Initial Training
I started the AHM 2017 full marathon training in April 2017, by slowly increasing the distance I ran every week. My goal was to complete it under 5 hours. Earlier in January 2017, I had run the Chennai marathon in 5 hours and 28 minutes. Based on that, I had to cut down 28 minutes. Hyderabad was a tougher course too. For a sub 5 marathon, I realized that I had to run at a pace of 7:00 minutes/kilometer. I continued the running and cycling training routines, joining the TBA Sunday long rides for the cycling. There were multiple work related travels which reset the training in between. But I continued in the weeks that I could. During one of the work travels, I got a pair of Saucony Kinvara 8 shoes. These shoes helped me with my running pace. In late April I did a training run of 13.1km which included movie towers. I ran in the Saucony shoes. I could run at a good pace of 6:22 min/km. It was encouraging. However, after the run I had severe IT band pain. I stretched and did more cycling to continue the aerobic part of the training and for the cross training.
Training with a plan
I had a yoga trainer (Santhosh Mamidala) who was helping me with the strengthening and stretches needed for the running. He really helped me with exercises to strengthen the IT band and was also aware of physiotherapy for strained muscles. The physiotherapist in Microsoft helped me as well in relieving muscular strains. I needed the physiotherapy since I was getting IT-band pains after every training run. However, I was not ready to give up and continued to train.
At this time, I had participated in a Bike Run Biryani event in which I was the first woman to finish the Bike and the Run. During my run, I overtook a few of the male participants who had finished their cycling before me. I was getting better and better at the running. After the event, the event organizer Dr. Vignan (from Dr. Fitness) offered coaching for all the participants for a month. I took this opportunity and discussed my plan to run in a sari with Dr. Vignan. He was very supportive and we worked on a plan that would help ramp up the distance I ran week on week culminating in AHM 2017. Since Vignan was a triathlete he understood my passion for bicycling and included the important bike rides in the plan. He factored in the 200 BRM that I was planning to participate in, on July 8th. So now I had a training plan, a coach, and a yoga trainer helping me with the stretching and strengthening exercises.
It was only a matter of following the plan, completing the training and being ready for the marathon. But it was not that simple. I was struggling through the runs. After every one of the hard runs I could not do another run for at least 3-4 days due to IT band pain. There were so many setbacks. I wanted to be running at 6:45 min/km on the long runs before moving to sari, so that I could get to 7:00 min/km with sari. However every time I pushed on my running pace, I ended up with a pain in my IT band which led to pain in the knees. My left Achilles tendon was also not strong due a previous injury in November 2016. Hence the recovery after every run was not easy. I knew that it was something to do with my running form but it was hard for me to fix it.
The Saucony Kinvara 8 shoes were good. However, I was landing on my heels and bending as well. I had the IT band issue after this run too.
Minimalist sandals
This is when I decided to experiment with barefoot running - 1, 2, 3. The leg muscles felt so much better but the stones on the road were hurting my feet. I even tried running with socks but that did not help either. Dr. Vignan, was very supportive of bare foot running and suggested minimalist sandals as an option. As I was looking for one, my friend and fellow cyclist Aniket Kore suggested that I go for Luna Sandals. This was a Seattle based company and that was nice since I was making frequent work trips to Seattle. However next work trip was a month away and I wanted this immediately. Hence I mail ordered them and was pleasantly surprised that it arrived in a couple of days. My first run in the sandals was really encouraging. It felt just right.
By the first week of June I had completely switched to running in sandals. I had to retrain my body to run long distances not just in a sari but with running sandals too. I had the aerobic capacity to run a half marathon but a full marathon required lot more training - especially to finish under 5 hours. The sandals were interesting. No IT band issues though my speed was lower. I could run at a pace of 6:45 or 6:30, but I was not able to push myself to the kind of pace that I was able to run with the shoes. The sandals slowed me down. I was not able to do any interval training runs. But for long runs they felt right. After the long runs, I did not get the IT band and knee pains. My toe nails were finally healing. I previously had black and dead toe nails from training for and running the Chennai marathon.
It was interesting that after having experimented with 6 shoe models and sizes (each one working to a varying degree) the sandals felt right from the get go. I was slower but I could run for longer. I continued to train with the Luna Sandals and finally ran AHM with these running sandals.