Finally first time under 4!

Sometimes we just think that today is not our day and nothing will go right. Many negative thoughts would cross the mind but that the day turns out to be the best 😊. To be honest given the build up the Hamburg Marathon I never expected that this would be my best performance so far. Trained 27% lesser this time then last attempt at Ulm (training summary below). Was not keeping well and had cough. Had just come out of ear infection. What made worse was a discussion with co passenger in train to Hamburg. She was about 60+ and could see that I had a cough (though I think I had coughed only 2-3 times during the journey). When I told her I am running Marathon tomorrow morning, she wouldn't believe it. She said once a man in 30's died running when he ran with cough. She also messaged her daughter to ask if I should run and she too said I should not run. She would repeat that health is more important and that I have 2 kids to take care of. Surely was not going to talk with Tanu or Parents about this. Was saying myself what if they also say the same thing? What about all the preparations I had done? Had to squeeze out every possible time to do training's. Waited for 7 months for this day. Was confused and no one to talk with. On one hand I knew that I am much better now and I could run. and maybe that I am just over reacting. And at same time didn't want to be foolish and take unnecessary risk. (Guess this confusion is always there when it comes to health). However, continued towards the destination despite the uncertainty if I should run or not. 

Training for Ulm Marathon, Sep 2018
Month	# of training sessions	Total distance ran (Km)
Jul '18	8	111
Aug '18	10	194
Sep '18*	8	70
Total	26	375

Training for Hamburg Marathon, Apr 2019
Month	# of training sessions	Total distance ran (Km)
Feb '19	4	67
Mar '19	5	113
Apr '19*	11	92
Total	20	272

It seems its more accurate to consider the hours of training and not distance. But can't pull out this data easily from Garmin.

*Does not include the Marathon run.

Reached hostel and checked on Google if one could run Marathon with Cough. Initial few blogs I read said one must avoid running if there was any infection below throat (like infection in lungs). Luckily, my infection was in ears and went to bed saying myself that I will run tomorrow. Couldn't sleep that night. Woke up once sweating in middle of the night. Was stressed. Went back to bed saying I am  going to be very careful tomorrow and won't run fast. Would withdraw at any sign of discomfort. 

Was a terrible weather on the race day. Cold (about 8 degrees), cloudy and drizzling. In fact it was drizzling for first 3 hours and never had sun shine during the race. Had to change the dress, wore t shirt instead of sleeveless, a cap, scarf and long compressor socks. 10000+ runners lined up at the start line. First km was in 5:42 and soon got into the rhythm. Was a perfect split timing. Was going exactly as required. HM in 1:59:16. First time I was not running with the mindset that first half have to be faster to accommodate for the difficulty after 32 kms. In the hindsight, could say all the conversation and stress forced me to not be excited and run fast in the beginning and it ultimately paid off! Reached the 32 km mark in few minutes above 3 hours. The real Marathon started now! It seems in every race there comes one moment when there is a strong desire to quit. My moment came in the form of unbearable pain on right side of my stomach. Had a strong desire that I must stop and walk for some time. But kept reinforcing positive thoughts that, I have seen this pain multiple times before and I can do it. It is temporary. Was concentrating on breathing. Took a full 2 kms for the pain to disappear. Had considerably slowed down during this time (~13 mins for 2 kms). More importantly was losing momentum. Next problem was when watch died at 37 km. Had no way to monitor speed every lap. Stop watch at 40 km showed that I had about 15 mins for last 2.2 kms (with calculation that I crossed the start point about 8:30 mins after the start of the race). All the thoughts of last Marathon at Ulm started coming up. What if I am once again wrong with my calculation and end up just few seconds above 4 hours. Can't be foolish again. Didn't take any chance and ran with all remaining energy. Ran the last 2.2 km in less than 11 mins which means my fastest lap was probably the last lap (42nd km) and ran at speed of under 5 mins per km! Got final confirmation message that I ran in 3:56:26! 2nd half was faster than first half by 2 mins and 10 seconds! Called up Tanu and she already knew before I said. She would check up in the tracker every 5 kms to see how I was doing (seen this first time. Hamburg Marathon had a split mat every 5 kms and in App one could track when I cross the mat!) 3:45:00 at 40 kms and she was hoping that I would run the last 2 km in 15 mins! And we did it! 

