This is India. I was supposed to play in a nationally televised, promotional ice hockey game Saturday night against the Indian Police. Hours before game time it was called off. Never mind that I rearranged my entire weekend to make this happen. Oh well, shit happens in India. At least I got to watch MSU play that night...except that after nearly two hours of broken internet viewing, weather delays had ensured that I had a choice to make: watch the whole game and end up with about an hour to rest, or go to bed around 11pm and rise at 3:45am for a half marathon....I hit the sack.
Two weeks ago I finished work and headed out for an evening run, angry with things. I just needed to get out and run and with no plan, I headed toward Lodhi Garden. My first mile was fine, but the next a big drop. Then again. By halfway I was humming along, running harder until the pain went away, and then a new pain came, different this time, but it beat the feeling from before. So I pushed. I dropped every one of those 6.3 miles faster than the last, and still had room to go. Then a funny thing happened: I started running faster on all of my subsequent runs without having to try harder. It was suddenly easier to run a faster pace on a normal run. This is the point in the season where a runner has a "rust buster" - the run that moves him from that stagnant pace of training into the realm of control. At a month out from Greece, I now knew I would be ready.
Pollution headache aside, I felt fine (considering the hour) heading to the race on a slightly warm Sunday morning. We wandered through the throngs of humanity and I tried to poop in the bushes but the result was minimal and disappointing. As we jostled to hold our position in the corral, more people bumped passed but the race went off right on time. Unfortunately, narrow roads and too many ignorant people meant the first mile was a disaster. I weaved and bobbed through, passing people walking at 1km and those destined for a 3 hour half marathon. It had a few choice words for these folks. Soon the crowd thinned and I settled into a pace. My friends were off ahead, both of them eyeing 1:28-1:30. I had not been running fast and with a softball game just a few hours off, and a marathon in a few weeks, I decided not to push. But the miles came quickly and easily as I passed person after person and soon I was locked in.
Delhi, like many parts of the world, is strange for running - or by that definition, maybe it is on par. I saw shoeless people, those that started too fast, and those that went by in sub-6 min miles at the 8 mile mark (must have been asleep for the start). I passed a man who was belting out "huh-huh" on 5 second intervals. He was wearing headphones but that didn't stop me from saying, "You know you are making that noise out loud, right?" He either ignored my chirp or was too distracted from his 50 Shades of Grey audio book to notice. Must have been the good part by the way he was huffing. I moved ahead, but soon ran into a woman steadily moaning as she rolled past 4 miles. I thought, damn, she must be a firecracker in the sack, but then thought, no, she expends too much energy on the run...
Luckily, I didn't encounter any running/sexually confused participants again. I did roll by some aid stations sponsored by Nature's Valley but instead of delicious granola bars, they had pork rinds. I passed. With about 6k to go I caught and passed my buddy Michael who runs steady but tends to go out faster than I. I rounded India Gate and headed back, content not to push the pace, never feeling like I was really getting after it. I crossed in 1:28:01 which is just on 6:40/mile. I had run about 10 of the 13 miles faster than all but any two miles during training this fall (see earlier paragraph on angry running). I have done no speed work in the past 7 months and still ran a decent time. Sure, it's about 10 min off my best but any day you can show up and lay it down way outside of your training pace is a winner. In fact, it must be one of the fastest half's I have run in many years since I haven't been racing much the last 5 years and we used to do these things as post-marathon recovery runs or as part of long runs in Joburg. But it's not always about the time...
Two weeks ago I finished work and headed out for an evening run, angry with things. I just needed to get out and run and with no plan, I headed toward Lodhi Garden. My first mile was fine, but the next a big drop. Then again. By halfway I was humming along, running harder until the pain went away, and then a new pain came, different this time, but it beat the feeling from before. So I pushed. I dropped every one of those 6.3 miles faster than the last, and still had room to go. Then a funny thing happened: I started running faster on all of my subsequent runs without having to try harder. It was suddenly easier to run a faster pace on a normal run. This is the point in the season where a runner has a "rust buster" - the run that moves him from that stagnant pace of training into the realm of control. At a month out from Greece, I now knew I would be ready.
Pollution headache aside, I felt fine (considering the hour) heading to the race on a slightly warm Sunday morning. We wandered through the throngs of humanity and I tried to poop in the bushes but the result was minimal and disappointing. As we jostled to hold our position in the corral, more people bumped passed but the race went off right on time. Unfortunately, narrow roads and too many ignorant people meant the first mile was a disaster. I weaved and bobbed through, passing people walking at 1km and those destined for a 3 hour half marathon. It had a few choice words for these folks. Soon the crowd thinned and I settled into a pace. My friends were off ahead, both of them eyeing 1:28-1:30. I had not been running fast and with a softball game just a few hours off, and a marathon in a few weeks, I decided not to push. But the miles came quickly and easily as I passed person after person and soon I was locked in.
Delhi, like many parts of the world, is strange for running - or by that definition, maybe it is on par. I saw shoeless people, those that started too fast, and those that went by in sub-6 min miles at the 8 mile mark (must have been asleep for the start). I passed a man who was belting out "huh-huh" on 5 second intervals. He was wearing headphones but that didn't stop me from saying, "You know you are making that noise out loud, right?" He either ignored my chirp or was too distracted from his 50 Shades of Grey audio book to notice. Must have been the good part by the way he was huffing. I moved ahead, but soon ran into a woman steadily moaning as she rolled past 4 miles. I thought, damn, she must be a firecracker in the sack, but then thought, no, she expends too much energy on the run...
Luckily, I didn't encounter any running/sexually confused participants again. I did roll by some aid stations sponsored by Nature's Valley but instead of delicious granola bars, they had pork rinds. I passed. With about 6k to go I caught and passed my buddy Michael who runs steady but tends to go out faster than I. I rounded India Gate and headed back, content not to push the pace, never feeling like I was really getting after it. I crossed in 1:28:01 which is just on 6:40/mile. I had run about 10 of the 13 miles faster than all but any two miles during training this fall (see earlier paragraph on angry running). I have done no speed work in the past 7 months and still ran a decent time. Sure, it's about 10 min off my best but any day you can show up and lay it down way outside of your training pace is a winner. In fact, it must be one of the fastest half's I have run in many years since I haven't been racing much the last 5 years and we used to do these things as post-marathon recovery runs or as part of long runs in Joburg. But it's not always about the time...
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| The negative splits and consistency speak to experience |
I regretted not waiting for Michael and the amazing Mercedes that would have been my ride home had I not hustled out of there and grabbed a tuk tuk. Sweat drying, I started to get chilly in the morning air - air that was no doubt slowly killing me, which I tried to ignore as my driver, who tried to rip me off on the price before I lost it on him, drove up the wrong way of a highway off ramp and nearly killed me. Home and a shower. I absolutely hammered two breakfasts at ACSA before going 5-for-6 at bat in our 9:30am softball game (we won 18-10). Of course, I indulged in the post-game beers to cap it off, before heading home to watch the replay of the MSU game. There was foul language hurled at the television in the loss. I hate Michigan! However, despite the loss, all in all, not a bad day. I should run angry more often.
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