to my poor timing, because all the muscles in my legs that I had meticulously trained to zigzag through the starting crowd suddenly found themselves with nothing to do...which, clearly reduced overall muscle efficiency...

Which you would know if you had read this recent technical study...

It started pretty well, like most of my races, and coincidentally, most horror movies.

I bounded out onto Marine Drive on winged feet, driven by supreme confidence and self-belief. It was cool and dark, and silent except for the beating of soles on concrete. The roadside bands and DJs were still setting up. Some of them clapped and cheered a little. Happily, I slipped into that pleasantly numb state of mind that we runners love so much. Time seemed to stand still between my Garmin beeping out kilometer laps. 

At around the 7 kilometer mark, as I was prancing along, this pretty blonde lady zipped past me. Pig that I am, my male ego smarted. So I quickly caught up with her and asked,

"Hi! What's your time goal?"

At first, she ignored me, and when I repeated myself, she gave me a look that could probably burn paper at 20 yards... I swear I wasn't hitting on her or anything! 

A glance at my watch told me she was doing 3:45. I fell back, assuming she probably knew what she was doing. Other than that little anecdote, the first fifteen kilometers barely registered on my consciousness. 

On the sea-link approach, I drew energy from the cheerful half-marathoners running in the opposite direction. A few familiar faces called out and waved. Strangers yelled “Go 5118!” It was exhilarating.

In Bandra, I crossed the halfway mark, feeling strong, in 1:34.

In my quest for a negative split, I had planned for a 1:37 halfway. So I had run slightly faster than planned. But not too much... Nothing that could break me.

And then, it broke me.

It was at around the 24^th/25^th kilometer of the race that I began to first suspect that I was maybe not going to get my target time of 3:10. My pace had suddenly and for no perceptible reason, now dropped to 4:35-4:40...and was dropping further. I didn’t feel I was moving slower, but my watch assured me I was. Mustering up some reserves, I tried a surge or two, but nothing I could do would pick it up for more than a few minutes at a time.

By the 31^st/32^nd kilometer, I was struggling to try to get even a 3:15. My pace was slipping down dangerously close to 5, every so often.

Experienced marathoners will tell you that there is something that happens at twenty miles. At this point, you’ve come as far as your legs can carry you. You tend to transit from the realm of solid physical ability to one of mental and spiritual strength, and rely on those to get you to the finish. 

And in this realm, I was found wanting.

By Kilometers 34/35, I was feeling the sharp contrast between the weather conditions in Delhi and Mumbai like a knife in my soul (melodrama much?), and dreading the upcoming incline...I downed a gel I was carrying, hoping it would kick in just in time to help me up that slope. It did nothing for me. Stupid gel.

 

So at around the 36^th Kilometer, It finally dawned on me just by how much I had miscalculated my target... Not only was I not going to be anywhere close to a BQ, or even  the 3:18 time that my training plan had predicted for me, I was actually going to have to struggle to even get a PR... And all the wonderful Mumbaikars lining that Peddar Road incline with their smiles and cheers and music and support, couldn’t lift me out of my slump as I walked past them.

I picked up my aching feet and started running at the crest of the hill. And here I crossed the blonde lady from kilometer 7, zombie-walking on the side of the road...

I grimaced and waved at her. She ignored me again. I should be getting used to being ignored by blondes by now...

The last five kilometers were agony. I laboured along the sea-face at a pace of 6 or slower, every fibre in my hamstrings and glutes screaming at me to stop. Crossing the mat at the finish line, I managed a PR by a comfortable 3 minutes and 50 seconds, beating my Hyderabad time of 3:38:52. But it didn’t feel like much of a PR. The Hyderabad course was much tougher, with much worse conditions. If I had raced wisely, I should have been able to cut my time by ten minutes at least. 

At the finish line in Hyderabad, I felt strong, and could have run on for a few kilometers more. By comparison, this Sunday, I felt completely drained, and was struck by debilitating cramps just after I finished

.

Irrespective of that, 3:10, I understand now, was a premature target. Heat, humidity, inclines, fast start, pretty blonde women... they are all lame and pointless excuses. With the perfect  4k resolution of retrospection, I see exactly why I did not BQ.

I overestimated my capabilities, and I underestimated the course.

But we’re runners. We crave pain and we laugh at disappointment.

When we fail, we call it Phase One,drink beer, and launch Phase Two.

Now...I have a year. And I’m coming at you again, Boston. Don’t go anywhere.

The Moment of Truth.

This is it.

No pithy, incisive humor to read here. Move along, people... This blog post is srs bsns.

The day after tomorrow, I will be standing at the start line of the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon.

My goal is evident in the url of this blog... 3 hours and 10 minutes to run 42.2 kilometers.

To qualify for the Boston Marathon in 2016, I need to do this in 3:15, but since they only take the fastest qualifiers till the places fill up, it's prudent to aim a notch higher.

So while obsessing with this goal, I came across this nifty little tool.

As you can see, based on my time for the Airtel Delhi Half Marathon which I ran in November (and was obnoxiously pleased with myself about over here), I get Marathon time predictions ranging from 3:08:44 to 3:13:19.

On the face of it, this is pretty heartening, and assures me a BQ at least, if not a sub-190 minute race.

But it's not.

Race times are predicted between races run in similar conditions, and in that, ADHM and SCMM are poles apart.

I have two obvious concerns. First- the warmth and humidity in Mumbai when compared to the bitter cold of Delhi/Gurgaon in which I have raced and trained over the past couple of months, and second- the Peddar Road incline, of which there is no analogue on the flat ADHM route.

Looking back on the training cycle, I seem to have done everything right... put in the miles, avoided injury, recovered wisely and tapered well. I am counting on the additional training I have clocked since ADHM to compensate for the variations in the race conditions.

Physically, I feel primed and ready.

Mentally...To say that I'm nervous and anxious would be putting it mildly.

I have little left to say for now.

An year of training is coming to a close. I hope I can meet my goal. My bib number is 5118, if you're curious about how I fare...

One way or another, expect to read a familiarly insufferable post about it sometime next week.