Why I'm scared of marathon

Excuses excuses...

I have been avoiding running a marathon on the excuse that Bangalore never had one and I don't travel distances to run unless I have a chance to win elsewhere too.

Come 2014, Namma Bengaluru has got a marathon of its own...

Bangalore has got its own marathon now. With excitement, I registered early enough to win early bird personalized free tee shirt with my name printed on it. Race is however scheduled for 19th October.

What is the problem now?

I'm a guy who wakes up one day and run. I rarely participate in events and I rarely practice. But when I do run, I always run hard. This has its own limitation though. I can run at best a 10 km. I had so far run two half marathons too, best being 1:32. I can also run long distances provided the pace is not aggressive. So, I have done a 100 km run / walk / limp :)

But a marathon is a distance, not long enough to brag about but not short enough to push hard. It is neither short enough to even try out one day during practice or to repeat such events to get a personal record. This is a distance which I just want to do once and say "I have done it". But just a "I have done it" is not going to satisfy me as the distance is something anyone can do easily. That is the root of the problem - I don't want to do this distance once only and want to clock a time that will not tempt me to attempt again. So, I have figured that 3 hours is the time I would be really satisfied to hang the boot! Why this figure? There are some people I really look upto in running. Their timings are around that time. In the back of my mind is the desire to belong to where some of these role models are.

How are you planning to do it?

Plan is simple. Train the whole of September. Rest the whole of October except an easy 1200 km brevet ride to Ooty on 8th October aptly named as bliss in the hills. Plan is to run everyday or at least 5 days a week, each day at least an hour. 10 days have passed so far with hardly 5 days or run. Blame it on hectic schedules at home. The only time I get to run is mostly on office gym in the evenings.

My aim is to run at a pace of 14 kmph and increase the duration gradually. On days when I want to run long, I run at 12.5 kmph - say for two hours. My third week of September, I want to be able to run for 2 hours at 14 kmph. By the end of September, I target to do run 35 km in 2:30. That should give me enough confidence that I can run the sub 3 hour marathon pace.

Fingers crossed. Hope the health cooperates. I'm also hoping that the 1200 km brevet in hills will also add a few strong muscles that will probably stay till the following weekend for the marathon. Perfect plan :-D

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