Two good runs

A 30 minute tempo run was on the training plan yesterday. A tempo run is continuous with a fast middle. I divided the 30 minutes into 3 parts - the first 10 minutes or so to be easy, the middle 10 minutes when I would start building up pace and the last 10 minutes to be easy again.

I was quite excited about this run - my first. I went to KNP at 7:30 and warmed up. I planned to run the first 5 laps easy, accelerate in the 6th and 7th laps and run the 8th lap hard, slowing up in lap 9 and 10. My first lap was a decent 3:19, and I went on to lap 5 in around 17 minutes. Lap 6 was around 3:30, lap 7 was 3:10 and lap 8 was 2:49. I was huffing/puffing during laps 9 and 10, but eventually managed to complete in 33:59:30, my best time for this distance ever. I was quite happy since typically I will start out strong and slow down towards the end running 3:50 - 4:00 laps. I was happy that I was able to accelerate right bang in the middle of my distance.
I did change my plan, but as Hal Higdon maintains - "Improvisation is the heart of doing a Tempo Run correctly" :-) . I dropped off my kid to school and took the other kid to Vaishali for a well earned upma and sada dosa.

Today's run started out differently. I went off to KNP and after my walking lap, I decided to head back home to help with the kid. I eventually ended up dropping her off to her school across Chittaranjan Vatika. I headed over to the Vatika and warmed up. I planned to run 10 laps here, each lap is approximately 600m, so a total of around 6K.
My first lap was a blistering 3:49 which was great. I have done this lap in around 4 minutes before, this is the first sub 4. Each subsequent lap added some seconds :( and I finished lap 6 in 25:15. I continued running till lap 8 which I finished in around 34 minutes. I stopped to take a breather, and continued to finish the next 2 laps. My overall time was 42:40 minutes. This is the first time I have run 10 laps in the Vatika.

The Pune International Marathon is this Sunday. I am running in the 10K. I got my complimentary red T shirt (Vodafone colours) and my sachet of Quaker Oats. My running number is 3789.

The route is the usual.
It starts at Lakdi Pul, goes up Laxmi Road, turns off towards Seven Loves Chowk, up the Shankarseth Road bridge, turns onto M.G Road at Golibar Maidan, down M.G. Road, towards the Police Commissioner's office, turn at Blue Nile, up and down the bridge near Wadia College and ends on Bund Garden Road at Sun-n-Sand. There is one water station marked out at 7.5K at the end of M.G. Road. Hopefully they will have water when one plodder gets there :-)