Despite all the advances in medical science and cosmetology, aging is(at least for now) an inevitable reality of life. And the ensuing degradation of phyiscal and mental abilities. Nevertheless, I am considerably surprised and terribly disappointed at the recurrence of aches and pains in the past few months and the alarmingly fast regression in my ability to maintain pace during training runs . I was reasonably able to meet my target paces in the tempo and long runs as recently as 4rth quarter of 2018 while training for a 3:48 TMM 2019 ( a goal I missed by about 3 minutes!). So minor depression is setting in trying to reconcile with the fact that currently I am struggling to sustain pace in any of the 3 weekly runs - Fartlek, Tempo or Long run. While the run starts off close to the goal pace, the quads(specially the left one) start hurting and screaming within a few kms specially if I hit an elevation of even a couple of metres (the area I run in nowadays -Doddaladamara road and its side roads is full of rolling gradients). Subsequently the other irritants such as increasing truck traffic due to construction on Mysore road and boom in real estate development, rising dust and pollution and encounters with agressive stray dogs are all getting magnified in the mind resulting in lower enjoyment of the runs and causing a dip in motivation and enjoyment - for the first time ever since taking to long distance running over 17 years ago. Apart from the physical pain in the quads I have , of late, lacked the mental toughness to push through pain and tended to give up fairly quickly. I am hoping to draw some inspiration from Endure: Mind, Body and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Endurance that I am currently reading.
Pain in the left butt, due to piroformis syndrome, when running long or fast, has been my bugbear for over 10 years now. This was compounded by numbness in the left sole since 2014 or so. With focused strengthening and stretching the glutes pain is under control at least for now. However, the pain now seems to have transferred to the quads. The pain almost completely disappears once I stop running and does not bother me much in my day to day life. Except when I am sitting in a certain position for a long time eg a long drive. As per the sports physios that I have consulted the glutes,quads, core etc require strengthening. Which I have been religously doing 2-3 days a week irrrespective of whether I am training for an event or not. Hence it is really frustrating that the muscles are not getting stronger - on the contrary to me they appear to be detoriating rapidly. This is similar to the rapid slowdown in movement and strength that I have observed in my dad after he crossed 85 years of age. Knowing how strong and active he was even in his late 70s, I feel angry and at the same time sorry for him. Need to research to see whether there is spike in muscle dystrophy at specific ages such as 35, 60, 85, that is, every 25 years or so! Of course, different people age differently and there are numerous examples ,including among my friends, of runners improving their time well into their 50s and even 60s.
During 2012-13 when I was regularly running intervals at Kanteerva stadium as part of improving pace to try and BQ , both athletic coach Bidu and running coach Pani remarked that I was landing too hard on my left foot and that could cause injuries. At that time I did not pay attention to their remarks and succeeded in hitting my FM timing goal to qualify for Boston. However , in hindsight, it looks like they were bang on and I should have paid more attention to my running form and how my feet were landing during faster runs. Landing hard on the left foot may have damaged a nerve or two causing the various issues on the left side that I am experiencing. My cadence even in tempo runs is in the mid to high 150s versus ideal cadence in the 170s. Which means I tend to over stride when I try to run fast. A few weeks of effort to up the cadence using a metronome has not worked. Hoping to use a borrowed cadence sensor to give it another shot in the next few weeks.
The quads pain and numbness in the sole is less of an issue in easy slow runs. However, I am still quite obessessed with a FM timing goal - targeting a sub 3:48 FM to try and qualify for Boston . Whether or not I actually run the Boston marathon again I was targeting to qualify every 5 years or so. The reasons being to maintain a certain level of cardiac fitness as one ages and also to prove(to myself) that the qualification in January 2013 was not a one-time. I missed the timing goal at TMM 2019 despite training well. The plan for the next attempt is nowon the flat course in Delhi at the NEBS event in February 2020. However, based on the struggles of the last two months , the physical and mental strength to just complete another FM looks like a huge challenge - achieving a BQ timing seems impossible. Nevertheless, I have not given up yet and have decided to focus the next few months on improving strength(have hired a personal trainer again after a gap of 10m) and pace and not worry about distance for now.
