18 miles and smiling :)

Saturday 9/20 was a perfect day to run. The temperature ranged in 50-60s It was cold but not too cold. I was mentally prepared to run 18 miles. I reached the Asha tree at about 7:40 am. Few people had shown up because most runners were away in Philly for the half-marathon. I casually asked, "How many miles are you doing today?", and discovered to my horror that everyone had just 10 miles on their schedule. I was the only one doing 18 miles, and was quite frightened. I even had doubts that I had read my schedule wrong. I calmed down and decided, "18 miles = 3 Harlem Hill loops. Lets tackle this one loop at a time."

I set off with Divya. The first mile was slow, trying to get our bodies to wake up and warm up. Gradually we picked up pace, tackled the Cat Hill bump and reached the reservoir entrance. We switched to the Bridle Path that runs parallel to the road (Be kind to your knees whenever you can, you will miss them when they are gone ), and followed it all the way to the 102 lamp post. Sapna caught up with us and consoled me that two other 18-milers showed up at the tree after we set off and that they are tackling the loop in the opposite direction. Here was some consolation. We switched to the road and ran on the loop to the Northwest corner of the park. Met Sheela, Lisbeth and Prerna going in the opposite direction near Columbus circle.We were taking walk breaks only at the water fountains. Our bodies were cooling down rapidly when we stopped running and we couldn't afford that. The good thing about it was I learnt how to recover without taking a walk break and we finished the first loop in about 70 minutes, significant improvement for us 12-13 mpmers.

After getting back to the tree, we grabbed Gu gels and water and headed for the next round. Divya promised to run 2 miles with me and planned to turn back from the 102 lamppost. We jogged along steadily, stopping only for water and parted ways at the start of the Harlem Hill stretch. Met Sheela again, she wanted to run with me but I blew her off; it would have been like rabbit and tortoise running together. Met Ketul, met Lisbeth (it is good to have people running the loop in opposite directions). Switched to the Bridle Path on the westside parallel to the road from 100 to 84th. Crossed someone who looked like Delilah (from the Hey there, Delilah fame). Maybe she was Delilah, maybe my mind was playing games with me.

Towards the end of the second loop, I was expecting my knees to start protesting but there wasn't even a whimper. To compensate, my lower back had started squirming. I could feel a strain set in my lower back on the right side. I tried stretching my back, bending forward and backwards but there was no relief. I mentioned it to Sapna when I reached the tree. She said I need to stengthen my core. Made a mental note to do back strengthening exercise and not to skip ab crunches and planks :(

I still had one more loop to go and the time was 10:30 am. Most people had finished their 10 miles and were ready to leave. I asked Kaushik (my b-i-l is our bag-watcher at the Asha tree ;) to take my bag home and planned the last 6 mile route. Since I stay in the Upper West Side, I could run the loop until W80 St and turn around and run back to W110 St to complete the distance. I could simply walk home from there. I set off on the last loop. I met Sheela (again!) on the East side Bridle Path. She was watching out for me, such a nice mentor ;) Hugs and hi-fives later, I jogged on. My legs were a bit tired and I was taking frequent walk breaks. Apart from my weak lower back and slower pace, the going was good. By now I had crossed the same few people, several times (they must have thought I was crazy). I had run 17 miles without music. In the final mile I decided to reward myself with dhinchak hindi songs. I was singing along loud while running the last mile. I got out of the park at noon. I had been running for 4 hours. That's the longest I have ever run. My legs were tired but no serious pains. It is amazing how muscles have memory, they remembered that they had done 16 miles last week and they cooperated on the extra 2 miles. Wonder what would happen if they suddenly developed amnesia :-O

Overall, the best 18 miles I have ever run. On my way back home, one guy smiled and asked "Looks like you have been at it for a long time." I said, "Yes, four hours." He says, "No wonder you look so great!!" I had this big grin on my face all the way home ;) ;)

Mileage: 6+4+18 = 28

Week of 9/8-14

Last Sunday, I made the mistake of doing the post-long run cross training on a strider. I got a nagging stiffness in my left ankle. I have been feeling this stiffness on and off but I noticed it gets worse when I go anywhere close to cardio machines. I better stay off the machines.

I managed the Tuesday run fine but missed the Thursday routine due to the Presidential candidates event in school.

Had a 16-miler on Saturday. It was a big leap from the 13 miles I had run before. The weather was hot and humid and my clothes were dripping sweat. I did 2 loops of the park and the 4-mile round trip on the east side. My knees were hurting at the 12th mile. I scraped through the last 4 with Divya dragging me along. My knees were devastated and wouldn't go another step. In the last few blocks I got a stitch in my stomach and had to walk the last 0.2 miles.

16 miles later, my knees hate me :(

Mileage = 5 + 16 = 21

Week of 9/1 to 9/7

This week was quite peaceful in terms of the long run. I had to do just 6 miles on Saturday so I skipped going to the Asha tree and ran with Laukik in Riverside Park instead. This was also the weekend of hurricane Hannah. She was supposed to hit us that afternoon. Saturday morning, the sky was completely overcast and burdened with humidity touching almost 100% and not a whiff of wind.

