Week Four: A Barrier is Broken
This was the best training week so far, for a couple of reasons.
First- I broke a long-standing barrier in terms of the longest distance I had ever run at a stretch- which was 6 miles until now. On July 1st, I ran 8 miles for the first time in my life. I was so excited and so happy to reach that milestone. Two years ago, on 4th July 2004, I had reached the 6 mile distance while running at the Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta. After that, I had run 6 miles quite a few times, but did not ever manage to cross that barrier. I crossed the barrier this time, with Niket and the folks from TNT cheering me at the finish line.
This run was on the Sawyer Camp trail, an extremely beautiful trail along the Crystal Springs Lake. Here's the approximate 8-mile route that I ran; I cannot plot it exactly due to the tree cover. This trail has markers every half mile, and is therfore an excellent trail to pace yourself. I was quite pleased to see that my pace for this 8 mile run was exactly the same as my 5K or 10K pace. This was the perfect start to the long weekend.
The other good part about this week's training was the dynamic drills on Tuesday (27th June). We did all kinds of drills such as heel and toe walking, skip running, side-ways running, lunges, butt kicks, high knees and so on. Each one of these exercised a different muscle in the body, gearing it up for the longer distances. However, this also resulted in my walking around slowly the entire next day, as well as putting in a huge amount of effort while getting up from and sitting down on a chair. The good thing is, I survived :-)
Overall, a great training week.
First- I broke a long-standing barrier in terms of the longest distance I had ever run at a stretch- which was 6 miles until now. On July 1st, I ran 8 miles for the first time in my life. I was so excited and so happy to reach that milestone. Two years ago, on 4th July 2004, I had reached the 6 mile distance while running at the Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta. After that, I had run 6 miles quite a few times, but did not ever manage to cross that barrier. I crossed the barrier this time, with Niket and the folks from TNT cheering me at the finish line.
This run was on the Sawyer Camp trail, an extremely beautiful trail along the Crystal Springs Lake. Here's the approximate 8-mile route that I ran; I cannot plot it exactly due to the tree cover. This trail has markers every half mile, and is therfore an excellent trail to pace yourself. I was quite pleased to see that my pace for this 8 mile run was exactly the same as my 5K or 10K pace. This was the perfect start to the long weekend.
The other good part about this week's training was the dynamic drills on Tuesday (27th June). We did all kinds of drills such as heel and toe walking, skip running, side-ways running, lunges, butt kicks, high knees and so on. Each one of these exercised a different muscle in the body, gearing it up for the longer distances. However, this also resulted in my walking around slowly the entire next day, as well as putting in a huge amount of effort while getting up from and sitting down on a chair. The good thing is, I survived :-)
Overall, a great training week.
posted by Pradnya at 11:06 PM
4 Comments:
Awesome pradnya! From this week onwards ,for every long run, you shall be reaching the heights that you have not reached before! Now that is an amazing feeling! I love the sawyer camp trail at Crystal Springs: mile markers at every half mile, water stops at 3.5 and 6 miles and very very scenic. When you go beyond the 5 mile marker next time around, you will go over a nice bridge with water all around. Have fun!
Thanks Rohit. One of our 12 mile runs is on this trail. The part over the bridge sounds like fun.
@ pradnya,
This is very inspiring.. I am able to feel the passion .. Great work!!
Do give an interview for Coffee With Sundar! - http://nicereads.blogspot.com :-)
Thanks a lot Sundar!
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