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| The chronicles of Sanjeev Dwivedi |
Long time and no update.
Today I have run a half marathon. No, I did not participate in a half-marathon. I just ran 13.2 miles on the Sammamish River Trail. Two coworkers and I run every alternate day during lunch time and we have now been running slightly short of two years.
I feel like I have accomplishmed something. A milestone perhaps. When we started running together, we used to run about 2 miles and be out of breath and tired. But slowly we increased our distance and our stamina. Now we run at the very least 5 miles, 3 times a week or as I have been doing recently in preparation for this half-marathon, 5 miles twice a week and on the weekends, I would go for a longer run (increased the distance from 5 miles to 10 miles slowly, over time. I ran 10 miles for about 3 weekends and decided I was ready to run the whole distance. At the suggestion of one of my co-runners, I bought some GU sports gel. The reason behind this was that during my 10 mile runs, performance would seriously get impacted at about the 7 mile barrier. Speed would go down and tiredness would set in. I have always been sceptical of chemical and performance enhancers and I resisted going down this path by making my own concotion of sports drink (sugar, Morton Lite Salt (50-50 split of Potassium Chloride and Sodium Chloride) to replenish the lost salt and half a lemon. But, even with this drink, the 10 miles would be stressful at the very best. So, this time, armed with two packs of GU gel (a lot of long distance runners swear by it), I started. The GU gel instructions say to take it 15 minutes before, for next 45 minutes. As I approached the 45 minute mark, I was feeling just the littlest bit tired and I opened the gel and sucked down about half of a poch. Then, I hastily put some water in the mouth and mixed the two in my mouth (the gel directions say, you must have water with it or you will get stomach cramps). After about 10 minutes, I started feeling a little better. Coming back, I had the other half of this first gel pouch. I thought I would not need the second pouch at all. But 4 miles from the finish, it became extremely difficult to run. The steps would get a little short and consciously I would have to increase the stride as well as keep up the pace. At about 3 miles before stopping, I gave in and opened the second pouch. I sucked down about half of the gel and about 10 minutes later, I felt a little better. At this point of time, it was mostly mind over matter. I kept tricking myself with lines like "Oh, it is just 2.5 more miles, that is nothing" and "you are almost there."
Suffice to say, I was thoroughly glad when it was finally over. I cooled down slowly by walking for about 3-4 minutes and then did some stretches for my legs. By now, I was feeling a bit cold. In general after heavy sweating, I cool down prety fast and start feeling cold. So, I usually carry a spare t-shirt with me. When I took out my under shirt, I saw dollar sized bloody spots where the nipples touch the T-Shirt. In my earlier longs runs, I had observed nipple chafing, but nothing like this. I had researched this topic and found that this is a common problem with male runners. The constant motion of the wet t-shirt against nipples cuts the thin skin and they bleed. Some solutions to these are apply a vaseline like gel or put some band-aid on top of them. Before this run, I had done both of them in preparation and thankfully, it was not painful during this run (it was quite painful in my earlier long runs, when I had not tried any remedy) but I was still surprised to see the bloody spots.
I had asked Nivi to keep some food ready because the trail is about 10 minutes drive from home and I need food immediately after a run (you should in general have something to eat within 30 minutes of any moderate exercise, to make the recovery faster.) I would seriously have liked to have taken a shower before having food, but that was impractical today. So I sat down on the carpet, put frozen vegetable bags on each of my knees (icing reduces the recovery time by decreasing the inflammation) and ate slowly. After I was done, I filled up the bath tub with cold water and sat in to submerge the lower half of my body. That turned out to be a bit tricky. The bottom of my feet got so cold so fast that I hastily jumped out of the tub. But then with a stronger resolve, I got back in and spent another 20 minutes in the cold water. Initially the cold water seemed brutal but after 5 minutes or so, it turned soothing as it relaxed the muscles and improved blood circulation in the lower half of the body.
Well, that is about it for my running adventure. I will still keep running, but I plan to reduce the weekend miles a little bit to give the body time to recover completely after all I have put it through. Nivi seems motiviated now, seeing how I have dropped about 20+ pounds in the last 6 months through running. I will see how far we will go together.
| sanjeev@pratapgarh.com |