One thing I would say made a difference this time for me was the importance of diet. Did carbohydrate loading last 3 days before the race. Would eat some carbohydrate every 2-3 hours. Followed the same plan like last time (Each day: 3 bananas, 2 apples, 1.5 liter orange juice, 4 slices of whole corn bread, rice, 3 Roti's and potatoes). End of the day would feel like vomiting. But didn't 😊. During the race took only water for first 16 kms. Was not thirsty. But took a glass every stall. (It is important that there is enough water in the stomach to have proper digestion). Took first gel after half way mark. This time didn't gulp it all at once but took in small sips. And drank water. Kept feeding banana and gels (took 3 more gels) during the remaining race. Felt that not paying enough attention to diet and eating enough during the previous race was one of the main reason for the struggle and longer race time (especially about eating during the race and taking energy gels. This time found Vegan gels at Decathlon ). Maybe I would have done much better if I had paid the same kind of attention in previous runs. Nevertheless one new thing learnt this time and may be more to learn in next races...  

Missed by 48 seconds...

The quest to understand how to improve running performance, lead me to my first book on running, "Lore of Running" by Tim Noakes. The book is very exhaustive (about 700 pages!) and found it to be a complete book about running. Each time I read the book, I got new insights (had to re-read some of the chapters to get the point). The book covers various aspects of running like physiology of running, how metabolism works, training methods for both body and mind, understanding and avoiding running injuries, special considerations for women, kids and many such interesting topics. Tim conveys all the points with lot of research papers and his own personal experience! One of the points that I found very interesting was how metabolism  (process of converting body reserves into energy) works during endurance running.

Guess most of us know that 64% of the body weight is because of water. But did you know that of the remaining, 15% of body weight is Fat and carbohydrate stores are quite trivial (about 1%)? Below table lists the weights of different organs of the body in an average 70 kg man.

Of the different energy stores in our body, carbohydrate and fat are the two most important energy source during prolonged exercise (anything more than 2 hours). Carbohydrates are converted to energy faster than fat.

With the amount of energy store we have, table 1 would mean, for an athlete running at 19.8 kmph, the energy that carbohydrates provide would last for about 2 hours, whereas the body fat could last about 59:49:00! Clearly, carbohydrates are not enough for Marathon running.

As the duration of any exercise intensity increases, fat become an increasingly important energy source. Below figure shows the contribution of fat and carbohydrate during long exercise.

 

At the same time, our body appears unable to extract energy at a high rate from fat metabolism (Metabolism is the process of converting the energy reserves into energy) during high intensity exercise. And if not trained correctly, the carbohydrates would deplete faster  and lead to experiencing "The wall" after 30 km (there are other factors as well but this is one of most important cause).

What these means is that Marathon runners, must increase their capacities for fat oxidation so that they can "spare" carbohydrate stores during racing. They must also maximize their abilities to store liver and muscle glycogen before exercise and must increase their capacities to absorb carbohydrate during competition.

The book also explains how this could be achieved, like importance of different training (Hill training, interval training's, distance training), preparing mind for best performance, eating right kind of food and so on.

(All the things that I have mentioned above is just some of the many insights I got. Would recommend reading the book to all those interested to actually get more explanation and details of all the studies done based on which these observations were made!)

Training for the race:

This time I started the training for the Ulm Marathon in July mid (2.5 months before the race). Previous marathons I could train only once a week. On one hand it was clear that training once a week was not enough and at same time had to figure out how much and when could I train. There are lots of training plans available but had to figure out a plan that works for me. Made a plan for one month at a time. For month of August, set a target to run 3 times and a total of 50 kms per week.

1. Saturdays were for long runs (>25 km).
2. Once a week would either run from home to office in morning or run back home in evening. About 16 km in 1:25:00, which meant only 40 minutes more than regular commute time and could also do the training. 
3. One more day would do hill training near the house. Would run 200 meters up the hill and walk down. Repeat about 8 to 10 times. Just 40 mins of workout and would be completely exhausted. Was difficult initially but could see the benefit of this soon. I could run my usual running speed for a longer time now!

