End of July Stats

Here is the usual post at the end of the month summarizing my progress.

Weight - 84 KGs.

Total KMs run - 155 Km. This was around 45 kMs below my target of 200. Essentially, lost 1 week of training time due to a stomach infection.

Calories Burnt - 17300.

Time Spent Running - 17 Hours 19 minutes.

Overall, I would put down this month as a pretty good month of running. I was running faster and in better form (a qualitative feeling). Also, my 5 km timing improved to 29 minutes 12 seconds. I am certain that I will do 10Km within 1 hour next month.

..and yes, lost a further 1.5 KGs this month

A Revision of my Short Term Goals

This was something that I decided on around 3 weeks back - but never posted. My initial ambition was to target the full marathon in Mumbai in 2010. But, then a combination of new knowledge, and experience, illumined me and made me introspect on whether this made sense. Some of these included the following thoughts-

1. I was going to at-best be a struggling 5 hour plus finisher. I was not sure whether I wanted to go through my first marathon as a supreme struggle. I actually wanted to finish happy, and in good time

2. There was definitely a greater risk of injury in attempting a marathon without building atleast a base of 12 - 18 months of solid running. This was an extremely important consideration for me. I did not want to get injured and be off running for a long period

3. I realized that even in terms of a half marathon, I still had a very long way to go in my training. With my current speed and stamina, it looks like I would be a 2 hours 25 minutes finisher. I thought I should first see if could shave off atleast 15 minutes off this before the Delhi Half Marathon in November. And then, work towards doing a sub-2 hour half marathon sometime next year

Hence, I decided that I would seriously start working towards a marathon only sometime in 2010. Before that, I want to crack a half marathon within 2 hours. Does this all sound presumptous for a guy who is actually yet to race a half marathon...yes! But then..what the heck!!

Hence my new goals are to do 4 half marathons in 4 months.

November' 09 - Delhi

December' 09 - Singapore

January' 10 - Mumbai

February' 10 - Hong Kong

It is now a question of ramping up my running speed. My longest run to date is 15 km, and in terms of distance I am almost there. Should be hitting 18 Km by mid-August. Therefore, what I am going to focus on over the next 3- 6 months is on speed and strength. Hopefully, this should help me increase my average running speed to around 10 Km / Hour from my current 9.1 Km / Hour

A sinusoidal month

Its been that kind of month. A stomach infection forced me off running for 6 days. Got back to it tentatively on Saturday - and ran 6 kms in the morning. I could feel the tempo missing - I ran too fast and my normal cadence was completely off

Felt guilty about the lack of exercise and ran a further 5 km in the evening (I really think I should not have done this). Nevertheless, again, ran too fast

Things finally started feeling normal on Sunday morning. I ran 10 kms at a good rhythm.

Well - I have clearly internalized the meaning of muscle memory I suppose. That's been the one good thing that came out of my forced break from running

A new PR for 5 km

Things have been going pretty well for me in July as far as my running schedule is concerned. Today, in my tempo run, I did 5 Km in 29 minutes 12 seconds - shaving off 33 seconds from my June 24th record. I am quite happy about this!

So far,I have done around 105 km in 16 days. I should be closing the month with a mileage of around 195 Km

Am almost there

Last Saturday, I broke through the 15 Km barrier. I should be half-marathon ready, in terms of endurance, in another 6 weeks.

I took around 1 hour 43 minutes to do 15 km. The heavy rains did slow me down a bit maybe. Nevertheless, projecting basis this speed, I should be completing the half marathon in approximately 2 hours 27 minutes.

Since last week, I have included speed work, and hills in my training. This should hopefully, help me shave off atleast 10 minutes from my projected time by October