Marathon training- It all began...

After being sedentary for most part of a decade, I took up running as a way to lose some blubber. The first few runs were pretty close to disastrous. A slow jog for a block or so would leave me desperate for breaths not unlike a fish out of water. In the beginning I tried to run everyday and yes- my distances did increase. What I didn't count on was that my injuries piled up to the point that I had to back down. I tried running every other day and that worked much better. Painstakingly the distances increased and slowly I could run about 2 miles and I was convinced that I was a long distance runner.

A year or two passed, I picked up squash and that along with running boosted my stamina a lot more. Soon I was running 6 to 7 miles and I started dreaming of touching my first 10 miler. On my 30th birthday, I did just that and I was completely elated. Now I was seriously moving some respectable distance and my thoughts started leaning towards training for a marathon.

A nagging shin pain prevented me from running everyday. I still was running pretty much how I felt like- there wasn't much structure and I don't think I was listening to my body that much. No warmups and no cooldowns. Still I managed to run twice a week and would log in about 10-12 miles on average- no more. Each run would be followed by horribly painful shins. To add to my woes, sometime around that I started developing a bad back pain, running became painful and I slowly started skipping my runs to a point where I was not running at all. Two years went by...

A couple of months back I picked up a book, Ultramarathon Man -Dean Karnazes . After reading it in one sitting, I was completely energized. Here is a guy who has run 262 miles and his experiences with running inspired me so much that the next day I ran again. This time I put up with the back pain the first mile and found that it diminishes after warming up. Ofcourse the last two years were not completely sedentary, I was still playing squash and my overall fitness while not earth shattering was not abysmal either. I could eke our 3 miles and after my runs I didn't look like something the dog brought home. I thought this was a good time for me to begin marathon training. After reading a ton of reviews, I chose 'The complete marathon guide for the non-runner'. Impressed with the book, I began my training.

This time I wanted to focus on the two main sources of problems in my past runs- shin pain and back pain. I chanced upon an article on heel strike- I started analyzing the way my heel strikes the ground. My running style was pretty much- Heel hits the ground first and then the ball of the feet. I tried the other way around for a bit- land on the balls of my feet then the heels touch the ground and again kick off from the balls of my feet. Although this gave me a sore calf, there was absolutely no shin pain. Interestingly after developing this style I noticed that my backpain started reducing. I was probably onto something here and I started focussing on an elaborate stretching regime before and after my runs. Stretching combined with abdominal strengthening and focussing on my running form seemed to take out bulk of the pain of running. I was on my way now with 4 runs per week- 2 short runs, 1 moderate run and a long run.

Next- Road back to 10 miles and beyond...