Injury

I was all set for my long run on Sunday 16th June. 15K in 2 hours was my goal and I was super pumped to get into it. The usual build up...woke up by 5:15 AM, reached my start spot at the tree park by 5:50, stretched and took off. I think I took off too fast. Into the 2nd km, I began to feel some pain in my lower hamstring and calf. At first I ignored it. I then slowed down. I stopped. Stretched. Took off again. But the pain became sharper. Then I felt that sinking feeling. I've never experienced a muscle pull of this sort ever. There's a first for everything I suppose. It's the most frustrating feeling. You feel great otherwise. But the moment you jog...jab jab jab. That pain. I quietly walked back to the car...angry at the world.

It's day 1 today after the pull. My training week now lies in tatters. Hoping for a quick recovery. 

10 weeks in

I really must resume the habit of writing down my experiences. It’s been 10 weeks or so into my stint in a structured training program for triathlon. Other than 1.5 years when I was with Beedu training with athletes and badminton players in Kanteerava, I have never worked with such discipline and dedication. 

Today was an example of that and I continue to surprise myself. The workouts now are two a day on 5 days of the week. Today was a swim + run. I was up at 5:15 AM and in the pool by 5:50. I completed my planned workout of 600 metres with a drill thrown in. Got in the car by 7 AM and was at work by 8ish. Today was a day long meeting that ended only by 7:45 pm. I ended up driving back with that gnawing and frustrated feeling of having to miss a workout. I was mentally all set to get home by 8 pm and hit the treadmill. I got home instead at 9:20 but didn’t blink and hit the treadmill by 9:40. Completed my run as planned and completed my post run stretch in surprisingly cool weather by the pool by 11 pm. 

Now I can’t recall when if ever I have approached anything with this level of dedication and drive. None of my marathon trainings ever approached this level of intensity because I always adjusted my workouts to suit my life and didn’t adjust my life to suit my goals. 

Today was an exceptional day. I am slowly regaining the sort of light, clean and airy sensations I experienced in Shanghai when I was running and on the south beach diet. That time saw me lose over 20 Kgs. I am down around 4 Kgs and 2 inches on my waist in 10-11 weeks. There’s still a long way to go and the hard yards are only just beginning. But this feeling is something I want to embrace and never let go of. Today was a great day. 

That Feeling...

A small step in the right direction last evening. We are all about the choices we make. I was lazing on the couch, idly watching India get beat by a second string Aussie side. But the urge to run was too strong. It was almost the perfect 5K jog. Everything felt right. The body floated along and I didn't push. It was a slow 5K in 49 mins. You can argue I could have walked that briskly but I'm content.

I kept my focus on ensuring my back was upright, my head straight, my bulging gut as taut as possible and my impact light and heels kicking back.

5K floated by. And I felt like I was floating too. That feeling of lightness, of your body moving in complete rhythm and effortlessly almost going where you want it to is incomparable to any other sensation.

Glad I am slowly getting back into that zone and reclaiming my only real superpower.  

Slightly Nauseous

I guess that's the only way to describe what I am feeling right now as the enormity of what I have signed up for is sinking in more and more. I have 250 days before I may or may not be standing on Miramar beach, Goa in my swimwear for the first ever Ironman 70.3 race in India. 

If by some minor miracle I do make the starting gun, just breaking down the 3 leg event right now is making me more than slightly nauseous. 

An 80 minute cut-off time for the 1.9 K swim, a 5 1/2 hour cut-off for the 90 K bike ride and assuming I somehow finish both of these under the cut-offs, I'll then have to set a blistering pace (for me) in the half-marathon which is the final leg to finish under the overall cut-off time of 8 hrs 30 minutes. 

Perspective: my best ever half-marathon time has been 2hrs 3 minutes set a decade ago. Admittedly, this was in the muggy humidity of the Mumbai Marathon. And it was my first ever competitive race when I had no sense of pacing, splits, GPS, Gatorade, nothing. But still. To do this thing, I'll need to match my half-marathon personal best or better it. Paradoxically, the prospect of putting in a personal best half-marathon is actually a calming influence. With 7 months of decent training, I'm confident of putting in a sub-2 hour 21K run. But after the swim and bike? All bets are off. 

