Little did I realise that after the Hyderabad Half I would take this long to get another post on my blog. The Hyderabad Half was supposed to be a stepping stone, a prep run to ramp up steadily for the Singapore Marathon. For the record, I did well in Hyderabad… here is my tweet after the run: “Finished hyderabad half marathon in 2:18 this morning! finished strong route was tough weather great feeling swell!!”. That was a 108 days ago! And from then on my running frequency and distance progressively dwindled and came to a stop in mid November. I was back on the road last Sunday with a 5k and have managed to get out a couple of more times since then – a 6k on Tuesday and a 10k today. I really let work overwhelm me, and being in Kakinada did not help as the place does not lend itself to running after dark – if this were possible, I would have scripted at least a few 5k runs. What I missed by not running I kind of compensated by staying on my feet for hours at the plant, walking around and climbing stairs – it takes about 100 steps to get to my office from the ground floor of the plant, and another 20 odd to reach the top floor of the control room. The calories in and out must have been at balance as my weight has been static. The last few weeks have been pretty full on, action packed, long hours, very little time to do anything other than the immediate work at hand.
This morning has been one of “can’t recall when” type thoughts. I can’t recall when I spent more than 2 days in a row in Chennai – it was probably a good 3 months ago. I can’t recall when I went for a run from Dimensions at 5:00…. Then was thinking about what I have missed out on… there has been plenty personally but let me talk about running. The Berlin Marathon in September was the beginning. Then my 4 x 4 plan has gone for a toss. I have missed the Singapore Marathon on 7th Dec. I wanted to attempt the Mumbai Marathon on 17th Jan, though my training was going to be half baked (barely 4 weeks) but now Mumbai is off the list as well, as I have to be at Kakinada that weekend. So, here I am now thinking Auroville is a definite possibility on 14th February – registered last night. Am going to finish 2009 without running a Marathon and its not a good feeling. Hope 2010 is different. I want to run at least 2 next year.
I started my run this morning at Dimensions with a couple of other Chennai Runners at 5:15. The weather was absolutely fabulous, and if I were in form I would have probably wanted to do 20 kms… but I aimed for 8 km at the start with an agenda to push to 10 as the weather was so good. Started slow, and maintained a steady pace. Ramesh Seshadri, who gave me company, was content to waddle on with me – he has been in good nick and has just finished the Singapore Marathon 10 days ago. Did about 7k comfortably and as I moved on my legs started to complain, and it was then my knees. I felt woefully out of form but was determined to put this feeling behind soon. So kept going and finished off with 10.3 km in 1:10. A 5k tomorrow and a 15k on Sunday should do me just fine before I head off to Kakinada again.
Hope my next entry is sooner and has lots on my running back in form!!
