First Half Marathon¶

I ran my first half-marathon today. It was quite brutal and overall a very humbling experience.

Check details on Strava

How did I get here ?¶

At the begining of last month I decided to sign up for some short ultra-marathons / trail-runs this year. I was targetting the Malnad Ultra, which happens to have a qualification criteria.

For the distance I was planning (30k) the qualification criteria is to be able to run a Half-Marathon in 3 hours.

Thus, this was my goal and I set to train.

Additionally I also decided that I would run the SRT Ultra in Pune this year. This one does not have a qualifier.

What did training look like ?¶

I stopped all strength training that was not directly related to running and focused on getting more slow-miles in. I was running 4 times a week. One of these runs were long ones (more than 10k).

I spent most of my running in zone-2.

How was the race¶

The race was fun, though my performance was not upto my expectation. Here are the stages of the races divided by how I was feeling.

0 - 9 km¶

Legs hadn't opened up.
Felt too stiff. Right leg anterior-tibialis was rock-solid.
Started off too fast, breathing was okay, legs fatigued.
I was also carrying bag which swayed weirdly whenever I picked up my pace. Had to let go of this an then I could run un-encumbered.

9 - 17 km¶

Settled on a run-walk pace.
Found it very hard to maintain a 7:30 pace (my target pace) as I had absolutely no practise. So I would end up running at a much higher pace (6:40 etc) for a min or two and then settle back to a 11:30-ish pace.
Main difficulty was running at a slightly higher pace than my regualr zone-2 pace; hence kept getting too tired.

17 - 22 km¶

The right leg ITBS is back baby!!!!!! It was the same feeling when a old unwanted friend calls you.
Running was happenning in my slowest pace which is about 12/km and i had to walk a LOT just to keep the pain at bay.

I was one of the last people to finish the race. lol!!

What went wrong ?¶

Had not trained to run at my target pace. At all. Thus whenever I picked up the pace, my body would naturally resort to slightly higher pace and then settle back to a much lower pace. I was either faster or slower than the target-pace.
I was severly underfueled during the run. Was hungry throughout.
Running form needs work. I need work with a professional to sort this out. The leg issues are causing too much trouble.
I think my heart-rate zones are also too low. Mainly because I havent done a proper test to figure them out. I will do so next week once I am fresh.
Inadequate training in terms of intensity. I focused too much on slow-long runs and not enough on running at a high-heart rate / pace.

Future plans¶

I will keep following the 80:20 rule and try to hit 30 km a week of running volume. 1 5k for speed work, 2 short 5k for z2 and one long 15k for z2
Prep for running the SRT ultra 25k
Aim to running atleast 10k per day everyday.
Targetting a 100k Ultra in the next 5 years.