Other changes I am contemplating are:
- to increase the duration of the pre-run warm up routine from 10m to 20m
- Keep the weekly mileage to below 40Km for now ( My weekly mileage across the 3 runs even when training for a marathon rarely exceeds 55Km)
- And give more time for the body to recover between runs by cutting down on the cycling for cross training between runs as part of the FIRST 3 plus 2 training method
Before starting the 16 week training for a 3:48 FM in October, I would like to hit a 10K time of about 48:30 and HM time of 1:47. Was hoping to get close to the former at the Bangalore 10K challenge in couple of weeks from now. However, that is improbable after this morning's run where I was unable to sustain a 5:05 pace for more than 3 Kms. I would be happy if , on 7th July, I manage a timing similar to the sub 51m at the 3rd anniversary run of Runaddicts (on 9th June) - a vibrant running group in the RR Nagar area that I discovered recently.
If I am unable to achieve these goals during this season then I will give up on pace(and BQ'ing ever again!) and focus on LSDs and enjoying my runs before I become so demotivated that I give up on running altogether!!. The longer term plan is to run TMM and a couple of ultras every season.
Pain in the left butt, due to piroformis syndrome, when running long or fast, has been my bugbear for over 10 years now. This was compounded by numbness in the left sole since 2014 or so. With focused strengthening and stretching the glutes pain is under control at least for now. However, the pain now seems to have transferred to the quads. The pain almost completely disappears once I stop running and does not bother me much in my day to day life. Except when I am sitting in a certain position for a long time eg a long drive. As per the sports physios that I have consulted the glutes,quads, core etc require strengthening. Which I have been religously doing 2-3 days a week irrrespective of whether I am training for an event or not. Hence it is really frustrating that the muscles are not getting stronger - on the contrary to me they appear to be detoriating rapidly. This is similar to the rapid slowdown in movement and strength that I have observed in my dad after he crossed 85 years of age. Knowing how strong and active he was even in his late 70s, I feel angry and at the same time sorry for him. Need to research to see whether there is spike in muscle dystrophy at specific ages such as 35, 60, 85, that is, every 25 years or so! Of course, different people age differently and there are numerous examples ,including among my friends, of runners improving their time well into their 50s and even 60s.
During 2012-13 when I was regularly running intervals at Kanteerva stadium as part of improving pace to try and BQ , both athletic coach Bidu and running coach Pani remarked that I was landing too hard on my left foot and that could cause injuries. At that time I did not pay attention to their remarks and succeeded in hitting my FM timing goal to qualify for Boston. However , in hindsight, it looks like they were bang on and I should have paid more attention to my running form and how my feet were landing during faster runs. Landing hard on the left foot may have damaged a nerve or two causing the various issues on the left side that I am experiencing. My cadence even in tempo runs is in the mid to high 150s versus ideal cadence in the 170s. Which means I tend to over stride when I try to run fast. A few weeks of effort to up the cadence using a metronome has not worked. Hoping to use a borrowed cadence sensor to give it another shot in the next few weeks.
The quads pain and numbness in the sole is less of an issue in easy slow runs. However, I am still quite obessessed with a FM timing goal - targeting a sub 3:48 FM to try and qualify for Boston . Whether or not I actually run the Boston marathon again I was targeting to qualify every 5 years or so. The reasons being to maintain a certain level of cardiac fitness as one ages and also to prove(to myself) that the qualification in January 2013 was not a one-time. I missed the timing goal at TMM 2019 despite training well. The plan for the next attempt is nowon the flat course in Delhi at the NEBS event in February 2020. However, based on the struggles of the last two months , the physical and mental strength to just complete another FM looks like a huge challenge - achieving a BQ timing seems impossible. Nevertheless, I have not given up yet and have decided to focus the next few months on improving strength(have hired a personal trainer again after a gap of 10m) and pace and not worry about distance for now.
Other changes I am contemplating are:
- to increase the duration of the pre-run warm up routine from 10m to 20m
- Keep the weekly mileage to below 40Km for now ( My weekly mileage across the 3 runs even when training for a marathon rarely exceeds 55Km)
- And give more time for the body to recover between runs by cutting down on the cycling for cross training between runs as part of the FIRST 3 plus 2 training method
Before starting the 16 week training for a 3:48 FM in October, I would like to hit a 10K time of about 48:30 and HM time of 1:47. Was hoping to get close to the former at the Bangalore 10K challenge in couple of weeks from now. However, that is improbable after this morning's run where I was unable to sustain a 5:05 pace for more than 3 Kms. I would be happy if , on 7th July, I manage a timing similar to the sub 51m at the 3rd anniversary run of Runaddicts (on 9th June) - a vibrant running group in the RR Nagar area that I discovered recently.
If I am unable to achieve these goals during this season then I will give up on pace(and BQ'ing ever again!) and focus on LSDs and enjoying my runs before I become so demotivated that I give up on running altogether!!. The longer term plan is to run TMM and a couple of ultras every season.