Did few days of cycling (to office and back home) and swimming on few Sundays! Luckily, Purvi and Tanu had summer holidays for their kindergarten and German classes respectively and could manage spending more training hours this time!

Focus for the last 3 weeks was to taper and reduce the distance to 30 km per week. Did more interval runs during this time (at running track and hill). And did fast short distance runs (12 to 15 kms).  

Soon it was last week. Did only 2 hill training during this week. Ate lots of carbohydrates in the last 3 days (Each day: 2 bananas, 2 apples, 1.5 liter orange juice, 4 slices of whole corn bread, rice, pasta and potatoes). Didn't take any milk product on Saturday. Kept engaging in positive thoughts and kept saying that this time I will do it under 4 hours! One morning, started to praise Tanu, told her how awesome she is!!! (and I am practicing being positive). She smiled back and said "We are going to have a fight in the evening":).

Race day

Finally the D day arrived. On Sunday 23 September 2018 around 600 full marathon runners and 3000 odd half marathon runners were waiting at the start line. Had a perfect weather for the race (12 deg when we started and about 20 deg when I completed). Felt little cold while standing at the starting line (it seems if you don't feel cold when you are standing at the starting line, then the race might be hot for you!). 

Though the weather was pleasant. Didn't have the same luck with my Garmin watch. GPS signal wasn't detected. Though I switched it on couple of minutes earlier. (It was like copy paste in windows, 99% copy is completed and the 1% copy takes eternity to get over!) Annoying and at same time had to quickly decide what to do. Within minutes all the pace makers had gone  and was at almost the very end. Finally had to start the race without the stop watch started. Got the signal only after about 1.5-2 km. As a result, right throughout the race my watch was out of sync of the actual distance and more importantly the time. Since there was no possibility to verify my exact time I assumed that I am about 7-8 mins more than the current time in the watch.

Anyways soon shifted my thoughts and concentrated on the run. got into the rhythm of about 5:20 to 5:30 minutes per km. One of the things I learnt recently was to get the best performance one has to be fully present during the run. Mind keeps drifting to every other aspect of life (office, family, kids, money, relationships, practice sessions....). But best performance comes out when we are fully present and just thinking about the run! Each km, I kept mentally calculating the finish time for the next km. Example, if current time is 23:45, added 5:30 and the goal time to finish next km was 29:15! Kept repeating this time in the head. Sometimes forgot what was the goal time but almost 80% of the time could keep the focus and kept focusing only on the next km goal! Km after km kept going towards the finish line. The most beautiful thing about keeping engaged in this was that the race was going on without much focus on how much is left and within no time I was at 32 km mark. Though there was some pain at times (stomach pain and leg pain) but was bearable. Kept engaging in the positive thoughts that today is my day and will achieve the target.

Read somewhere that Marathon only starts after 32 km! Was very much as per plan, 32 km in 3 hours and had a good 60 mins for the last 10.2 km (which means a good 6 mins per km). Somewhere around this distance, we reach a moment where we lose out complete concentration and energy (also called as "the wall"). I had also experienced it in all my previous 5 marathon runs so far. Mentally I kept preparing for this. Though the target looked reasonable now, I had to still run and complete as per the plan. Pace reduced after 32 km. First the body slowed down and then I slowed down mentally, thinking I have enough cushion. From the initial calculation of 7-8 mins behind the actual start time I felt that I will finish about 1 min faster. Didn't push hard and just ran the last km fast. Wow I am going to be under 4 today! Crossed the finish line being happy. Yes I did it!!! But was still not sure. Checked the mobile and saw the race time was 4:00:47! Shit how could this happen? Completely disappointed, felt sad and sat down in utter disbelief.  How could I be so careless and stupid? Why didn't I check the time correctly? I still had stamina to run fast and could have surely covered the 48 seconds. All negative thoughts turned at making myself wrong. 

Dragged myself for shower. Hot water did the trick, soon forgot about the physical pain and mental disbelief. Sure didn't achieve the target today but the positive was for the first time I could run the complete 42.195 km without experiencing The wall. Didn't walk during the race and though was fully engaged mentally every lap didn't feel exhausted.  Best thing about running at Ulm Marathon is you get to eat popcorn after the race:)! Had stomach full of popcorn's!