"Easy long run", 13.7 miles, 2:19, Sat, Sept 10, Alameda Creek Trail

This run was a great example to me of the importance of the state of mind on the training in general, and on the Saturday long runs in particular. I was a bit tense (had a fight with Grishu the night before :-) and the week's running had not been too good either. In hindsight, I had taken this "down week" a bit too easy. I had lost focus, overconfident that the week would be easy. No wonder then that I found myself having to drag me out of the bed at 6.15am on Saturday morning with the mind so not looking forward to the scheduled 13 mile long run (down from the 20 miles last weekend, as part of the down week). I was feeling full and ate half a bar, but skipped coffee.

Anyhow, the Saturday long run is too much of a routine by now for me to skip it on a whim. I joined the team at the Alameda Creek Trail in Fremont. In another symptom of the lack of feeling of well-being, I was feeling bloated and uneasy. Grishu and I had gone for an awesome dinner at Shalimar's in fremont the night before, she loves the "Bhuna Gosht" and "Chicken Tikka Masala". I am vegetarian and got their "Kabuli Chana" and "Palak Paneer" which I loved and apparently ate too much!! I went to the restroom a total of three times, the last one 3 miles into the run.

The run itself did not prove to be that tough, but also not that easy as one would have expected given that my twenty-miler last Saturday felt so great. All my thanks to Karthik with whom I ran the last 4 miles. The trail is flat, and even though the sun was out, luckily conditions can not be called hot or particularly unfriendly to running. I started out with Manish and we were taking walk breaks every 10 minutes in the first few miles. We were doing about 10:40 min/mile pace. However, I lost him when I made a visit to the PortaJohn. The combination of time (~3 mins) lost in this visit along with the knowledge that it was going to be "only" 13 miles made me go a little bit faster and skip some of the walk breaks. Hence, when I was running with Karthik in the last few miles, I decided to let go of the walk breaks just to be with him. That was a smart move. I got to hear about his experiences in his last marathon. That made me so glad yet again of having made the decision to train for and run a marathon. Thanks, Karthik.

After the run, it felt somewhat better than how it did after the last 20 mile run, but not a whole lot better. I attribute the difference to the difference in the states of my mind before and during the two runs.

Regarding statistics, we did 13.7 miles (the mile markers counted ~0.7 miles fewer) in 219 minutes, which makes it a 10.1 min/mile pace and just under 10 min/mile pace if I cheekily take out the 3 minutes of my portajohn break :-) Indeed, I had done the last 5 miles in 48 minutes and the last mile in 8:59. I owe it to Karthik. It is so much better when running with someone!


Key learnings:

• DO NOT eat too much the night before the long run
  
• Eat early (by 7pm) on the night before the long run
• Take every week seriously, and don't let your focus be lost at any time
• Drink the usual 1 cup of coffee on Saturday mornings
• Keep your mind relaxed and focused