We took a slow start and I soon realized that it was impossible to breathe through the nose, I was almost choking on the vapour. I switched to breathing through my mouth and noticed a significant difference in my performance. All this while, I had been struggling to keep up with the running and going out of breath quickly. The wheezing bothered me.

Breathing through my mouth let me take large gulps of air. Another advantage was that I could keep my lower jaw slack and that in turn slackened my shoulders, arms and back. I was spending less energy in maintaining my form.

My running has gotten better ever since and has got me feeling quite upbeat.

Mileage = 6+5+6+2 = 19 miles

Saturday afternoon, Hannah struck. It rained heavily for the rest of the day and night. It felt just like in Mumbai. I love the rain!!

Half-marathon experience

I haven't been updating this blog regularly because I have been out running... cheeky, eh? I ran the half-marathon on the Labor Day weekend in Disneyland, Anaheim, CA. I wrote a race report for my training group and I am just going to paste it here.

Hi, Thanks a lot for all your wishes! I proudly proclaim myself to be a half-marathoner (if that term exists ;) Sorry about the super-late race report. I was chilling out and lazing around for no particular reason :)

Recounting the chronological sequence of events leading up to the Finish line...
Sheela and I met at the expo the previous day to pickup our race packet. I hadn't submitted a finish time estimate as I had no running history. I was assigned to the last corral. Sheela had submitted an ambitious finish time. She was in the first corral. We were wondering what to do, how we could run together?

We had a carb-filled pasta dinner at a nearby Olive Garden. The race was to start at 6 am the next day. By the time we got to sleep it was already midnight. Woke up at 3:45 am, took a shower, dressed in the latest Asha T-shirts, wolfed down whatever was at hand for breakfast... bananas, dates, powerbar, bread-butter... such gluttons ;) We set out to the hotel next door to take a shuttle to the race venue. By now, Sheela had decided to run with me in my corral. Ladies of the last corral :)

We met a bunch of Canadian walkers on the shuttle. They were 3 corrals ahead of me and they were planning to walk the race in 3-odd hours. That set us thinking, "we dont want to pass six thousand people, weaving in and around the walkers." We sneaked into the second corral. I was happily standing way ahead of my finish time... let the other runners take the pains of passing me ;)

The race was flagged off with singing of the American national anthem, followed by the wheelchair participants and then the runners. We crossed the start line few minutes past 6 am. We set off together, waving to the ducks and mice crowded on the overhead bridge and sidewalks. We saw our friends, Amit, Laukik, Muthu and Shilpa just afterwards, they were cheering loudly for us. Amidst all that cheering we had missed our exact start time. We covered the first mile together but soon realized that I was too slow for Sheela's pace. I urged her to go ahead and try to shoot for her sub-2 hour target. I met her only at the end of the race.

The time at mile 1 was about 16 minutes. I made a mental note of that to keep track of my pace.

The next 3 miles of the course were through Disneyland. The course snaked through different themes in the park, Sleeping Beauty's castle, Sindbad's ship. Many cartoons were up early to cheer us... the puppets from the toy maker story, Sheharyar and Sheharzad from Arabian nights, fairies, dwarves and elves. The resident Disney characters Mickey, Minnie and Donald were cheering loudly for us.

At mile 4 I again saw my friends and we were all waving and jumping around crazily. Laukik was planning to join me and run along for a few miles but buddy running was not allowed :( By now I had gotten out of the Disney park and headed towards the freeway. The next stretch of the freeway was dotted with troupes of cheerleaders, dancers, and orchestra. There were water stations every 2 miles. The weather was surprisingly humid with avg temperature about 75 F and avg humidity 73%. I took a walking water break at every station. I tried drinking Powerade, it tasted perfectly awful... like diluted Gatorade without the sweet flavor. To amuse myself, I kept reading the slogans on people's T-shirts. There were several people dressed up as cartoon characters. I saw many Mickey and Minnie mouses, fairies, in full attire as well as people wearing funky Disney headgear. A green fairy was flitting by me now and then. I paced with her almost till the end. People were wearing funky head gear and funny slogans. A woman wearing a running skirt and t-shirt with the following line written on her back "You have just been passed by a skirt!" Another one, "Running is cheaper than therapy."

I had a powergel at mile 7. At mile 9 the course ran along the banks of the Santa Ana river. The river had dried up and we were kicking dust along the riverbank. At mile 10 we passed the Angels baseball Stadium. By now a slight pain had crept into the side of my left knee. Either I had run too fast or been cautious not to strain my sprainy left ankle. I used to get that pain earlier but it had gone away in the past 4 months of training. Now it had come back. I stretched sideways attempting to relieve it, but it kept returning. I ended up taking several walk breaks in the last 3 miles. I crossed the finish line at 2:42:00 with overall timing of 2:37:16. The medal is large, golden, in the shape of a Disney castle, yippeee my first ever medal :)

The race was a lot of fun but we missed the hearty cheering and the enthusiastic buddy runners from our group.