Its been 2 weeks since I last posted anything. Home computer hassles. Or maybe MTNL connection hassles since some sites just not loading,this one included! My feeling is that there may be some sign of intelligent life in my ancient pc yet, since the two sites it is consistently blocking over the past two weeks are Facebook and this blog, both of which, for me, are the biggest timepass on the planet...
Anyway, in order to singlehandedly perpetuate the myth of the lazy employee/ consultant using office resources to surf the internet I am now posting this from the office.
Lots of stuff to report.
1. I decided to not run the half marathon I have been training for.
2. Decided on the basis of not enjoying my run at all anymore, constantly worrying about 7 kms vs 9 vs long run vs oh god only eight weeks left and last year this time wasnt I doing eleven and not breaking into a sweat and am I eating right, surely i cant be too thin to run and now i am bloated so I cant run, why is my sugar avoidance not helping me run better yada yada yada..
3. Decided to simply run instead
4. Ran instead
5. Ran fine, no pressure, did 11 kms Monday last, then 7 on Wed, 9 on Friday and 5.5 on Saturday which beats any mileage Ive managed to get for the past four weeks
6. Happy bunny, running as much or as little as I feel upto without being traumatized by how ill prepared I am for THE RACE
There's many lessons hidden in there for me. Fortunately for the rest of you, only a few are making themselves apparent to me right now. So here they are
1. There's nothing like seafood slathered in coconut and spices to clear your head. All this confusion and trauma and obsession on distances and techniques and diet dissipated when a critical mass of prawn curry hit my system
2.Training makes me feel like Mummy's standing over my head telling me what to do, running feels like the exact molecular opposite, i.e I am racing far away from every Mummy figure I have ever known - from every ought and should in my life.
3. The hardest thing was getting over the attachment I felt for myself as a half marathon runner. I know Ive done it once before ( running the half marathon) but once is like a fluke - do it a second time and it really does become like a bad habit. Once I managed to rid myself of this self image - the noble, athletic, stoic, half marathon running type chick who has it all taped up, I could officially just fall apart and carry on again.
4. Since I am anything but noble or stoic, the only thing taped up about me is my mobile phone which is held together with masking tape and my chickdom is at least 20 years past me, giving up the half marathon part was not that difficult either
All of which brings me to 2 issues
a)Is my deciding to stop training a good decision? A decision you would have made? A decision a runner would make? Or have a I just quit and am trying to put a good face on it?
b) what on earth am I supposed to do with a blog that supposedly was to be a blog on my training for an event i am no longer going to take part in..? Since I no longer officially care about this whole thing, why will anyone else?
Will my two and half incredibly discerning and loyal readers please give me their views?
13 comments:
I gave up "training" and structured running earlier this year, prepared for the worst and instead found my fastest times ever this summer. There is something so freeing about just running. This weekend, I ran a race that I was injured, ill suited for, but just wanted to do it and had a blast. There is something special about running with no pressure. So if you ask me, it doesn't matter. Do what you want to do.
Well, I didn't even get as far as filling in the application form. For a couple of days, I felt a bit foolish, and didn't run. I'd tried to recruit friends through facebook to run and train with me - and then I backed out (though I only got one half-willing recruit).
Running should be fun, possibly of a curious, masochistic kind. I find it helps me to have targets so I just try to run a little further or faster on my normal route, or find a new route. I have lots of different routes, and I time myself - and if I feel sluggish, I can invent a new route and set a record! So the targets can be joke targets. I also used to try to break double the female (or male if I feel really energetic) world record for different distances.
What are the sippers you refer to, those transparent doughnuts that you hold in your hand. I think I need to hide a bottle behind a bush. Keep eating the prawns...
I do like that running away from Mummy analogy.
:)
:)
:)
Thank you amy, thank you sam.
I ran 13 kms yesterday ( on a treadmill, which is really easy for me) but it was a BLAST. So liberating not to have to run towards something.. but just to run
I think you're right, there IS something special about running with no pressure. So thank you both for helping me reaffirm that!
:)
Sam, the sippers are sports bottles -where you have to use a little vaccum pressure to sip - basically ensures the liquid doesn't slosh out of the bottle as you run
I love the thought of doubling the world record - maybe I should try to double the seven year old's world record...?
:)
Hi, I actually stumbled on to your blog some time ago while googling for the Half Marathon website. I was struck by the similarity in our trials and tribulations,if not by the scale of our respective ambitions!I'm not much of a blog reader (i.e. I'd rather read other things), but I've enjoyed yours.
I've been running, 3-4 km on 3-4 days of the week for a few months every year for the past 3-4 years. Not that it has made any difference to the size of my stomach or to my weight - I tend to stop during the depths of winter and then proceed to eat and drink prodigiously.
For the last 2 years I've been thinking of running the Great Delhi Race but when that great day dawned I've been out of town - once for work and once for pure pleasure.
When I restarted running in the early summer I thought I would go for the full er... half monty this year and at least achieve something in this life. Accordingly I devoured the Runners World website and proceeded to increase the distance/time run. I then discovered that I seem quite incapable of running beyond 35-40 mins. So sense dawned, I surrendered (as always) and registered for the 7 km GDR instead.
Now, I usually run on the Northern Ridge, where there are 3 long "up" slopes followed by equally long (and blessed) "down" slopes. I suspect the latter artificially increase my endurance, so I took my car into the DU campus the other day and marked out a 7 km flat course on the odo.
