Another 25 km out of the way

Started the Sunday run (yesterday) at 4:20 AM with a number of my running buddies from Chennai Runners. It was pouring overnight, but by the time I stepped out of the house, the rain had eased off. I had not warmed up and stretched and was really slow at the start, easing into the run. By the time I did an hour’s worth of running, I realised I had just covered some 8.8 km - too slow to my liking. I wanted to finish half marathon distance in 2:15, so picked up my pace. I was running comfortably and thought I was running faster than the first hour, but by the end of 2 hours I had just touched 18 km. I ramped up my pace but managed to cover half marathon distance in 2:24 – same as last week!! I had made 2 stops for water / Gatorade and one walking break for about 200 meters. The roads were flooded in a number of places and that kind of slowed me down too. It drizzled / rained along the way in part. I kept thinking about the long day ahead of me – I had to fly to Kolkata in the afternoon after attending a wedding / lunch. So no sleep therefore after my run. Kept going till Elliots Beach when I hit 24 kms in about 2:42 – stopped for a drink there and ended up hanging around a little while trying to make sure the water stop was organised properly for other runners too – this, was a big mistake. I got influenced by a fellow runner to truncate the route to 30 km and once I yielded to that temptation, and started off again, I was stiff all over and could barely walk. Tried to revive myself and slow jog but I was rapidly losing interest and finally, after 25 km I stopped and walked for a little while before catching a rick to the finishing point. A bit of a cop out really! So, the last longish run before Singapore is now done. Recovery has been pretty good – none of those issues like last week, I feel fine and ready for at least 6 km tomorrow, 12 km on Thursday, 8km on Friday and perhaps a half marathon on Sunday…. After that, it will be the home stretch the next week. I am really looking forward to getting Singapore out of the way.