My Full Marathon Training

I completed my first full marathon - Airtel Hyderabad Marathon - on 25^th August 2013. The Airtel Hyderabad Marathon is one of the toughest of the road marathons in India. Since I stay in Hyderabad and had ran the half marathon last August, and since the running bug bit me, it was a no brainer for me to participate. I had planned for running a full marathon at least once in life. So, after I recovered from Chicken pox in March, I started preparing for the marathon earnestly since April. I customized my own marathon training plan and followed it religiously. I ran for 4 days a week with 3 rest days. The 4 days consisted of 2 short runs, one medium run and a Sunday long run.

When the registrations opened in May, I got a mail from the organizers having participated in it last year. Immediately I signed up for the full, though I had my own fears and apprehensions. But I continued in the training.

To make it more interesting, I posted my runs in facebook so that my friends could see and comment. Their comments kept me motivated through out. Overall I ran for 85 sessions over a period of 5 months and covered almost 840 kilometers in training.

The training progressed slowly starting from about 24 kilometers a week. The initial few weeks were short runs and gradually I increased the mileage. I started with short runs of 5 kilometers and long run of 8-9 kilometers.  In one of the long run of 13 kilometers after about 4 weeks of starting the training, I felt pain in the back. I realized that I need to do some core strengthening exercises to keep the back pain away. Also, need to sleep properly the previous night to keep the fatigue away. I also realized that back pain would stop as soon as I corrected my posture. The next Sunday, I reduced my mileage of long run. It was a recovery week and the back pain during the sun did not appear.

I followed a different strategy the next week for the long run. Slept almost 19 hours on Friday night and Saturday night and went for the long run. Ran 16 kilometers absolutely pain free. Followed similar approach for next few weeks and kept increasing my long run distance.

But one weekend, I ran a 24kilometers long run and injured my left foot somewhere. The pain in foot started after the run in the afternoon. The pain was severe and threw me out of track. Took rest for 2 days. Went out running on the 3^rd day and could not run more than 3 kilometers. Had to limp back home and took rest for next 4 days. I felt bad. I was afraid as well. I thought I may not be able to run the marathon. But assured myself that time will heal me.

Again, the next week, I started running and slowly increased my mileage. By this week, my mid week runs were 12-15 kilometers. I had a bit of pain in feet. But the long run of 27 kilometers that Sunday was pain-free. Those days, my weekly mileage was almost 60 kilometers. I used to feel very sleepy in the night. I had to retire to bed latest by 10:00PM and did not have much energy for anything else. I think I should have slept more.

Due to a week of incessant rains in July, I had to miss few runs. This was the second week when my training hampered. In the subsequent weeks, I ran 2 long runs of 34kilometers in alternate Sundays. In these long runs, I also realized that the fatigue was more mental than physical. The last 10 days before the marathon was easy on running but difficult mentally. I still had a lot of fear and anticipation before the D-Day. I was not confident if I could finish it. But I focused on the taper period and reduced my running mileage.

Here is my training mileage chart:



Weekly mileage - Actual



p.s: I will post my race report shortly