Half way into WS 100 training.

This month marks halfway into my WS 100 training which began in Jan 1st week, so far its been excellent. Thanks to R who has been very supportive of my training, infact she keeps repeating the mantra "DNF nahi vens"(I don't want DNF), keeps me honest with my training.

So far my monthly training plan was 200+ miles for Jan and Feb and about 230+ for Mar, and I was able to log required training with 6 good quality long runs ranging from 25 to 35miles. Going forward I am counting on following 5 runs to take me next level and have a good WS 100 experience, without rocking my family life too much.

Apr:

Sonoma 50M (Apr 14th)

Ruth Anderson 100K(Apr 21st)

May:

6hr Night Run (May 5th)

Ohlone 50K (May 20th)

WS training run 40M(May 26th)

Going forward Apr might be challenging as we won't have help from my folks, lil A will be in her new daycare routine, we need to see how our new "gang of 4" turns out to be, to help in initial transition I am off for 2 weeks in April, hopefully that will be of some help to lil A and our life in general.

May last 2 weeks again will be lot of jugging, with family visiting us, I want to make sufficient travel plans and spend some quality time with them as well. Training wise will take 1 long run at time, hopefully I can log the rest of them as planned.

A month in review (November)

After a productive Oct month, I was very motivated to log 3 more quality weeks of training for CIM. Goals for this month were
1. Race Half Marathon:
This race was held in Coyote point park on Nov 5th, with 4 weeks away from CIM 2011, it was a perfect reality check. Based on my training I was hoping to run a 1:31, and decide on my goal pace at CIM. Race started out fine with a good sub 7 min effort for 1st 6.5 miles. It was all along bay trail(Oracle Trail) in San Mateo. On the way back it was total surprise, strong headwinds made running 7:30 seemed a hard task, I felt I was hardly running. I managed to keep running hard but couldn't manage any mile faster than 7:30 in the 2nd half except for last mile. Overall time of 1:35:40 was disappointing and it was clear I wasn't in 3:10 shape this time. But 3:15 or 3:20 seemed more in my range for this time.

2. log around 55mpw before starting a good tapering period.

3. focus on VO2 max workouts:
Until this month my main focus was lactate threshold workouts, now I wanted to fine tune my speed workouts and added 1200M repeats(6-8) and added few 100M strides and 400M repeats as well for last 4 weeks.

Overall in Oct and Nov I logged about 365 miles in 7 weeks with 5 quality long runs of distance 18/20miles. This was a excellent training session I had in quite a few years, infact this was my best focused marathon training since my 1st marathon in 2003.

Run with Jets Half Marathon

Run with Jets Half Marathon
Nov 5th, 2011
San Mateo,CA

Intersting after logging about 13,700 miles, this turned out to be my 1st half marathon, so my goal was clear, 13.1K miles of training runs, 13.1 mi race within 1:31. It wasn't planned that way, I did register for a half marathon in Jan 2003 in SF golden gate park. But I got lost and didn't reach the race on time :). Instead did a 10mil run close to my apartment complex.

I was looking forward to this race, the course profile was flat, promised a fast time. It was rightly placed 4 weeks before CIM and was a perfect race predictor.

Race Day:
It was suposed to be rainy day, so I was overly dressed, after my morning ritual, drove to Coyote point park. It was jam packed at the race start. my plan was a to run a even race, a 7mim pace. Race started couple of mins late after the confusion over direction of the run :). Finally we started the run towards Oracle bay trail.

Conditions were perfect got into a good rhythm and enjoyed my run towards san mateo bridge(CA92) on the far side. It reminded me of the hot training run some of us did in 2003 as part of our training for Long beach marathon. That was a hot tough day. Mile 5 was just under CA 92, I incidently passed Vinod, " still shooting for 1:31" I waved and said not sure. As I reached turn-around (6.5miles) It was 45:30, I thought s far it seemed like a perfect run, I was in range of a sub 1:31. But as I started my run on the other side, I could feel pretty strong head winds, I could barely run 7:30 pace. Infact untill the last mile didnt run faster than that. I think most of the runners had similar split coz I saw only 2 runners pass me and I passed 2 as well. Finally turned into coyote park for the last half a mile, crossed finish in 1:35:30.

It did'nt go as expected from a time perspective, but it was a pretty hard workout from training perspective. I did a small jog and took some goodies at the post race booth. It was a well organized race, I was surprized to see a huge turnout for a new race. Monte and team from A runners mind did a very good job.