At the end of 2013, I summed it up as – A bit of everything (running, yoga, crossfit, triathlon), a bit of focus lost and regained (running goals defined), a new love gained (triathlon and crossfit) and an old love reclaimed (running!). And so finishing up 2013 and going into 2014, I had just one race in April that I was training for. I was trying to juggle that with CrossFit. Here’s me looking back at 2014 and a (not so short) recap of my…
This was my first weekend of LONG training for Dopey Challenge! And nothing prepares you mentally for a LONG long run like the weather channel forecasting 100% rain during the exact 5 hours you expect to be out. I wasn’t looking forward to running that long in the rain, I didn’t want to either. But the alternative of changing my run days wasn’t an option either. I sort of knew what the answer would be and I didn’t want to sound…
I have waited quite a while to put my feelings from this week’s long run into words. And I don’t think I am still able to do justice to it. This post is a tad too long and all over the place. But still it needs to be said. I looked at this week’s 17 mile pace dictated long run (1 warmup, 7 @ 13:30, 6 @ 13:00, 3 @ 12:30; no walk breaks) as my redemption after last week…
“7 relaxed miles, 5 strong miles, 2 hang-on-for-dear-life-miles, 1 wheels-fall-off-and-crawl/walk mile = 15 long miles dictated by pace targets.” That’s how I described my run today. It was a major milestone run, both in terms of training mileage and my mental readiness. The run was both awesome and miserable and I learnt quite a few important things today. Never ever run without water & electrolytes I always run with water, even at 3-4 miles. In the flurry of late nights…
All week, I was looking forward to one run – the trail run at Kennesaw Mountain! Even though I started running these trails only a few months ago, I love the beautiful, historic and not too terribly difficult trails! Starting out along the side of the mountain just as the sun is coming up in front is one of those sights that I will never tire of! When I woke up in the morning I could hear the wind howling….
While logging my last run for last week, I wrote – “I’m starting to understand the difficulty of a long run on the day after a hard/long run. Was just looking back at some of the older similar runs – almost all of them have some kind of issue/whining!!” I know that the hard back to back runs is mental training, for my mind to go the distance along with my body. And I hope I am (re)learning mental toughness from these back…
We often say that running is cathartic, it releases more than just sweat and so on. Sometimes (most of the times), my running state of mind also reflects the curve that my real life is going along. This week had 2 tough runs that I successfully completed, and one run that I made tough on myself (more on that later). Similarly, I had a tough, long work week and managed to get through it successfully (I hope!). And then there…