Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Run


The other day I was thinking about how I got to running. One day I was walking along Rose garden road/Lakshman Rao park road in Jayanagar. I saw a friend of mine run and i thought of accompaniying him to beat the boredom. That week the 'Runners for Life' organised a 5K run in office to select our corporate team for their annual 'Urban Stampede' They invited anyone interested to run. this is where I ran my first marathon with timing+bib. I also found the idea of being served water or electrolyte or oranges and bananas on the run interesting. I found myself running easily after these. Thus began my tyrst with running.

Now I run because I want to train myself to run a full marathon (42K). I also find that I am stress free after a run. My mind frees up of any stress I have and I also get some thinking time alone, if required. Running just gets better with time. I ran my first 10K in Bangalore Sunfeast 10K at about 77mins on tarred roads across the central Business district. My next 10k was at Mysore along the trail of the river Kaveri. This was a trail and needless to say untarred. This was tough considering the many ups and downs on the trail and the weather in Mysore was not helping. My time was again close to 77 minutes. This was an improvement considering it was a trail run. or that was what I told myself. Then came the regular 10ks at office on Wednesdays. Since this was again on tarred surface I saw that I finally made my sub 1Hr 10K for the first time last week.

I decided to 'up the ante' by registering for the Bangalore ultra under the 25k category. This was needed as I wanted to run a full marathon in the next 1 year. A saying by a great runner motivated me. never stop if you are tired. Thats a way the brain feeds you false information and says go home. If you are exhausted, stop. Go home. thats when you are actually done. I took about 3 and a half hours to cover the 25k trail. This was tougher than the Mysore KTM run as this was an even more undulating trail and Bangalore decided to be hotter that day. But surprisingly I was not tired when I completed 12.5K (50%) of the run. I was surprised that I covered more than my usual distance of 10K without being tired. I used to stop at 10K earlier thinking that was my limit. Turns out I can do more. I was also surprised that I was not exhausted after 25K but dog tired. A couple of half marathons and I am on track on completing a full marathon in 2012 or latest by the Mumbai marathon in Jan-2013.

I learnt a couple of things this last 2 runs. Staying dry through out the run helps a lot. I bought myself a dry-fit Tee and shorts for the 25K. It is nothing but a cloth made of spandex, polyster, nylon and a small amount of cotton. Staying wet (hydrated) through out the run helps. Drink a lot of water the day before. Keep drinking water in small quantities through out the run. Do not drink a lot of water as it makes you feel filled up and you cannot run. This was the mistake I made last time. Also, empty your bladders before the run. Get yourself some bare minimum running shoe.

Do let me know if you need any info regarding running. I don't know most of it. But I know some professional runners from whom i get you the info. To lookup running events in your country please visit: http://aimsworldrunning.com/Calendar.htm


Update: I did my first full marathon in Non 2012 in Mysore and the second on in Jan 2013 in Mumbai. Finally I keep my word to myself. 

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