Week 1, Day 1 of 16 weeks marathon training

Started my 16 weeks marathon training using the FIRST  'Run Less, Run Faster'  program today with  3 x 1600m interval training at Kanteerva stadium. This program requires one to do 3 specific runs and 2 cross-training sessions per week. The three training runs are: interval training, tempo run and a long run. Each of the 48 runs has a specific pace/timing goal. Of these, the interval training is definitely my least favorite - in fact I am always apprehensive before the interval run and usually want to get it over with as the 1st run of the week.Today though  I was  pretty much on target with 6:55, 7:02 and 6:58 versus a target of 6:57. Though I had been very busy the previous few days with inadequate sleep perhaps the fact that I was working out after a low mileage week(20Kms) ,  running after a break of 2 days and the cloudy weather helped me.  This was my 2nd run with  a new pair of Addidas Supernova glide 4 - a family of shoes that I have stayed with for the last 9 years.

There are of course several different marathon training programs out there- I have for now decided to stay with the FIRST program.  I recently acquired the 2nd edition of the book which has several improvements over the 1st. The tables are both in Kms and Miles. The sections on cross-training as well as stretching and strengthening are more specific and detailed. In general, I found the flow to be better. This is the 3rd time that I will be using the program. Both the previous times - Hyderabad marathon 2011 and SCMM 2012 - I fell short of my target. This time I am training for a marathon pace of 8:19 per mile with the goal of completing the Mohawk Hudson River Marathon on 7th October   in 3:38 and qualifying for Boston marathon 2014 in the 55-59 years age group. I used the last two weeks to do interval training and tempo run after a gap of 5 months.  I am continuing to do strengthening two days a week at Manipal hospital. Based on advice from several sports physios I am also trying to spend adequate time stretching(specially my calves and glutes) after a workout. 

For the record my weight after the 1st day of training was 59.7Kgs close to my target optimal weight of 59Kgs. It is quite amazing how my weight varies  as much as 1.5 -2 Kgs between the morning and night - not sure if so much variation is normal. The picture below was taken just after the workout:

PS.  By the time I completed this post I also did my tempo run for this week - which was a 2 miler at a short tempo pace of 7:30 per mile after a 2 mile warm up. 

TCS open 10K 2012

The TCS open 10K on 27th May 2012 was  my 5th consecutive Open 10K race in Bangalore. Though it was my slowest finish in terms of timing I enjoyed the race experience specially the comraderie with so many fellow runners that I usually bump into at races around the country. I had gone out of town on a short vacation and reached home around 7am as my train got delayed on the return.   After getting ready quickly (I had pinned my bib and tied my timing chip to the shoe  before going on the trip) I rushed to Kanteerva stadium. I reached the holding area around 7:52 am with less than 10 minutes for race flag off. Though the organisers had seggregated runners by previous finish timing the holding area was still too crowded .I got caught up in chatting with a few fellow runners and did not realise till very close to race start time  that I was at the far end of Zone B. At 7:55 am the elite women took off and soon after that the open 10K runners were let into the track by Zone. It was  very chaotic getting to the start line with a lot of pushing and jostling while going down the steps and getting out of the holding area.   It took me over a minute after the start of the race to reach the start point. It was so terribly crowded that the first 2 Kms was a lot of start/stop, wading through slower runners and even some walkers.  I could not really pick up to my normal pace till I reached Cubbon road about 2 Kms from Kanteerva stadium in over 12 minutes - there were simply too many people on the road. Many of them were not running and ended up blocking the faster runners.

After that I had a good race from Km 2 till the finish. It was warmer than last year but the changed route (due to metro construction work) seemed a bit easier. As has been the norm there were water stations and Km markers enroute. I stopped at two water stops once around 4Kms and the second time around 8Kms. Once I entered Cubbon park between Km 8 and 9 I was able to pick up pace and finished very strongly in net time of 51:11. After the first couple of Kms I knew that I was not going to achieve my goal of sub 48:30. However, I was hoping to keep it sub 50 and was quite disappointed in not being able to do so. I should have started pushing harder from Km 6 itself. My Garmin showed the following split timings. Clearly splits 7,8,9 below should have been at a better pace.