There's literally no time to lose now and the clock is ticking. I hope my nausea abates enough for me to make the starting gun. 

Oh, and why am I doing this? My younger self would quote an inspirational quote from an inspirational human being...Scott Jurek, Roger Bannister, Steffi Graf maybe or Viv Richards. The honest answer is really what Murakami said...rainy day sneakers. There's no angst here that I need to let out nor some glorious finish that will help me become a better human being. I don't intend to post how I meld my triathlon lifestyle with a demanding day job and how the two may have some symbiotic relationship. My cynicism and world-weary outlook are self-evident. Honestly, I just think it's fun. Shane Warne whom I idolized growing up and still do said something to the effect of "There's still a big kid inside me who likes to have fun. Maybe I need to grow up and maybe I don't..."

That doesn't mean the inspirational quotes won't follow! Endorphins drive the cynicism away quite well. 

250 days to go. 

Turning back the clock

In August or September of 2004, I stumbled upon a book that changed my life forever. The South Beach Diet proved to be for me the catalyst for weight loss, a healthier lifestyle, more informed eating habits and subsequently 3 full marathon and 1 half ultra finishes, not to mention a bunch of half marathons. Some of my friends from my cricketing days labelled me "fatboy slim", a tribute to my weight loss from more rotund days as a cricketer. What followed my weight loss was something that probably defined me and continues to define me in terms of my identity: that of a "runner". My second identifier in life I would say after being labeled a "cricketer" for a good 12 years of my life.

Much water has passed under my muddled and sometimes confusing existence but I kept coming back to the south beach book over the past 12 years. I am back to it again now and on day 6 of phase 1. I'm hoping to clean and balance out my blood chemistry. Wean myself off the nasty cravings for processed sugars and bounce back to my hey days of 2007-08 when I probably was the fittest I have ever been in my life. My full marathon time on a humid, hot, unforgiving Mumbai day of 4:40 is testimony to that. 4:40 isn't even an averagely good time but when I think about just how poor my training regimen then was, just how little I knew about preparing for 42 km without all the tech and nutrition I now have access to, it was a feat worthy of recognition. I had no GPS, no distance tracker, no gatorade, no gels, no books, no nothing. I just ran. and ran and ran. And God was I strong. I want to rediscover that. I want to be back in that place. The journey again as always begins now.

I dream of a 100K. I dream of an Ironman. I yearn to push the limits of what I've already achieved and see what else I can do, what other identities I can garner. This isn't a push for glory or prizes. It's an all-consuming inner desire to discover more and learn what else I am capable of.  I don't want to look back in 20 years and think about what could have been. 2017 may well be the year when I rediscover that 2007 level of fitness and strength. But it begins now. One life. As that striking Under Armour ad puts it, "It's what you do in the dark, that puts you in the light." 

What in 2016?

It's 2016. The memories and elation of my KTM finish are long gone. A few kilos of friendly fat are also back. What are the goals for 2016? A full marathon? 35 runs to celebrate 35 years of being on this planet? An ultra? A 100 miler? I don't know. The urge to run though is back. I also want to spend time working on my golf game this year but hope these two won't be mutually exclusive.

I'll start by working on all round fitness and work my mileage back up again. From there we'll see. The urge to conquer Mumbai again is strong and to do so in a personal best would be sublime.

It all starts now though. 

Kaveri Trail Marathon 2015

Last Sunday the 20th of September at around the same time (10:30 AM) I was 4 hrs 30 min into my first trail marathon attempt at the KTM. I must have been at the 30K mark and starting to really feel the trail, the humidity and the prospect of the last 12K looming ahead like an insurmountable wall. 