I hope to hit 7 km by mid Oct but for now I'm stuck at 5 km and I haven't run for a week. So I thought I'll check your blog for some inspiration of the "hey if this dame and mother of 2 can run 21, surely I can manage 7" variety. Only to find out that you've quit the HM. I did feel a twinge of disappointment but you seem to be better off without the pressure, and running farther to boot.
Still I have a proposition..why not re-register for the GDR under your maiden name or something and run that? You can keep the challenge alive by running the 7 km at a much faster pace than you normally do. Who knows...you may even come first (among 38 year old dames and mothers of 2)!
M, 37
:)
Hey M,37
Thank you so much for stopping by. I'm not much of a blog reader either, but I'm not much of a blog writer either, so I guess that sort of evens out in the cosmic scale of things.. I am always amazed by the fact that anyone cares enough to read the stuff I neurotically churn out, and then give me great big globs of wonderfully soothing advice as well.
But yes, increasing the time/ distance run is always such a fraught thing. Even if one is heffalumping around at the rate of glaciers melting (as I am) you still cant help feeling terribly competetive with yourself all the time, I did 11 kms last week, surely this week should be at least 13 etc.
Maybe I will run the 7 kms, though it will be a tough ask, considering I have been sneering at my husband who has been training madly for it!! So I will have to put up with his reverse sniggers the entire time!!!!
I am fascinated by how many places there are to run in Delhi, people run in panchsheel park ( I never even knew there actually was a park in Panchsheel park, they run in Lodhi Gardens,up and down Chanakya Puri and now I find you run on the ridge - how glorious is THAT?
Anyway, thank you so much for stopping by and letting me hear from you. It does mean something to me, 38, mother of two!!
;)
Running w/o pressure sure is special ..what i do is pick up the greenest patch of running tracks where the thought of running amongst trees gives me great pleasure..(no time pressures plus a chance to soak in the O2). I don't even like to calculate distances which makes yr mind a constant calculator while on the run..it is just yr legs in motion & the rhythm of yr breathing.
So just go out & enjoy yr runs.
You're right.
Here's to running just for running sake, and all the pleasure we get from it!
Well, the Northern Ridge or Kamla Nehru Park where 4 roads converge on Flagstaff Tower of 1857 fame is really nice. Beats going round and round the University Ground, which is what most of the runners in this area seem to prefer.
Up on the ridge there are also a couple of stony walking trails through thickish foliage that one can venture on to for some variety.
It would have been Runners Paradise but for 3 or 4 bands of lumpen monkeys (whose occasional attacks force the walkers to carry batons).
Alas us runners have only one recourse to self defence - zigzag deferentially past groups of idly lounging simians, giving the bigger ones a wider berth. And if there are too many of them - walk slowly past with the hair on the back of your neck standing on end.
Unfortunately, I'll be shifting to Noida permanently in Jan. Wonder if there are any nice places to run there. This year I've promised not to stop during the cold, cold winter...
Good Running!
M, 37
M
I love the "lumpen" monekys!!!!!! the first ive ever heard that word being used to describe anyone/ anything other than the "elements" that seem to disturb our peace every now and then, during riots etc!
My word of the week. Lumpen. Thank you!!!
I'm not really from delhi, so still only familiar with South Delhi ( 5 years after moving here :( ) so I dont really know where kamala Nehru Park is - but the Ridge is what borders Dhaula Kuan and Budha Jayanti Park - right ? Where does one park if one wants to run there? Or, having a more than healthy respect for how aggressive monkeys can be ( childhood spent near the Forest Research Institute in Dehradoon - Simian Grand Central of North India), should one avoid their lumpen company altogether?
:)
Was traveling, hence the delay in replying(went for a short run on Marine Drive too!)
The Northern Ridge is separated from the Southern and Central Ridges by a great untidy swathe of the city (Bara Hindu Rao, Sadar Bazaar, Karol Bagh et al) and is now the smallest of the 3 "ridge forests". On one side of the northern ridge is Delhi University Campus and on the other the "old-rich" neighbourhood of Civil Lines. One can park next to any of the entrances.
The middle and long distance view from my building, which is on that stretch of the Ring Road known as The Mall (Mall Road to the janata), is a sea of green...
M,37
You're right!!! It IS a sea of green. I recently went to my client's office in Videocon Towers (India Today) and the view from his office was exactly a sea of trees.
Sometimes Delhi is heartbreakingly beautiful...
Seems like a lovely place to run, but im hopeless with directions and Im certain to find myself in the provinces if I try and drive there myself, so it'll have to wait for a good samaritan to drive me there I think..
How are your runs coming along? and wasn't Marine Drive fun...?
From the Videocon Tower, you were probably looking at the Central Ridge or "The Ridge". But if you had looked northwards across a messy part of Delhi you would have seen the much smaller northern ridge, which has the unsightly Hindu Rao Hospital on the apex. And the best way to reach this ridge is not by car, but on our shiny new Metro...
Anyway, running's not been so good - I have only managed 5 days this month. But I guess, I'll be back in my stride well before D Day.
Back to Bombay for a day and a night next week. This time my hotel is in Colaba, so maybe I'll run on the Causeway and the seaface in front of the Taj...if I get up early!
M, 38
running or not, please don't quite blogging! stumbled on to yours when looking for the erstwhile-HDHM, and loved it!
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