First 26.2 Miler Countdown: 23 (Second long run of the week)

I know many of us usually do long runs once a week but I am running out of options. With the marathon three weeks away, I am getting more mileage under the hood. I am not sure if that would be a rookie mistake or a brilliant saviour because if I don’t do that at the moment, I might doubt later if I could even finish the marathon. I need these long distances or times on my feet to make myself comfortable with what’s going to unfold.

The original plan was to run back home from the university. At the last moment, a friend asked if I also wanted to run around the track with him. I said no at first thinking that the distance could be longer than what I could take tonight but changed my mind later. Reason being: I don’t get the luxury of running with people a lot of times. So running with someone definitely boosts up the morale (and many other things) of whoever is running. I ran 3k with him and headed back home.

The roads were a bit wet after the rain last night. But nothing too much to make a runner slip or trip. Traffic lights seemed to be my friend and didn’t make me stop as many times as they usually do. I, however, crossed a lot of red lights too when I didn’t see anyone on the other side 😀 I felt less tired after the run though I felt fatigued during it. Irony huh? I crossed my gym at around 17k mark. Had I been carrying a towel with me, I definitely would had stopped there. But I kept moving. The last suburb before my home stopped me. I usually eat at subway there and so I did again. Just before ordering a 6-inch veggie sub, I stopped my Garmin. It was somewhere around 20.5k when I finished. While eating it, I took the train from there to my home station. Man it takes time to finish that thing!! My home is around a kilometer away from station so as soon as I finished my sub, I started running back again until I reached home.

Week 4 Training

So, this week, not only I trained, I also got my new Surface Pro 4. So, I’d show that off 😀

I’ve pretty much put down everything that I ran this week. The total mileage I penned down was 46k and I am glad about it because my goal was 45k. Next week, I am gonna raise the bar to run a 50. Other than this, I am trying to include more body-weight exercise on my non-running days to make my upper-body and core stronger. Have a story to share? Please feel free to put down the link in comments 🙂

WFLWR Training Log – Week 2

Last week, I decided that instead of writing training posts on a daily basis, I better combine them into a weekly log. For this week, my goal was to achieve 35k of mileage which was almost 40% more than the last week’s i.e. 26k. I knew I could do it because I had skipped a run last week.

Monday: On Mondays, I do a easy to moderate pace run. Last week, I ran for 45 minutes and so this week, I capped 5 minutes. Nothing too much! I had thought of a running route beforehand which was just enough long to put me back home right on time. However, I missed a street marker in between and ended up somewhere else. Although, I had a sense of direction in which I should be heading, I still confirmed it by asking a lady walking in the streets. I actually liked this feeling of running with no rigid route. I’ve always loved running on new streets so perhaps, this run was meant to give me the same feeling. My final stats were 48 minutes of running (8.8k).

These inverted peaks are where I stopped, to find myself the correct route, which mostly I didn’t. At 41 minute mark, I asked the lady.

Wednesday: Now this is a special day to me. It’s the track time. I run up to the track, exhaust myself there and run back. This running back and forth usually requires 15 minutes in each direction and so I have a sense of how much time I should spend on track. Last week, I did 5 sets of 100m fast accompanied with 300m jog. So, this week I wanted to make this harder. And at the same time, I did not want to increase the mileage (or time) significantly. I ended up doing still 5 sets of, 100m fast followed by 100m walk. This allowed me to effectively run half a lap as compared to quarter a lap the week before. As I got back home, I’d run 7.4k in 44 minutes.

You can see the laps around the track, right?

Friday: My schedule says that on Friday, I should have a recovery run. Now I know why it is important. Because I have a long run the next day (at least that’s what I think). If I don’t include this run, I’ll have a two days gap until Saturday. So, this run prepares me for the long run the next day. But I messed it up. I changed this recovery run into a tempo run because of lack of time. I couldn’t even cool myself down after the run (so I was a bit scared that my tender body might collapse). Anyway, I ended up running 5.25k in 28 minutes and most of it was under 5-min-km pace. I’ll seriously recover next week.

Saturday: My favourite. I love long runs. It allows me to stay on my feet for long times and to explore a lot of places. I extended the route on which I ran last week. Also, instead of running on the walk-way, I ran on a trail which runs besides it the whole time. Running on a trail is wonderful. Surrounded by trees, it doesn’t feel like I am running around any urban traffic. Before the run, I didn’t intake anything, no carbs, no water. I wanted my body to stay away from carbs on these longer runs, so that if needed, it could learn to extract energy from fat stores, which in my case must be abundant. However, during the run, I had diluted coconut water to keep me hydrated as well as, as a minor source of sugars. By the time I stopped my watch, I had logged 14.2k (thereby completing my weekly goal) in 1:22 hours. Though the pace wasn’t great, but I don’t mind it.

Route: Extended down the Black Rock

Final summary of the week as recorded in my diary, including the morning walks, is:

 

Please do not comment on my bad handwriting 😀

 

For the next week, my target is 40k (including the same long run as this week, maybe 15k). I want to make my body re-familiar with longer distances, but without a lot of carbs.

 

Why do you run?

Post your answer(s) in the comments 🙂

Re-releasing the Android App

I am not in any sense, a hardcore developer, but to spread the words of this blog more effectively (and instantly), I earlier came out with two apps, one for Android and one for Windows platform (Universal App). My love for technology drives me to do this and my laziness drives me to easier solutions. When I was looking into the Android app I had before, it seemed pretty outdated to the current content on this blog. Therefore I am coming up with a newer version which now also provides:

• Push notifications on your phone as I post any single damn thing on this blog.
• You can mark posts as favourite and could comment on it through the app.
• Categories are rebranded (removed the older ones and incorporated the newer).

The whole idea here is to give you an easier access to the content of this blog. A mobile app is definitely much more convenient than a blog itself. I’d really appreciate you checking out the new version of my app, and since I am not a playstore developer, you’d have to download the app from here and install it manually (it takes two seconds, umm, maybe four to be precise) 😀