Monday, November 23, 2009

Gearing up for the BIG run

24th Pune International Marathon (PIM) is here, the event which I was awaiting for an year. In the last marathon a friend of mine had participated and after hearing his experience about the run, I was determined to participate in the next marathon. Just a week ago I found out that PIM is on 6th December and so I started gearing up for it. I needed to check my stamina to figure out which race I am gonna participate in..

Day 1 - Thursday, Nov 19th:
I started with a try out of my stamina and covered about 5.5 Km. I must have walked for approx 1.5 km intermittently, but I didn't stop at any point. After this I took a 2 day's of running break but did some skipping n stretching instead.

Day 2 - Sunday, Nov 22nd:
I followed it up with a non stop jogging of 4 km on the Sunday evening which was quite fun.. I was feeling I could run more but decided against it.

Day 3 - Monday, Nov 23rd:
Last 2 session had been on concrete in Pashan-Sus road area which has inclines and declines all over. But today I was running in a garden on a flat dirt jogging track of 400 mtrs. First nine laps I jogged slowly and then walked for about 50 meters gaining my breath and ran the Tenth lap hard. I again covered 4 kms but was more exhausted than Sunday. It felt amazing to lie and stretch on the grass after the run.

Day 4 & 5 - Tuesday, Wednesday Nov 24th & 25th
On day 4 & 5 I tried a different course. In the same garden with 400m track. I did 10 laps but for every lap I first ran for half course and then I walked for half of the course. This way I could run at high pace. On second day I fully ran the last 2 laps at high pace. I had heard somewhere that by alternating your training patterns you train your muscles better.. Let's see how true was that.. as I have decided to give day 6 a rest for some recovery.

The one day break got extended due to one thing or other.. and I could continue with my jogging on Tuesday.

Day 6 & 7 - Tuesday, Wednesday Dec 1 & 2
I maintained the schedule of Day 4 & 5 and increased my continuous running. On Day 7 I ended with nonstop 5 laps of running at relatively high speed.

I skipped Thursday again.. and today on Day 8, Friday Dec 4th I will try running the whole distance of 4 kms non stop and see how do I fair.

Now that the D-day, December 6, is here its obvious I am not prepared for the longer run, so I will be participating in the AIDS charity run of 3.5 kms this year, committing to my self that next year it should be atleast 10.5 kms :)



Marathon day -- Sunday December 6th...
I left home at 7am braving the chilly but beautiful weather on by bike in a tee n track pants. But as soon as I reached starting point the energy and enthusiastic crowd made me feel cheerful and the chill was gone instantly.

The charity run of 3.5 km was scheduled at 8:30am, which I didn't know, but I was surely on time as I got to watch some of the opening ceremony and then I watched all the groups zooming at the wave of the flag. It was such a lovely sight to see people from all walks of life and all age groups run together for a cause.


I completed the 3.5 kms run without any problems. It was quite fun actually. Mostly people walked in groups. Some groups were waving banners of their companies or about AIDS awareness. There were also groups of people from Shiamak Dabar dance group jogging & dancing intermittently.. they really filled others with energy with their dhol beat. Now I am determined to prepare for next year with 10.5 kms run as target. Also, next year Pune International Marathon will be in it's 25th year. Silver jubilee celebrations should be some view. So, Happy running Pune!!

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