Run 4 Fun

This was left in the "drafts" section for so long that I am not even sure if this should be published. But, anyways. Prelude: The weather was not ideal for most of the people for racing. At the start of the race, temperatures were around 75+ degrees. I knew that I had done my homework for the race. Good training was done and my only concern was getting dehydrated in the race and facing cramps towards the end of the race. I made a mental note of drinking as much Gatorade during the race as I can. I also used a Gu Gel pack 15 minutes before the race and stored another one in my pocket in case I feel like running low on fuel. Warmup: I did around 2 mile warm up with Jay Hendrickson, Mark Conran, Simon Brabo and Carolyn Burum. This was the first time I spoke to Carolyn though I see her name among top women runners all the time. At the start line Jay tried to find Ed Fry but we couldn't find him and the race started at sharp 7 am. Since Scott Bounds was not runnin...

Initial euphoria of 10 miler has subsided and now I can think little more clearly. The 10 miler race boosted my confidence and proved that negative splits exist. I used to believe that if you don't go out fast enough you will lose that time and sprinting towards the end would not be possible. I was able to run later part of my race pretty well. Pertinent question is, if I could have gone little faster in first half and still managed to run a negative split? Gerardo, Rob Walters and Scott tend to think that I could have gone out little faster. I might just try that in upcoming half marathon. VDOT of 53 equivalent performance for half marathon predicts 1:27:04. This is 6:39 min/mile. This would be an ideal case for a flat race. However, the course for Houston marathon has some hills. There is almost half mile long not so steep uphill after turnaround point. This means I have to preserve some energy for the later part of the race and gain advantage of downhill part of the race. I was ...

Prelude to the race: I desperately wanted to RACE Space City Alliance 10 miler. It is literally a while (February) since I raced a race longer than 5k. I had mixed feelings going into the race. I ran this race last year for the first time and got busted in it. Last year, I ran it within 48 hours of getting off a really long flight from India. I was in India for almost 5 weeks and had opportunity to run only twice in 5 weeks. Needless to say that my legs cramped at mile 6 and finishing the race was painful but I still managed a time of 1:11:xx which was less than 2 minutes off the time I was expecting. This year was a different story. I didn't slack off much during the summer and was running about 20-25 miles a week. I started running around 35-40 miles for August/September. The big difference came in the length of training runs I was doing. Last year, I was running more days in a week but was only running moderate distances like 4-6 miles per day. This year I changed my approach. E...

One may be amused by few things in the 10 miler Space City Alliance race on coming Sunday. 1) It is the first race in Houston marathon warm up series. 2) It happens to be on 10/10/10 3) It is a 10 miler race So what? What makes this race special? I have only run this race once. I ran it last year when I had just come back from a 5 week long vacation to India. I had lost lot of conditioning in those 5 weeks but I decided to run it to gauge my fitness level. The race went all right and I finished in 1:11:xx. However, my legs were cramping up from 6 mile onwards and it was painful. This year, I feel that I am better shape than last year. I experience no aches/pain while I run and I am looking forward to the race. If the weather is good, I would like to run sub 1:07 in the race which translates to 6:42 min/mile or faster. It is an aggressive goal because I haven't raced much in last couple of months. I raced toughest 10k few weeks back and couldn't hold 6:40 pace on hills. But, I r...