The Running Strategy

Took advantage of the holiday today and ran a lap of the Hussain Sagar lake – a little over 9 kms. Took me 65 minutes but was completely drained out by the end of the run. Long way to go Brajesh….. if you get exhausted in running 9 kms, how will you last 42??

Running Strategy

I will be following the same regimen that I have been using for the past years – the one that has allowed me to complete several Half Marathon events.

Introduced to me by my friend and then colleague Atish, I shall be following the world famous Jeff Galloway’s running method – a combination of walk/run segments as against a continuous run from start to end.

In this method, you run for a while, walk for 1 minute and then run again for the same time duration.

You keep interrupting your run with 1 minute walk breaks that let your muscles recover and energize you for the next segment. I have been using a 7 minute run + 1 minute walk during the 21 kms and this has allowed me to finish the runs within a range of 2 hrs 24 minutes to 2 hrs 35 minutes.

But here is the tricky part. I just did the math for the full marathon and the task is going to be very, very difficult.

If I have to complete the run in 5 hours, and if I maintain a speed of 5 kms/hr during each of the 1 minute walk breaks that I will be taking, I will have to run for 8 minutes at the speed of 8.5 kms/hr – for a full 5 hour period.

The most that I have done is 7 minutes with an average running speed a shade lesser than 8 kms/hr so this is really, really going to stretch me.

Planning to use the treadmill to get myself into the routine of running for 8 long minutes @ 8.5 kms/hr. Or, I could run for 4 minutes and take a 30 second walk break…..

Will try out all combinations – luckily there is time for me to experiment and also to build my stamina to see me thru a 5 hour run.

Will keep you posted on the developments.