Monday, October 10, 2005

Running 20 miles

Yes!! I completed my first 20 mile run yesterday!!! Yesterday's run could be called a steeple chase of sorts!!:D It was raining like there was no tomorrow on Saturday. So we expected things to be quite a mess on Sunday morning. But nothing prepared us for the first sight on reaching Johnson park. The trail where we run is a small strip of land, and is between the Raritan river on one side, and a canal on the other. Along the trail, there are a number of spill-ways so that water from the canal can flow into the river. The river was flowing like never seen before. Water from the canal was flooding into the river over the spillways. Water on the spillways was ankle deep!!! There are about 5 spillways, so we had to cross them 10 times while going to and fro!
If that was not enough, a tree had fallen onto the trail!! This was awesome!!!:D:D:D
The run was not only this spectacular, but it was also very satisfying. I could maintain a reasonable pace of around 10 mins 30 secs throughout the 20 miles, and could actually speed up a little during the last 1.5 miles!!
It is a great feeling when months of hard work finally start paying!! At the beginning of training, I never imagined I could just run 20 miles, let alone so easily!! This is probably one of the very few activities in which I have been so involved, so focussed and so motivated. I just hope to keep this up, not only till Nov 20, but even after that!
As for my first 20 miler, it was one of the most memorable runs in training!!

1 comment:

PS said...

hey aditya
thats awesome. congrats!
I missed the run y'day and really need to make up for it :)