Well that is, besides writing a lot of posts covering various international marathons. The fact is, I have been trying to keep up with my running as well. This month of fasting gone by was one of the best running and fasting months I had. I hardly missed a run the entire month, and instead of running in the mornings, it was running in the evenings, either before breaking the fast, or after.
The thing which I realized is that without water and after fasting for the whole day, doing the longer runs does get difficult, and you tend to tire out quickly, which for me happened around 9-10KM mark. I guess this long run would probably be equal to a regular 15KM run in effort.
What next, well just about one month to go for the Airtel Delhi Half Marathon (Nov 1st). 35 days to be precise. I am training for it well, and hope to get my personal best at the distance. I am looking forward to do a sub 2 hours run, but how far below 2 hours will I go will depend on how much focus I am able to maintain on my running in the days ahead. Lets say I will be delighted with a 1:55.
Nov 1st will also be a special day because that’s when the registrations for the novice runners for Comrades Marathon 2010 start. So, if all goes well on Nov 1st morning, by evening, I should be registered for Comrades as well. And I know I will need all the motivation in the world to keep my date with this 89KM event, scheduled for May 30th, 2010.
I have already registered for the Mumbai Marathon (Jan 2010), so after getting through with the Delhi Half, the next focus would be to get a decent time at Mumbai marathon, since that would also be my qualifier marathon for Comrades. Though qualification can be achieved with a sub-5 hours marathon, but I can’t just target a 5 hour finish and hope things go just as planned, not with Mumbai. So, my target would probably be in the range of 4:40 at Mumbai.
December would also see a couple of marathons in the NCR, the first being the Nov 6th Running and Living Gurgaon Marathon, and the second should hopefully be the Mawana Sugars Indian Open Marathon. I would probably do these as training runs rather than with any time goals, just nice and easy.
So, that’s what keeping me going these days. Mostly. We also organized a couple of group training runs for our running group Delhi Runners. These were organized as Half Marathon runs at Nehru Park, Chanakyapuri, probably the best location for running in Delhi. The first event on Aug 29th had about 35 runners, the 2nd one on Sep 20th had 84 runners, and though I did not run, it was a great feeling getting people together, and meeting such passionate folks from around.
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