More Core

I'm back from a week of doing nothing. Well not nothing. Last week saw many social gatherings and I could not drive myself to wake up after late nights and hit the road. The weekend saw me in Tadoba (first tiger sighting and all that) so no long run. This last weekend was also my "step back" weekend where I was scheduled to run a 12 K distance. This week has been better so far. The challenge was always going to be to shirk off whatever little laziness and fatigue that would have crept in from a week of doing nothing and getting back to training earnestly.

I ran a decent 5K at a 6:30 pace on Tuesday (2nd June) and followed that up today with a good swim in the AM. Now the time has come to start focussing with more intent on building core strength alongside putting in longer and longer runs. It's going to be a real challenge. Post my 5K yesterday, my right calf was sore as hell and the swim was essential to loosen things up. It's better now but still painful. I need to put in a 10K tomorrow (doubtful) and prime myself for the next big push on Saturday: my first half marathon in a while! I'm excited at the prospect of pushing these kinds of distances again but also apprehensive and afraid I will break down during or soon after. This is the reason I need to push myself for core workouts more. I have 10 good training weeks ahead of me now before September 20th where I can push myself if my body allows. August 1st week is when I will take a call on whether I start the 42K or hold off. I will be distraught if I have to back off the 42K but there will be 3 good reasons for me to have done so (as Hal Higdon says): not enough training, not enough training and not enough training.

My core work will involve floor exercises, time on the rowing machine, multi-gym and more intensive swimming sessions. I will need to do all this while I aim to clock a minimum mileage of 35K-40K  a week which includes 1 long run which will now be at least a half marathon distance and steadily edging the 30K mark. Just thinking about this, I feel it's better to not push this hard or build castles in the air and that I'd be more realistic if I just reassigned myself for the Kaveri half and prepared in earnest for the 50K in November. Memories of my painful drop out around the 35K mark in Mumbai in 2012 are still fresh as ever and the reason for that was again...yes not enough training. Will I be taking the Kaveri for granted and pay a heavy price? Am I fooling myself to think I can be ready in 3 more months? I'm not sure to be honest. But I don't want to think about that right now and just push, push, push. Rational assessments too often lead to rational surrenders.