I hadn't run a full marathon since 2009. I failed to finish the Mumbai marathon in 2011. Not finishing this time wasn't an option or so I kept telling myself. As we lined up at the start point, Arvind or A2 as he's known among the organisers was engaging in some banter on the podium as we waited for the clock to tick over to 6 AM. His first piece of advice was to not attempt your personal bests in this run. This wasn't the run for personal bests...I was about to find out why. He asked if anyone had cycled to the start point from Bangalore and sure enough one hand went up to raucous cheers from all 180 runners lined up. I was honestly astounded to see the 40-something guy a few feet away who was smiling bashfully as people cheered him. Many hands shot up when asked how many had run all 8 previous editions of this marathon. I just toed the ground and focused on my breathing and allowed a  smile of satisfaction that I actually stood amongst such crazies. The run began with a few cheers and I settled at my easy race pace right at the back of the pack. As anyone who's run 42K will tell you, the run really doesn't start until the 35K mark so I dug deep and focused on my breathing and form. 

Around the 25K mark I was feeling just fantastic. At that moment I felt all my training and hard work and preparation were coming together in one beautiful symphony. I had never felt so good at this distance. My pace had auto-set itself and glances to my watch confirmed that I had settled on my optimal race pace to finish in 5hrs 30. Glimpses of finishing with a smile flashed through my mind's eye and I savagely thrust those thoughts aside. Thinking is the enemy...as Scott Jurek reiterated the other day. A short but 40 degree incline faces you around the 8K mark of the 10.5 out section of the trail. At 28K it's wise to walk and I trudged up this short section. That's when I started to notice how rough the trail was, how my legs suddenly had a mind of their own, how the humidity was rendering my tongue parched despite blissful cloud cover overhead that kept the sun away for the most part of the run.  

From the 30K to the 33K mark I really lost things mentally. It was a real struggle. The sun too came out a few times and when it did, it felt like I was suddenly thrust into a 200 degree oven. The heat was searing and unbelievable. I actually contemplated stripping off my under shirt and simply running on with my singlet at that point. Thankfully, the sun kept playing hide and seek and never really came out till the end. At that point, thoughts of just stopping, sitting down, just giving up all crossed my mind. It also doesn't help one's morale as runner after runner old and young keep passing you. 

This is again when all the training paid off. The stress zone is something I've spoken about in earlier training posts. I told myself well here we are again in the stress zone and this time there's no stopping. I decided to just focus on 1K at a time. At 33K I said let's get to 34...at 34, let's get to 35. I didn't think of anything else. I barely noticed a dazzling cormorant or flocks of majestic egrets or the beautiful paddy fields and canal. Just that number. Just the next aid station. By 35K I was grabbing handfuls of ice and rubbing it all over my body, head and neck. I had already been on the trail for 5 hrs 15 mins by then and I could feel how overheated my body had become. The ice really helped. It was the thing that kept me going honestly. That deliciously cool feeling albeit momentary was what helped me focus on the next K and the next K until it started to rain. But by then I was at the 39K mark and after another 30 mins of forward motion I could see the finish line. The last 50 metres I was accompanied by one of the volunteer-organiser-veterans who saw me through to the finish. My beautiful wife was there too, cheering me on to the finish along with a few other volunteers. My medal was slung around my neck and I collapsed nearby...tired but with that feeling of elation that only comes from having made it across 42K. That last 10K section again taught me a lot...about myself, about life, about what it takes to keep going when all motivational talk and logic seem facetious and things seem darkest and most futile. Finishing was a triumph of the mind over the body. The body had given up long ago but the mind kept me going.

This was my slowest marathon finish. But this was also the toughest course I have run. I also entered this run with the sole intent of finishing. I had no other option given how unfit I was when I set sights on this event and the limited time I could put into training for this event. I look back with satisfaction at the last 5 months. I did what I set out to do. It's now about looking ahead. I suffered from severe bone stress in my right leg after the run and I'm still hobbling as a result. I should be OK in another week. I had initially entertained thoughts of entering the Mumbai Marathon, now that I have a legitimate finish time which should help me qualify. However, I don't want another finish like this one. I want to be able to run strong in that last 10K. I already have the contours of a training plan for the next 6 months charted out in my head. I know the areas I need to work on and the workouts to get me there: tempo runs, interval runs, swimming, strength training and consecutive long runs on Saturdays and Sundays. Meeting Scott Jurek this Friday and hearing him speak about his training routine was just the primer I needed to crystallise what I want to do next. If I remain injury free I intend to purse this routine and continue running down the dream.