The Greed for Speed

There has been some restlessness over the past few weeks about improving timing and the growing realisation that a 4 hr marathon completion time at Berlin is not going to happen unless I work on my speed and strength… this has resulted in my maiden attempt at a speed workout today, led by Shahid and a few of my friends from Chennai Runners. I used to think that running for 5 hours was a virtue, that the fellows running faster than me could not relate to comprehend or compete with…. Well, after today’s “work out” I seem to be changing my mind quickly. I was busted pretty quickly. Shahid’s workout was a fairly simple one, or so it seemed! We were at the MCC School grounds. Warm up for a couple of laps (about 500 m each) then run 800 m full blast, ease off for another 100 m, then run 800 m full blast again. After my first 800 m blast, Shahid came up to me and said something like “You’re supposed to run at your top speed” was it so obvious! I was actually trying to conserve my energy and see how far I go at about 70% of my capacity. I never did 100% right through the work out, and my laps became shorter and shorter every time. I kept going back to my usual waddle, and temptation was to waddle on for more, rather than sprint. I think I goofed up the sequence early on, but kept trying to run fast in bursts, at about 80% capacity, and busted myself soon enough. What happened?? Some realisations and reflections…
(a) I did not warm up really, I just eased into the workout just like my usual start during a long run… run 1 or 2km, that’s the usual warm up
(b) I use a different set of muscles and I feel my upper legs a lot more + my stride changed + the landing and take off of my feet were no longer heel and toe / flat footed but more off my toes, which has de-stabilises the mind (read conditioning)
(c) this was my 5th day in a row of running so I was probably fatigued out – I usually take a day off after 2 or 3 days max this time I have been doing a streak of 5 days non stop
(d) Monkeys… I thought I was going fast but the guys running next to me seemed pedestrian yet always ahead of me, so, pre-occupied with thoughts of how the heck can they do it and
(e) I did not have my spikes on :)
The Bottom line is that I was well and truly humbled about speed (I’ve got to tell you about this great pie joint on a highway from the Gold Coast to NSW in Australia called Humble Pie… ate some today!!). OK. So here is the BIG ASK which is why speed has become a big deal... To run Berlin in 4 hrs, I need to run a half marathon in 1:45 that’s the speed that Hari and Mohan ran in Auroville a few days back. I will have to tag along with them as far as I can from now onwards, one long run at a time + stick to these speed workouts religiously at least once a week + hit the gym as much as possible.
The greed for speed is growing!