I have been asked by numerous people on how my marathon went. Fact be told, it did it pretty badly. I can attribute my poor performance on a lot of things but digging deep down, it boils down to lack of discipline in training. As readers will know that I ride my bike regularly (and some may not know, I lost reasonable body fat). As a consequence, I figured that I can get away with just a few runs to keep the muscles and joints oiled.

Come the day of the run, it dawned that probably keeping the joints oiled is not really sufficient. The day started as had my previous runs with me breathing mu neighbors carbon dioxide and for the first km or so it is pretty tricky to get on to a steady pace. But luckily I managed to get to a part of the road where people were more or less at my pace and no overtaking going on. So I got on to a steady trot of 6:30-6:45 min/km.

After about 10 Km in the run, I was thinking hey this seems not too bad. I am about 25% in the race, am feeling pretty loose and legs are feeling good. May be, just may be, I can try to reach a sub 5Hr run. I figured there is no point in hurrying and kept up with my pace. With water points coming in at regular intervals and me taking a short breather once in a while, my pace went down to about 7 min/Km and when I reached the half way point at East coast park, I clocked in at 2:35. That was about what I did for my 1/2 marathon last year and I was thinking. Hmm this is not bad. May be I can sneak in with a bit of sprinting and fast walking and still finish around 5Hr mark.

Then it hit me like a rock. My feet started to ache (No blisters or cramps). it was simply pain from repeated pounding of my body weight on my feet. I could not really continue running. So I decided I would walk a few Km, then run a few and walk a few and repeat the cycle. But once I started walking, it was downhill all the way. I had to take a few breaks to massage my feet and rub in some of the muscle relaxant. I was tempted to get a massage from one of the cute girls (once a bastard, always a bastard) but decided against it. I tried to keep a brisk walking pace but the feet rubbing stops got the better of my timing and I ended up doing the second half in about 3.5 Hrs.

What makes it worse is that the finishing time was slower than last year’s 5:54 (I did that with a seriously hurt meniscus).

The positive side was that I was never really tired (of course continuous supply of bananas and 100+ helps a lot) and I had enough stamina to last the distance and more. But to take away a lesson, I should make sure I put in more disciplined runs to get the bones and muscles acclimatized to the punishment they take during long distance runs.

My start to commute was a bit tentative today. I was expecting my calf to act up a bit but as it turned out, the ride was comfortable and am back up to speed. That is good news all around.  As I mentioned, I had a stiff lower calf during the run and had to take the whole of Sunday to relax. Monday was better but I still had some residual strain which had almost disappeared by the end of the day.

I was telling my dad that endurance is measured by how much one can do when the chips are nearly down and am glad that a day after my half marathon, I am back to commuting again. I suppose I have come a little bit since I started proper training in May’06 and my investments are being put to good use.

And I could not help but hum along aerosmith’s song “Back in the saddle” as I rode.

Well, some of you would be aware I took part in the half marathon on Sunday and so did some friends. My training this year was intermittent due to various reasons but I kept up the aerobic end of the bargain by doing a lot of cycling. So as I neared the run day, I put in some runs (8-10K) and was happy I was clocking decent timing (6:15 min/Km). However, I know since I have not trained my legs for running, I am going to have modest targets.

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I set my targets (optimistic 2:15 hrs, realistic 2:20 Hrs and pessimistic 2:34 Hrs) before the race day. My initial target of doing a 2:06 (21Km at 6:00 pace) seemed too far fetched and 2:34 is what I did last year. The target seemed achievable if my legs did not complain. I started with a nice trot – felt like I could keep going for a long while at the pace (about 6:15 after a few km). since I knew the route sketchily, I set some intermediate targets:

1. Entering ECP
2. Starting Benjamin Shears bridge
3. Fort Road
4. East Coast park (U turn) – my domain
5. Fort Road
6. Start of Nicoll Highway – my domain again
7. End point

As I was reaching the Fort road end, I figures that the route along east coast park was about 8 Km. That was the usual route I used to run and enjoyed the run as the sun came up. The problem however was that east coast park is a narrow road (as compared to the 3+ lanes along ECP / Nicoll highway) and the human traffic was pretty heavy. Motivation was easy to come by – I look for some pretty babe and keep pace with her (yea I sound sexist, so sue me). So I cycled for a while between green top, tight white, short pants, great legs etc… Too may to list down here. Suffice to say, these events are great to bump into very fit girls in tight outfits.

Well I guess I got into a bit of problem around the 17 Km point and had to stretch, apply muscle relaxant and walk for a while. That slowed me down quite a bit. I was almost on target for a 2:18 finish but the walking slowed me down considerably and I finished up at 2:23. Better than last year but I suppose I can improve a lot more. May be a 2:06 or even a sub 2:00 next year is not too far fetched. I suppose a more disciplined training routine would help.

At the end point, the crowd was pretty heavy and I skipped on getting the isotonic (fearing the queue). But as luck would have it, as I was heading out, there was this pretty babe who probably took pity on me and offered a 100Plus that she got after queuing up. Thank goodness, for such nice people still exist