Run 4 Fun

The year 2022 is almost over and it is a good time to reflect and look forward to 2023. I will share my thoughts related to running in this post. I still call myself an accidental runner. Running has given so much to me and it has also taken so much from me. I truly credit running for what I'm today (good or bad) because during the year 2007-2012, running really shaped my life, how I approached various things while living in US and to a great extent it kept myself fairly sane. Although, one must question how running marathons can ever be called being sane :)  I have always struggled with what running needed from me in the form of miles run or the discipline part of it when there are no goals in sight. I still do not think I have fully incorporated running into my lifestyle. It still requires a lot of mental work from me to get into running mode for extended times (anything more than couple of weeks). But, that may not be a bad thing per se.  Let us get back to the title of thi...

I'm beginning to sound like a broken record or that nagging old(er) guy who wouldn't shut up. I wrote on this blog in February, 2018 that I want to give structured training another go and few weeks later in March, I busted my ankle. During a long run a mishap happened and I sprained it very very bad. As a result of that my training was set back by at least 3-4 months and my range of motion on ankle is not back 100%. I did run law week 8k/Bayou City Classic/Bellaire Trolley Run and in each single of these race Tom Wille wiped the floor with me. He enjoyed continued improvement over his stellar 3:19 marathon in January. He also started doing track/hill work with Jon Warren's group to get some speed training. Which brings us to say June 2nd or Height's 5k run. Now, heights 5k is insanely fast course 5k but usually held in the worst possible weather conditions of Houston summer. I wanted to have a go at another attempt at sub 20 5k but during warm up itself I knew that i...

Wow, what a difference 7 years make. Last time I wrote on this blog was when I was still a graduate student at Rice, in age group 25-29, living with a roommate, driving my 2000 Toyota Echo, running sub 19@5k/sub 40@10k, snapping pictures at Valhalla with an actual camera and taking my dates to Taco Bell (okay, this is a lie) ;) I would spare the personal journey of last 7 years and talk about running. I took a sabbatical from running after running Boston Marathon 2012 (Oh, how I wanted to write a race report mentioning that Brunette at Wellesley College I kissed during my run). I lived in Denver during Sept 2012 till August 2016 and while I enjoyed hiking/skiing, I stopped running almost completely. In total I believe I ran less than 200 miles in those 4 years. I moved back to Houston for work in August of 2016. When I showed up early morning in Memorial Park in mid August to meet up with Natalie and Paul for a run, I felt like we were running 8 minute/mile for our first mile and ...

Past Sunday concluded HARRA warmup series race leading to Houston Marathon. FinishLine sports organized 30K race starting/ending at Sugarland town square. The race included running out about 3 miles, doing 3 loops of about 4.3 miles and returning back to the start line. Verdict: 18.6 miles in 2:06:58 or 6:49 min/miles. Race Report: On the way to the race: I thought I had enough gas in the tank only to realize that I am in trouble as I was getting closer to sugarland. Thankfully I reached parking garage just in time without having to push my car :) Many thanks to Benard Castro for picking up my bib a day before and handing it out to me on race day morning. I also thank Chris McGrew for letting me use his Garmin 405 for the race as my Garmin is giving me some problems lately. Pre-race warmup: It is cold but not that cold. I decide to run in a half-sleeved shirt with gloves and a warm cap. I didn't do much of a warmup before the race as the race is long enough and I want to start out...

If I wake up tomorrow morning early enough and join BCRR for Sunday River Oaks run it will mark a special occasion. This will be first week in my three years of running that I will run 70 miles in a week. I am excited about it and more so because I am feeling very good about my training and I have no aches and pains whatsoever. Edit: I did wake in time to join my BCRR friends for a nice and easy 12 mile run in chilly weather. Here is a table showing weekly mileage data from August 2010. The cells marked in red are my LAZY weeks which is my secret of not getting hurt and giving my body enough time to recover from training runs. Week No. Week Miles 1 Jul 26 - Aug 01 35.8 2 Aug 02 - Aug 08 29.76 3 Aug 09 - Aug 15 40.94 4 Aug 16 - Aug 22 42.63 5 Aug 23 - Aug 29 40.65 6 Aug 30 - Sep ...

I think you can't beat a 10K with $15 entry fee (no ridiculous $2-4 service fee on top of race fee), a long sleeve cotton shirt, 1.5 bottle of red wine the night before and 1.5 hours of sleep going into the race. Top it with terribly humid, almost 75 degrees temperature and it is a perfect recipe to have fun and don't run for time race. If weather predictions were good and I was serious, I would have loved to break 40 minutes again but I was in no mood to spoil the fun yesterday. The race started pretty normal and first 2 minutes or so were spend weaving around people to get in front. On a normal day I would be little pissed but Bob Brown said something which made total sense. He said they have paid the same money as you and to hell with race etiquette in a Turkey Trot. Who are we? I am not even middle of pack runner from racing standards so I can't complain. I saw Simon Brabo running with Caroline Burum ahead of me and I thought about reeling them in next mile or so. Caro...

Many thanks to Lisa Foronda for picking my bib and sprinkling good luck on it :) I wanted to break 1:46 in 25K as mentioned in my previous blog post. I had a good week leading to the race except a few glitches. I usually like to do one quality workout in the week leading to the race. On Tuesday evening I wanted to do a hard 6-7 mile tempo run at 6:35-6:40 pace. But it got so dark and there were so many water puddles around Rice that I opted to do a long Marathon pace run (10 miles at 7:10) rather than a tempo run. I ran easy rest of the week (Wed/Thursday). I took Friday off because I wanted to join ASHA folks for an easy run on Saturday morning. Now, running with BCRR has taught me to be very prompt for runs. I showed up exactly at 6:40 for 6:45 am run and had to wait till 7:25 to start the run because no one showed up in time. Bummer !!! However, there was a silver lining. I met Sachin who is a relatively new runner and very enthusiastic about running. I ran 6 easy miles with him at ...