Training for the Goa River Marathon on 12th Dec 2021 has not been ideal. I started the training a couple of weeks after the half marathon on 14th August from 6th September at week 15 (with the weeks counting down)of the 16 weeks RLRF plan . Soon thereafter, the training got disrupted in weeks 13 and 12 as I had to relocate to a relative's place in OMR for periods during those weeks due to personal reasons. Thankfully I had managed to get in my first 32K run of the plan on 19th September. However, due to this I had to re-arrange my next 32K run which was due on 2nd/3rd Oct as per plan. Further disruptions were caused in November due to rains and also travel to Trichi from 13th to 18th. This caused the 24K run of week 5 to be split into a 10K and 16K run. Fortunately, the intervals and tempo runs have been going mostly to plan - the 1K,2K,1K,1K interval of week 6 was one among a few exceptions. Was planning to do a 35K trail run at 6mins/Km pace at the unofficial KTM on 20th November as the last long run 3 weeks prior to the race. However, due to the rains in the previous weeks including the night before the trail was just too slushy. Within 500m of starting it became very apparent that I would unable to maintain anywhere close to the goal pace and decided to take it very easy and ran/walked in the extremely slushy trail to my slowest ever HM (2hr 48mins). Overall it was a good experience spending time with fellow runners and seeing the trail after several years - the last time I ran here was the 10th anniversary event in 2016. During this period the weight has also been varying between 55.5K and 57.5K- for an optimal run I would like it to be as close to 55K as possible. This maybe a challenge though with the birthday get together/camping this weekend and holiday in Agumbe next weekend.
My last long run (33K - 35K) before the race is now planned for Sat, 27th November at about 6 min/Km pace. The 800m x 8 intervals and the 8K tempo at mid-tempo pace have both gone very well this week. If the long run also goes well then I can get on the train to Goa on 10th afternoon reasonably confident of hitting the goal of 4:10!!
Update on 29th Nov: Struggled and completed 33K on 27th November in 3:40 - about 15 min slower than goal. Just was not able to get into a rhythm . Plus on top of variable weight and inconsistent training runs my Tom Tom GPS watch died suddenly a few weeks ago. Not being used to running at a certain pace by effort I have been using the old workhorse Garmin 310XT albeit without a strap. Holding it in the hand specially during long runs has been a pain. In spite of these issues I am hoping to keep below 4:30 and close to 4:10 on 12th Dec possibly with a 2 hr first hal- assuming things go well on race day.
