A 45km week...

As planned I managed four runs during the week. I ran on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, doing 11km each on first three days and 12km on Sunday, taking the weeks tally to 45km. I could have done more on Sunday, but had to catch Dark Night in the morning (super flick, its got the best script ever for a super hero film. It had more than a slick action and digital special effects).

Next week I hope to do 50km during the week. And in a phased manner take it to 80km in two months time. Which means that September would require about 3 weekly runs of 13km each and Sunday run of 20-25km, totaling to about 65km a week. So that I have about 4-5 weeks in October with 80km each (doing about three to four weekday runs to 13km each and do a 30-35km on Sunday) and take November easy so that I am ready for my Bangalore ultra on November 16, 2004. I only hope I don't have to travel much in November, as that will make things more difficult.

I was recently contacted by a runner who wanted to participate in the Bombay marathon. He had ever run more than a few kilometers, but had gymd reasonably regularly till recently. I initially suggested that he take up the half marathon in Jan 2009. But, he wanted to do the full marathon in 2009, this again was very doable as he has about 6 months to go. So I suggest he aim for a time around of around 5.5 hours. And after that things went haywire. He mentioned that he wanted to be one of the top Indian finishers in the full marathon. I know most of us would have brushed this off as a random wild thought, but when he told me, I knew he meant it (don't ask me how, but I knew it). And this got me really worried. As a responsible runner I did my best to explain to him the pitfalls of attempting it (and explained to him the most obvious outcome, a permanent injury which will make it impossible for him to ever run again and tried to get him to postpone his goal to 2010). Distance running is about patience, determination and continuous training, and results don't come overnight. I hope he reconsiders his decision and takes up a more realistic and practical goal.