Back to 10 miles and beyond...

Fast forward to current (or perhaps to two months before current)... its May 2005. I have solved most of the problems associated with running 4 times a week. According to the training schedule that I'm following, my long runs increase by about a mile ever week and it starts at 5 miles. I have to say that my first attempt at 5 miles was not entirely sucessful... everything conspired against it. It was 11am by the time I started and being one of the warmest days of spring- I heated up too soon and by about 3 miles I was soon able to sympathise with a jacket potato in a nice hot oven. To cut it short- I couldn't take it beyond 3 miles and I aborted the run and walked back home. It would be a serious understatement to stay that I was feeling dejected-- nay, I was feeling horrible and my self esteem took a new low.

In anycase, I continued with my training schedule and having a hide that competes with any self respecting pachyderm- I ignored my failure and tried to tell myself that my 5 mile run was a sucess. It worked, the next week I ran 6 miles for my long run without too much difficulty. Ofcourse, that it was evening when I attempted this run and that it was about 60F helped a whole lot. Also, a note to the reader: When I say "I ran without too much difficulty"- I actually mean, I ran without killing myself. There is a lot of low to moderate and sometimes a little more than moderate pain that I put up with during this long runs. I take each long run as an oppurtunity to learn to ignore these pains... so far this has worked for me.

6 miles takes me about 60 minutes to run- I run at about a 10 minutes a mile pace. Yes, I'm not in the league of Carl Lewis and I suppose I was never under any such impression to start with. One of the subconcious reasons I probably took up marathon training was maybe the realisation that I could never run at a respectably fast pace. Anyways, to get back to what I was saying... a starting time of 60 mintues for long runs leads one to the question: How does one keep ones mind occupied during these long runs? Here my marathon training book comes to the rescue: The book recognizes that, while a marathon is obviously a hard physical exercise it also is a hard mental routine. I learnt several mental techniques to keep myself occupied and feeling positive during these long runs. But the best technique I liked was- mental disassociation. Being a past practioner of yoga and meditation this caught my interest really soon. The idea is to disassociate oneself from the process of running- but at the same time to try and be aware of the fact that one is running. Thoughts flow in and are not held-- they continue to flow out; this is not too different from transcedental meditation. After following this technique- my long runs were no more a problem I was able to breeze through my 6 mile jaunts.

It was now June and it was time for my yearly vacation to my hometown- Chennai, India. Having trained all along in a cool and dry environment; Chennai proved to be just the opposite- hot and humid. After getting over the initial jetlag and 2 further days of acclimatization. I attempted to run in Chennai.... It was a real ego buster.... after about 2 miles, I was cattle fodder. The humidity took my perspirations to a whole new level and that just broke me. My cousin Shashwath and my Uncle Ramkumar, both seeing my sorry state of affairs, took pity and volunteered to carry water for me during my runs. The plan was that they will accompany me in a bicycle with the much need elixir of life- H2O. It worked great- I ran one long run of 7 miles and a few moderate runs. For my last long run of 8 miles in Chennai, they were not available and my dad, mom and nephew Dhruva (all of 13 months old) volunteered to be my camel back. This run proved to be very challenging with my then training condition.. it was a very humid and warm morning when I started out. The first 5 miles were uneventful- I stopped once for some electrolytes and continued on. Dehydration started taking its toll at about the 6th mile and I drank tons of fluids- but it bloated my stomach way too much. From the 6th mile to my goal of 8 miles was sheer torture.... I plodded on nevertheless. When I stepped back in to the safe confines of a roof and 4 walls, my condition was not too different from that of a drunk man. I showed all the signs of severe dehydration (in spite of drinking ample liquids and electrolytes) and heat exhaution. I was disoriented and was blabbering (more than normal). It took about 30 minutes of more fluids and further salty snacks to get my bearings..... But, I had finished my 8 miles in Chennai. This was my last run in my home town; next week I was returning back to California.

After that taxing 8 mile run, my 10 mile run in california was pretty much uneventful. I just needed two water breaks- running in 90% humidity had made me very tough and I was pretty much able to breeze through the 10 miles here. Meera, came along and gave me ice cold Gatorade for the two breaks and I was pretty much done. I had my first incident of runner's stitch at the 9th mile- but it vanished as fast as it came.

After a break of 2 years or so... I was back to 10 miles. I was mighty proud of myself to come back to this goal, and I was not going to stop there. Each week was goint to see me go more than the previous week by atleast a mile-- sometimes by 2.

Next update:18 miles- my training's end and the begining of my actual marathon.