The New Mantra: “Constant Correct & Redirect”

I seem to have fallen in love with this mantra! Lets start with last Sunday’s run. Yes, its behind me – 33 km in 4:15. Finished half marathon distance in 2:24 (plan was 2:20), was running well up to 28 km, which I touched in 3:18 then took a walk break for about 750m and then started running only to start cramping. It was slight at first then became troublesome enough to force me to stop. My toes were cramping – that’s a new one! This time the cramps were in my lower left leg mostly. Could barely walk for some time. Then slowly, after some Gatorade, Shahid’s energy drink, bananas, etc started a walk-run sequence that took me to 33. the last 5 km took me nearly an hour! Am glad that I got this distance out of the way – it was very important for me to cross this, mentally I am more confident of finishing and getting another finishers tee in Singapore.

Recovery was bad. It took me nearly 3 days. On Tuesday my calf muscle was sore and I had to abandon hopes of running on Wednesday morning too. The problem I had with the boils has gone away, hopefully for good. I have completed the course of antibiotics.

The next run was Thursday morning – a good, refreshing, charged up run – 6 km in 36 min. No sign of any pain or discomfort.

Friday’s run was an LSD… 15 km in 1:45. Good, easy run at a very comfortable pace (read as waddle). I had not had much sleep the last two nights and I was feeling the lack of it towards the end of the day on Friday.

So, the last two weeks have been a classic case of constant correct and redirect approach. I have stopped stressing about Singapore now, and am seemingly very casual about it. That’s a bloody good sign, after all the mental gymnastics I went through the last few weeks!

Now, as I type this up, I am pretty refreshed after a 9 hour sleep. Am keen to run 35 km tomorrow – one last longish run before Singapore. It was raining heavily this morning, with plenty of thunder and lightning. I hope that is not the case tomorrow. I will run tomorrow regardless of the rain, but if there is a thunderstorm, I will be forced to chant the mantra again!!