September 20 is my D-Day – The Kaveri Trail Marathon [ http://kaveritrailmarathon.com ]. Got to know via a tweet and it set me on another of my adventure / irrational act – to run a full marathon ( 42kms ).
I had run (half walked in pain) a half marathon ( 21kms ) in the Bangalore Midnight Marathon held in Dec 2011 and it was a disaster. [ My first half Marathon ]. I finished last. And vowed never again. Next time I will train better and will run the full race, not walk half the race.
It has been 3 long years since then and I could never bring myself to run even a half marathon again. Always the fear of failure was there and the last disastrous experience kept haunting me.
What if I cannot cross the wall – the point wherein body has exhausted its glucose content and starts burning fat. Body thinks it is starving and self preservation kicks in and freezes itself – and a runner cannot take one step forward as body does not allow fat to be burnt. Every marathoner has to overcome this wall.
What if I get cramps at the 41st km just before the finish line – and my legs are all locked up and I am lying on the floor watching the finish line and see others runners crossing it.
What if I develop shin splints and other running injuries and I have to give up the training midway.
What if on the race day I land my foot on a hole, and sprain it badly that I have to DNF ( did not finish ).
What if I develop blisters, stomach cramps, dizziness – or the myriad ailments that can strike me when it is undergoing the heavy stress of a marathon?
My mind quickly got filled with all the Nos. Why should you subject yourself to such torture, when on the very Sunday on Sep 20th – I could be sipping my morning filter coffee and reading a nice book in the comfort of my home.
And it is not just torture for one day – the next 4 months is going to be a torture – every single day.
Why bother at all with this?
But then there is this little voice in my head – which keeps fighting all these little devils – tells this – what if this frail body we are all in can pull off an impossible feat. And I want this little voice to grow louder and defeat these little devil friends of mine.
So I pulled up my phone, launched Nike Running, navigated to Coach, keyed in race date as 20th Sep 2015 – and it created a training plan starting from June 1st ( 16 weeks total)
I will have to do 5 runs a week of which one of them is a really long run. One cross training day. One rest day. One of these runs, as per the running program – I have to do a Fartlek – interval training – run very fast for a few minutes, then run slowly to recover and keep repeating it.
Till date I was averaging 40 to 50 kms a month. From the very first week I have to run 43kms in a week.
I completed the first week successfully. Legs were tired throughout the week, knees a bit wobbly – but thankfully no pain.
Continuing my vegetarian diet. I eat Brown rice for lunch and last week started legumes for evening snacks. Thinking of adding Soy milk for increasing protein intake.
I have travel coming up – not sure how I can fit them with my training – do not want to miss a single running day.
Will I last the 16 weeks of training?
Will I complete the marathon?
Doubts.. and the battle with these doubts – this is my life for the next 4 months.
[ Week 2 Notes ]
