Back to Church

Well, that’s a take on what Shumit has on his email footer…
“The road is my Church
Sweat is my Prayer
Running is my Religion”

Am back on the road now, started with a 5.2 km run yesterday.

Recovery from the marathon was pretty quick, I was back at the office on Monday morning though I had initially planned the day off. My body was kind of aching, mostly in my legs. Especially after I sat for a while and tried to walk I would clam up. Once a few meters of walking was done, it was fine. By Tuesday most of the aches had gone, and Wednesday was pretty much normal. I was itching to run on Thursday but deliberately did not pack my running shoes for my trip to Kakinada to force some rest… apparently there are a lot of micro tears and injuries that happen during and the lead up to the marathon that one needs to refrain from running for at least a week. Or so the story goes.

Friday was a sleep in, and I had to get out yesterday. I planned an easy 5 km run, and my wife Nithya joined me. She has been running these days and is already running 5.5 km non stop, albeit at a gentle pace. I gave company for a couple of laps and did a couple of faster laps myself to finish 5k in 32 min.

Sunday is the day of the long run with my buddies at Chennai Runners. I rocked up at the starting point today with nothing more than a 7 to 8 km run in mind. I ended up finishing 10.2 km in the end. Beyond 5 km I can feel my legs a bit, but going past 8 km it seemed okay. I have slowed down a fair bit... 10k in 1:06. Need to get this down to <1 hr consistently at least for shorter runs.

There is a lot of noise about Auroville marathon (Feb 15th) among my running buddies and I must say the temptation is there to run the full again… but I have to forget marathon training for some time and get stuck into other priorities at work and life (like writing my Singapore Story!!). The plan now is that I will do “base level” training, running 4 to 5 days a week, min 5 km and weekend runs of about 15 km, with one run a month being half marathon distance. In fact one of these half marathons could be at Auroville, and Nithya is aiming to run the half there - her first - so I might give her company. I also need to go the gym and get some workouts done aimed at my core and leg stengthening. That should keep my system well lubricated to ramp up for the next marathon… Berlin, September 2009.

Staying happy!