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace
Summary	52:36.1	10.27	5:07
1	1:09.0	0.16	7:09
2	5:58.0	1.00	5:58
3	5:24.4	1.00	5:24
4	4:45.5	1.00	4:46
5	4:46.7	1.00	4:47
6	5:04.3	1.00	5:04
7	5:09.9	1.00	5:10
8	4:56.7	1.00	4:57
9	5:08.2	1.00	5:08
10	4:53.7	1.00	4:54
11	4:46.2	1.00	4:46
12	:33.5	0.11	4:59

See here for official results. The split times here are different from that shown by my Garmin and incorrect. As per the official timings I covered the last two Kms in 6:35 - how I wish I could do that!! My timing gave me 8th position in my age category in which  Pani and Sid took the first two positions.  Rahul completed in 70 minutes about 4 minutes slower than his PB. 


My net chip  times in the open 10K over the last 5 years :


2012   51:11
2011   45:57
2010   49:05
2009   48:24
2008   50:39

While I am not yet as fit as I was last year I should certainly have been able to do a sub 50 if I had been able to break away at the start.  The distribution of post race medals and refreshments was much better organised this year - it was inside the indoor stadium. After hanging around and exchanging notes with several runners I returned home around 10:30am.

Start of FM training for the new season

The new running season,at least in South India, usually starts with the 10K race organised in Bangalore by Procam  in late May/end June. See here for the 2012 India running calendar. This year's TCS open 10K event happened last Sunday on 27th May. Since my main focus is marathon training and I had planned a short vacation just prior to this race I set myself a modest goal of 48:30 for this event. I fell well short of this goal - see my next post for more details.

In the 9 weeks since I started training after a 7 weeks break I have built a reasonable foundation to launch the formal training for my next marathon - Mohawk Hudson River marathon on 7th October- one of two Full Marathons I plan to race in the 2012-13 season(the other being SCMM 2013). I have done a few weeks of 40K to 50K weekly mileage including my first 30K+ run of the season. With two easy  weekday runs and the weekend long run my mileage build up has been as follows:

2/4  25K

9/4 35K

16/4 35K

23/4 40K

30/4 41K

7/5  50K

14/5 40K

21/5 25K

28/5 45K

During this time I  signed up for runyourbq - a website focused on helping runners run their fastest marathon and qualify for Boston. While there is lot of useful information on the website, the training plans there have me confused. Like many other marathon training plans available on the net their training plans advocate 5 days of running per week and high weekly mileage of between 40 and 55 miles per week. This is quite in contrast with the 'Run Less, Run Faster' program from FIRST where the max weekly mileage is about 35 miles consisting of 3 runs per week - an interval run, a temp run and a long run. Of course, the 3 runs need to be complimented with 2 intense cross-training workouts per week.

At least for now I plan to stay with the FIRST program. I plan to do a practice interval training run and tempo run next week and  start the formal 16 weeks marathon training program the week of 11th June. Given that my next race is in the US I have changed the setting on  my Garmin  to show the distance and pace in miles rather than Kms. I plan to have a trial of  this as well next week. I will have a buffer of a week at the end as well - that is, it is exactly 18 weeks to the Mohawk Hudson River marathon. Incidentally this marathon got sold out on 12th May - nearly 5 months before the race!

The training plan is for a target FM time of 3:38 at an average pace of 5:11 per Km or 8:19 per mile. This target time/pace assumes that I can do a HM in about 1:44 - which I did at the Mysore Half marathon in October 2011. Since then I have put on some weight and have had some major issues on my left side - glutes, calf and numbness in the toes. After consulting with a couple of different sports medicine professionals I have realised that probably the only way to get over this issue is continued focus on strengthening and  stretching. I have been doing strengthening since February and plan to continue this through the year. I have not given sufficient importance to stretching after a training session - I plan to address this now on. This might mean spending longer hours on my weekday training session as well -something that is going to be a challenge to achieve with my current work schedule.  I also need to manage my weight and bring it down by a couple of Kgs to under 60 - for this I need to manage my diet better which is another challenge.  In order to test my progress with train I would like to run a fast HM in the July timeframe(I have a  13 miler scheduled on 29th July). There is no race scheduled in the area during that time - so this will have to be a training run on a flat course. Or I have to look at a event in the US in late August/early September (I will be in the NY area starting 22nd August till the race date) but that would be too close to the FM date.

As mentioned in my previous post my goal is try and BQ between September 2012 and September 2013. I am looking at a maximum of 3 attempts for this - Mohawk Hudson River marathon in October 2012, SCMM in January 2013 and possibly another race in the US in 2nd half of 2013!