Thursday to Tuesday

This is how I trained from last Thursday to Tuesday

Thursday: I had to pick up my aunt from the railway station on Thursday morning and at the same time didn’t want to miss my weekday LSD(Long Slow Distance) running. The railway station is just 8k from my home and as per my schedule I had to run 13k. I figured out a longer route which was around 12.5k and ran till the station. Though I reached the station on time, the train was delayed by an hour. I called my sister and asked her to come and pick up my aunt. Came back from station to kodambakkam by train and ran from kodambakkam to home, which is another 2k.

Saturday: I cleaned my bicycle (bike) on Friday evening for cross training on Saturday morning. I hit the snooze button at 4 AM and the next time I saw my watch it was 4:50AM. For a moment I thought to skip my training hoping the cycling group would have left before I reached the starting point (which is 7k away from my home). I decided to give a try and left my home at 5:10AM. Rammed my bike pedals really hard, but just 600-700mts before the meeting point my bike chain slipped. It took nearly five minutes to fix it and concluded the group would have already started. Fortunately I caught them in the last moment and it was a pleasure riding with the group. We rode even in the heavy rain before finishing our ride with a good filter coffee at saravana bhavan. I would have pedaled around 30k.

Sunday: It was drizzling when I met Shumit at 4:30 AM. We did some stretching and started our run at 4:36 AM. The weather was very pleasant and it rained almost till we completed the run. Shumit runs fast, but I didn’t want him to slow down because of me and ran at a pace faster than I run long distances. We ran 30.2k in 2hrs 59 mins and both of us felt really happy about the timing. In fact I wrongly assumed the distance to be 32k and wanted to celebrate with beer that evening. Nevertheless it was a great run.

Tuesday: I did fast uphill training with Hari and enjoyed the chat with him. It’s good that I am slowly getting used to the habit of chatting while running.

Fillers – Friday and Monday I hit the gym for upper body training.

Fixing Me

How did we come into existence? What have we done to our lives? Why is it so complex to break the shackles of worries? As everyone say, does life becomes very boring if we are always happy?

Time will cure. But time also brings new things into our life. It becomes hard for me to get answers when I think these types of questions. It gives me a strange unpleasant feeling when I think that I can’t see my father again. Before I repair others, how do I purify my thoughts and be positive. What do I do now?

I Listen to Music. Music is my energy booster. It’s an awesome feeling I experience when I hear the strumming sound of guitars, melodies from piano and poetic lyrics. Bands like Coldplay and Pink Floyd will never tire me. I am not sure how many thousands times I have listened to them and still listen. Currently my ipod is playing “Fix You” by Coldplay. Very inspiring lyrics and music. There is so much to get from the lyrics and many things I can relate to. Personal loss, day to day worries or even when I try to give up in the middle during my long distance running, remembering the lyrics from this song helps me a lot.

Fix You – Lyrics (Coldplay X&Y)

When you try your best but you don't succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse

When the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

And high up above or down below
When you're too in love to let it go
But if you never try you'll never know
Just what you're worth

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

Tears stream down your face
When you lose something you cannot replace
Tears stream down your face
And I

Tears stream down your face
I promise you that I will learn from my mistakes
Tears stream down your face
And I

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you.

Running Thoughts

Feeling quite strong mentally and physically after the 30k run yesterday. I took nearly 3hrs 15mins to complete 30.5kms. Tackling the stray dogs during my early morning long runs is becoming a pain. I hate them to the core. Even though I run in the middle of the road, I prefer to walk at certain stretches of densely populated areas to avoid these creatures chasing me. But still couple of chasing incidents happened yesterday. Leaving the dog stories aside, I am able to complete the run quite strongly. Except little bit of soreness here and there, I have recovered pretty fast. Run followed by heavy breakfast and 3 hours or nap was sufficient for me to recover completely. Though I wasn't carrying my fuel belt, I was hydrating throughout the run at regular intervals.

Couple of week’s back I lost my fuel belt somewhere. I went to spencer plaza in the evening with my friend to check if it’s available in any of the sports store. As expected none of the stores had fuel belts. One sales guy in Nike showroom said they don’t sell belts in their shop (thinking that I was inquiring for a leather belt). Later I went to landmark to check if they had any books on running, but no luck. Still lot more to catch up.

Nowadays I am thinking more about running and completing the Singapore marathon. Moreover, except running I don’t have anything interesting happening in my life. Looking at the recent posts I think it's apt to change my blog title to My “Running” Thoughts.

5k in 24:16

I competed in a 5k race yesterday and finished it in 24mins 16secs. Considering that I ran the race after a slow 15k run, I feel happy about my timings. Initially I was bit hesitant to participate hoping that I would miss my weekend long run. On the other hand, I also didn’t want to miss the 5k race. So I thought of combining my weekend long run with the short 5 k run and decided to reach the race venue running. Throughout the race I maintained good constant pace. But towards the end I started competing with a guy for the third place. I wrongly assumed that I was nearing the finish line, started sprinting and ran out of steam very quickly. I gave up, decided to slow down and jogged the last 500mts. I finished 5th or 6th in the race and really excited to know that I ran at an average speed of 12.4kph.

Disconnected

For almost a week I was physically and virtually disconnected from the external world. I attended a residential workshop on project management conducted by my organisation I am currently employed in. It was an exhaustive workshop with sessions starting at 7AM and ending after 9PM with some short breaks in the middle. Our day starts with a session on breathing techniques, followed by seniors sharing their experiences with some interesting role plays and activities. The participants were all budding managers working in different projects at different levels. Except one colleague, everyone was a stranger to me and it was nice to spend time with them. We seldom get opportunities to meet the people who have been with the organisation since day one and made it grow and see it growing to this level. The vision, thoughts they shared with us was very motivating and amazed to see them still working with lot of zest and hunger to make the organisation grow. With so much of packed activities I still managed to run on couple of days. The resort (Pleasant days resort) we stayed was maintained very well with wonderful landscapes and greenery. Only drawback is the suites doesnt have internet connection. I also utilised some free time to plunge in the swimming pool. Overall the experience was fruitful and the time just flew away.