Saturday, May 8, 2010

2010 thus so far..

I had set myself the following goals for the year 2010 as part of my 2009 year end musings:

1. Run at least 5 Full marathons/Ultras
  • Mumbai Marathon - 17th Jan 2010
  • Auroville Marathon - 14th Feb 2010
  • Hyderabad Marathon - August 2010
  • Athens Marathon - 31st October 2010
  • Bangalore Ultra - 14th November 2010
2. Sub 4:05 finish at Mumbai marathon 2010 in 2 weeks from now

3. Sub 4 Hr at Hyderabad marathon 2010

4. 75K at Bangalore Ultra? - it is tempting to go beyond 50K

5. Invest in a better cycle and do a few trail rides with Tandem Trails
 
The year 2010 started off well with a good first week of running , better than targeted performance in SCMM 2010, an immensely enjoyable run at Auroville in February and my longest ever distance as part of the Strides of Hope. Howevever, the 10 weeks or so since the distance running season ended in the 3rd week of February has been a real mixed bag or more like a yo-yo. I have not had two consecutive weeks of solid running since then and have had several periods of not running for more than 3-4 days at a stretch. This has been partly  due to frequent bouts of stomach upsets and cold/fever(off-season blues?). My Garmin 305 that I have been using for nearly 3 years going kaput did not help the cause. And then when I went back to Manipal hospital department of sports and excercise medicine to restart strength conditioning sessions after a break of couple of months I was disappointed to learn that the remaining two sports physios with whom I had trained in the past were leaving their jobs. So I had no choice but to sign up for the unassisted (or membership as the department calls it) sessions. Though lower cost than the assisted sessions I am a bit skeptical about their effectiveness for me. As I am now without the benefit of a sports-physio watching to ensure that my technique is right and also push me to do a few more repeats. The natural tendancy is not to push oneself completely and stop a couple of repeats early which is less beneficial.  So I am not certain that I will continue with this much longer. On the plus side during the last couple of weeks I have enjoyed a few rides in my new Schwinn Searcher sport bicycle and look forward to doing a couple of long rides in June/July timeframe.
 
Due to personal/family reasons I have decided not to run Athens marathon this year. Instead I will probably run the KTM in September. I have also pretty much decided to do the 75K at the ultra in November. So my long distance running goals for the rest of the year looks thus:
  • a sub 4 hour marathon at Hyderabad in August
  • KTM in September
  • 75K at Bangalore Ultra in November
  • HM at Bangalore mid-night marathon in December
The new season of events starts in a couple of weeks with the Sunfeast World 10K on 23rd May 2010 followed by the 2nd Bangalore duathalon on 13th June 2010 - am looking  forward to maintaining my timing from last year's 10K and also doing my first duathalon.

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