Run-up to my First Half Marathon
The Wipro Chennai Marathon 2013 was my first Haf marathon experience in which I finished with a time of 2:41:39. I had been eager to run a HM last time when I was in Delhi but couldnt somehow practise. I started my preparation in August with a 21 day swimming course. This helped me in having a proper breath control.
I was able to feel the difference in running before and after swimming course. I checked on various plans for HM training in a 12 week period but never followed one. I started doing cycling and running parallely so that I wouldn't feel bored. My first long distance was a 10.5 km run which I couldn't complete due to bleeding in my nose. On examination it was suggested to undergo a corrective surgery. This put off my schedule by 1 week.
My successful distance run was a 12 km run which I incidently planned just the night before. It was on a normal road between my place and Guindy and back. With great difficulty (literaly) I was able to complete it and managed to go for work the same day. With this confidence I went for 2-3 runs in 2 weeks after that in 7-9 km running. My next long run increment was to run 14.5 km at IIT, Madras. I wanted to extend that to 18kms which somehow I couldnt extend.
A week before my actual marathon with the route almost finalised, I went on a 20.4 km run along the same route to understand the course. I was very much relieved when I was able to complete it and wanted to focus on better my timing.
In the last week run-up to the marathon I wanted to focus on improving my timing for which I had planned to do a lot of cycling and less of running. However, there was an issue with my cycle's rear tyre going flat. I couldnt find time to repair it and so wasted 3 days. I then began rope-skipping with the hope of increasing my stamina. But what happened was consistent knee pain and it proved counter productive. Alas, I was having the pain till the Marathon began.
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