The week following a fantastic run at the Suntrust National Marathon in Washington DC has been hectic. On 22nd March the day after the run I met with a lot of ex-colleagues from Tata Burroughs Ltd. (my first job) who are now living in Maryland/Nothern Virginia. We reminiscenced about the days together at SWIFT, Culpeper – I was there from February 1984 to June 1985. During that period I used to often run during lunchtime – a practice quite common in Europe and US. While most of the others from India used to go home during the lunch break to cook and have a proper Indian meal I would often have a run with a couple of American colleagues and then have a sandwich lunch. I used to always lag behind Dave Dobson(who unfortunately passed away recently) and Bill Turner(who’s still putting in his daily runs at the age of 65). We used to run 9 to 10K in about 40 to 45 minutes(that was 25 years ago!). I started running during my ME days in Indian Institute of Science in the early 80s and continued it through my stints in Mumbai, Belgium and UK. While living in Belgium in 1982 I got my first finishers medal for participating in a 10K event. In UK I had the privilege of putting in a number of runs in James Park and a few in Hyde Park. However, it was in Culpeper that I got hooked to running and used to do it regularly – come rain or shine.
I took a flight back to Bangalore on 22nd night. A couple of hours after reaching home on 24rth I went for a 3K recovery run. However, I found it a little tough to run as my ankles had swollen a bit. This time around recovery has been slow – probably because of the hard run followed by the long travel. However, normalcy had pretty much returned by Friday, 27th March when I went for a 10K in Cubbon Park. However, looks like I need to avoid running in Cubbon for now – I once again tripped(this time on a sprinkler) and ended up scraping the skin on my right knee.
The eight runs in the last eight months have all been pretty good – except for KTM in October 2008 I finished strongly in all of them. I feel good that I have achieved two thirds of my goal of running 12 marathons in 12 months comfortably. However, I am quite aware that the next one third is not going to be the same - it will be quite a challenge - more mental rather than physical. I have had a few runners tell me that I should perhaps stop at 8 marathons having achieved more than ever before. However, I am committed to complete the mission. While the running season is just starting in the US and Europe there are no long distance running events in India till August 2009. Therefore, the next four runs are all going to be part of RFL training fortnightly runs. The planned dates for these marathons are:
19th April
17th May
14th June
12th July
I hope to start these runs by 530am and finish around 10am or so. I plan to do these as easy long runs with the goal of completing them between 4:30 and 4:45. Its unlikely that I will get company to run the full marathon but I am looking forward to a few RFL runners running between 20 and 30K including at least one runner starting out earlier with me. The April run three weeks from today will be the first test of this!
I took a flight back to Bangalore on 22nd night. A couple of hours after reaching home on 24rth I went for a 3K recovery run. However, I found it a little tough to run as my ankles had swollen a bit. This time around recovery has been slow – probably because of the hard run followed by the long travel. However, normalcy had pretty much returned by Friday, 27th March when I went for a 10K in Cubbon Park. However, looks like I need to avoid running in Cubbon for now – I once again tripped(this time on a sprinkler) and ended up scraping the skin on my right knee.
The eight runs in the last eight months have all been pretty good – except for KTM in October 2008 I finished strongly in all of them. I feel good that I have achieved two thirds of my goal of running 12 marathons in 12 months comfortably. However, I am quite aware that the next one third is not going to be the same - it will be quite a challenge - more mental rather than physical. I have had a few runners tell me that I should perhaps stop at 8 marathons having achieved more than ever before. However, I am committed to complete the mission. While the running season is just starting in the US and Europe there are no long distance running events in India till August 2009. Therefore, the next four runs are all going to be part of RFL training fortnightly runs. The planned dates for these marathons are:
19th April
17th May
14th June
12th July
I hope to start these runs by 530am and finish around 10am or so. I plan to do these as easy long runs with the goal of completing them between 4:30 and 4:45. Its unlikely that I will get company to run the full marathon but I am looking forward to a few RFL runners running between 20 and 30K including at least one runner starting out earlier with me. The April run three weeks from today will be the first test of this!
