My Marathon Memoirs...

Post a body numbing work-out, I began to wonder why I became so irregular the last couple of months after almost an year of consistency. I could not come up with a plausible answer. The dopamine rush after after a hard run is better than a spirit-high.

I have decided to train for a full marathon, 42kms of endurance test. My target is to ready up for one in an year, 365 days. I can do 10kms in a little over an hour but after that my output takes a drastic hit. That was on the endurance front but on the speed front I can do 5kms is under 30mins, never stretched myself further.

Given the speed, endurance and required numbers, it is a tall order. I have to cut my liquor intake to a bare minimum and hog on protein and stay away from white carbs. All this calls for detailed planning and meticulous execution.

I intent to use twitter to post my marathon updates on a daily basis and write a detailed weekly post stating the progress.

Signing off...

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1st of November, 2008

It may not been my most productive work-out week however I am fairly satisfied with the output, considering my hectic work schedule and under-par biorhythms...

I gave the whole idea a good amount of thought and came up with a training plan, milestones and targets - in the reverse order actually. I took a top-down approach where in the first the targets were decided upon, which were then broken down in to milestones and a plan to achieve the same was thought-off...

The target, to do my first 'full marathon' in under 3hrs. 42.5kms in under 3hrs sure seems herculean. The same translates to roughly 14kms per 1hr, now this breakup was unnerving as my personal best both in distance and time terms till then was 10kms in 85mins (on a treadmill). Given the two premises I had to work both on speed and endurance, I 'hit the wall' (a running phrase meaning 'near burn-out') after my previous best, but them again that was a good year and a half ago and after that I have only gotten in to better shape.

Given the fact that I had to work both on speed and stamina, I came up with a strategy which sufficiently addresses the two.

1. The idea was to keep the time constant and increase the speed everyday by .1km/hr on the treadmill and
   
2. To hit the road on at least one day of the week where it would be more about the distance covered rather than the time taken...
   

The first step would help me shave the seconds off and the second actually had two benefits, on one hand it would help me check my performance graph across the distance and secondly it would clear the webs covering my psyche about how far I can push myself. I realized that running a marathon is as much if not more related to the mind as it is to the body...

Now I can average 10.1km/hr for 30mins...

I did 10.4kms (quarter marathon) in 72mins, considerably away from my target but way ahead of my previous best. The best thing being my previous best was a flat machine and my current best is on a hard road with slopes and inclines, if that was the icing the cherry is the fact that far from 'hitting the wall' I felt I easily had another 3 or 4kms in me...

On the input front, I have totally cut down on liquor and increased carb and protein intake.

Signing off...

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22nd of June

Well did little of what all I wanted to do, owing to multiple reasons...

• Work pressure
  
• Accident recovery
  
• Locational change

Will get back to achieving it...

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