Sunday January 13th.
6:00 AM - The alarm went off - shrill and loud, I tried to linger in bed, but the pull of the road was just too much. After my ritual cup of tea, and skimming through the Sunday newsies, I stepped out. Mom asked "आज पण दोन तास का?"
"नाही, आज जास्तच, तीन तास??"
After warming up, I walked to Good Luck Chowk, stretched a bit and hit the road at 7:33 AM. The stopwatch started, I ran towards Jungli Maharaj chowk, passing Kamat's in about 3 minutes just like last Sunday. It was slightly cold, not too nippy.. just the perfect start. I passed all the engineering company folks waiting for their buses to transport them to far flung reaches of the city to their locations, getting bemused smiles. I reached the far end of Jungli Maharaj Road in 12:28, again pretty much like the last time.
Dodging a National Travels bus near COEP hostels, I went to towards Simla Office. The temperature read 16.9 deg C which I thought was a bit warm for January. I came upon the first bridge near Hardikar's hospital at 16:40 and took around 3 minutes to reach the other end near the Mhasoba temple. One bridge down, one to go.....
I started climbing Ganeshkhind Road in right earnest, flagging a bit, dodging motorbikes and cycles going the wrong way. Starting up on the second bridge, I was doing well and mentally calculating whether I wanted to go to Baner and circle up on Aundh Road (which is a steep climb) or keep on my route from last week. At 33:00 minutes, I passed the Senapati Bapat Road intersection choosing to head down my route from last week towards Aundh fire station. At 35:31, I was just past Raj Bhavan, striding down easily. I met up with a guy who was dribbling a football and just past Pichola, we started passing the football back and forth, till the fire station. Made for a nice break in an otherwise solitary run. I had to sprint hard to keep up with the fast moving ball - it was fun. I turned towards Dass, thanking the guy at 52:18, approximately 7.5 K into my run.
Hour one went past in front of Ozone, and I kept at my pace last week hitting the Baner Road turnoff at 66 minutes. This distance is about 9.5 KM, so at this point, I was doing around 8k/min pace. Going into Baner Road, I noticed that most of the road had been completed and was uncluttered - no concrete mixers, or pickaxes or people hanging around. Near Sakal Nagar, I was forced off the small road surface due to traffic. Navigating my way back through the small clear patches of concrete, I reached Yashada in about 78 minutes, approximately 10.5 KM later.
Climbing up the small incline from Yashada to the University Chowk was not as taxing as the last weekend. I turned off into Senapati Bapat Road, traveling on the wrong side of the road - running against traffic so I could at least see the vehicles coming :-). I thought this was a smart idea and I only discovered how "wrong side" it was till I passed the Chaturshringi temple. The road has been dug up till ICC for some road construction work. There is a small narrow lane, permitting only one vehicle to pass at one time. I was off the road again, hopping over small rocks and chunks of road, as I made my way slowly past this hurdle.
Downhill from ICC, I figured I was running behind my target time of 7 minutes to the kilometer. I passed the 14K mark at the NCC grounds, and went past my turn off last week. I hit the 15K mark in front of the Film Institute in 1:50 minutes about 3 minutes or so behind my 15 K time of last week. I turned off Law College Road onto the Canal Road, passing Dashbhuja Ganapati temple and the 16K mark in 1:57:45. Had to literally find my way through the amassed cars, motorbikes and cycles, so I walked for about a minute. Picked up again and as I passed Jog Hospital, I was 2 minutes past 2 hours into my run.
At the Reliance Fresh store turnoff, (the 17K mark), I was timing 2 hours 8 minutes, the last kilometer a general blur and tiresome. The road looked appealing with its canopy of trees and dense branches - that made the running pleasant. An older gent asked me for directions as I turned off towards Bal Shikshan Mandir and I just nodded... only realizing much later where he wanted to go. I am sure he thought I was an idiot :-). I turned off on Karve Road at 2:15 minutes, having covered 18K thus far.
KM 19 was fairly easy except the navigation through dug up roads and traffic snafus - not made easier, by all the folks going the wrong side. I let out a huge sigh of relief as I passed the Dashbhuja Ganapati mandir again, having gotten past the last climb on my route. I ran past Nal Stop, the traffic cops at the intersection looking quizzically at me, past Aditya Hotel and the petrol pump, past Chinese Room and then I stopped. 20 KM on the dot and 2:30:44:90 later, I stopped.
Phew, what a relief. I headed over to a grocery store, got myself a bottle of water and a packet of Parle Glucose biscuits (the breakfast of Champions), stretched to work the kinks out of my legs. I got into a rickshaw and headed on home.
Here's the map
I am quite happy with my run, though it took me 10 minutes more than what I had targeted. (7 mins/km was my target, 7.5 mins/km was my pace when I completed). I am ready for Mumbai now. This week will be my taper - one tempo run and two small runs till Thursday and that's it.
I am a bit worried about Mumbai temperatures - they tend to be higher than Pune for sure, even in January. Hopefully, the 6:45 AM start should help compensate for this.
चलो मुम्बई!!
Showing posts with label Long Run. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Long Run. Show all posts
Monday, January 14, 2008
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
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
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
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