Long Run Sunday ...........YaYYYYYY!!!!

I read somewhere that the longest distance for a runner is from the bed to the floor. I completely agree. I have been whinging on about how I had not done a long run since the Pune 10K, to the point where I was getting bored of it.
Sunday was my target day for getting in the first of two long runs before the Mumbai marathon on January 20th.

I set the alarm to go off at 5:30 AM. It went off, loud and cacophonous. I turned it off, digging deep into my blanket, promising myself to be out of bed in the next 10 minutes. At around 6 o'clock, I wrapped it even closer, already thinking of running in the afternoon. I finally made it out of bed at 6:45 AM and faced my kit already laid out the night before. Oh, I need to eat something.... so I had a cup of tea, browsed the Sunday newspapers and generally dawdled. At 7:30, having run out of excuses, I laced up. Once I was out of home, it was OK. I warmed up; my warm up routine of stretches was getting to be boring, but I laboured on. My target was 15K.

I walked to Good Luck Chowk and started off at 8:00 AM, running towards Jungli Maharaj Road. 3:16 minutes later, I had passed Kamat's on a cold nippy morning with the sun beginning to peek out over the tops of the Sambhaji Park trees. I ran an even pace, getting green lights through the first two traffic signals, coming into Sancheti Hospital chowk in 12:30 minutes. The road has a slight climb and I was comfortable and breathing well.

Going up University Road from Sancheti was an interesting experience. The first major traffic light was amber as I ran through it, almost dodging an earnest oncoming State Transport bus. The road climbs continuously till University Chowk. Past Hardikar Hospital, I went up the first of the two big bridges on this route, (doing some hill training on the side), taking approximately 3 minutes to cover 400 m. Onward past the new Pune Central and ESquare, I decided to go over the new bridge which goes to Aundh and Baner. This is a longer climb till the intersection of Senapati Bapat Road and a bit beyond. I could see the intersection below as I clocked 33 minutes.

Down the bridge is a steady downslope till the Aundh firestation. It was a crisp morning and the sun though above the horizon now, was not hot. As I passed Raj Bhavan, I looked at the winking sun and smiled. I felt good. I turned off towards Parihar Chowk and the road was empty.. nary a soul, not even the obligatory rickshaw or doodhwala. I turned again at Parihar Chowk heading towards Baner Road. I clocked one hour just past the FabIndia store. I was panting a bit, but overall still had a good stride and was feeling OK. As I turned onto Baner Road, I clocked 1:06.

Going up towards University Chowk was a bit of a drag. The road seems to be in constant state of repair with half the road blocked. Anyway, I dodged oncoming traffic to get to Sakal Nagar. From Sakal Nagar to University Chowk is a steady climb on concrete roads, hard on the knees and just tiring. I managed to get to University Chowk without too much harm, heading off to Senapati Bapat Road

On Senapati Bapat Road, the downslope truly worked in my favour and I was doing well. I even smiled at a cop at one of the traffic lights who waved me through. Going up the climb towards Symbiosis, I looked at my stopwatch. I had been running for more than 90 minutes. I was running a little ragged and heaved a sigh of relief when I crested the hill.

At the bottom of the hill going on to Law College Road, I knew I was headed for a PB. Bhandarkar Road is downhill from this point and that worked well for my tired legs. I passed Spencer's Daily (the grocery chain) and applauded myself.....literally clapping as I drove towards Good Luck Chowk. It felt glorious. I ran into the chowk and stopped my watch - 1 hour, 48 minutes, 33 seconds later I knew I had completed a PB on 15K

Later when I checked my online odometer, the actual distance I ran came to 15.35KM for a superb pace of 7.04 minutes/KM. Yahooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Yippeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

These were my stats
Distance 15.35 km.
Reps 1
kcal 1478
Pace (min/avg/max) - / 07:03 / -
Speed - km/hr (min/avg/max) - / 8.48 / -
Duration (HH:MM:SS) 1:48:33

Here is my run map