Running - A way of life.

My dad's a runner. For some of you, that may be a bizarre thing to be. You may be thinking - "So what the deal? He runs?" Well yes, he runs. He doesn't run for a living, nor does he run just to stay fit. No, he runs because for him, running is a way of life. Running is an integral part of his life. And I think that's beautiful.

Well, the running bug has bitten all of us. We're now a family that runs. Including Mama!! We've done 10Ks, 7Ks, and 5Ks to date!! 

Well, Dada's in a completely different league altogether. He's been running half-marathons for above ten years, and started running marathons last year. In the last 5 months, he's done 5 marathons, 1 duathlon, and 2 Brevets. Mindbogglingly crazy, but what do I say? :)

But then, Dada doesn't stop there, does he. He's started a running group!! We live really far from the city, so we can't really attend the Hyderabad Runners' regular training program. Anyways, he started a group. And it's going very very well!! Over the last 3 weeks, we've got together 10-12 regularly attending people! (Our community is quite small, so this is a large group of runners). We meet on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 5:30 in morning (Yep, 5:30am. If you want to be a runner, you have to sacrifice late nights and retire by 9:30pm). 

Well this is our routine: 

Mondays: Meet at 5:30am for Interval Training. Interval training goes kind of like this: You pick a distance you're comfortable with, say 100m, 200m, or 400m. We've picked 200m, since all of us are beginning with a couple of 10Ks to our names. The idea is, you run this distance till you are very breathless, and then the same distance, you do a slow jog or walk to regain your breath. Keep increasing the distance and the number of times you repeat this exercise. You do this as this helps your body store in more oxygen. You are getting your body used to being breathless, so it helps the body learn to store more energy (oxygen). This also helps increase your running pace (who doesn't want to finish each run with a new personal best?)

As of now, we're doing 8 repeats of 200m Interval Training. Very exhausting, but so worth it. I can already feel my pace increasing!! 

Wednesdays: Meet at 5:30 for Tempo Run. Tempo run is a run that helps you increase you pace. You start of jogging very slow, and gradually increase your speed. In the middle of the run, you should be running at your fastest speed. You them gradually slow down towards the end. As of now, we're doing 5 or 6 kilometer Tempo Runs. 

Fridays: Meet at 5:30 for Long Run. Long Run, as the name suggests, is a long run. If you've done a 10K, and you're aiming for 21K (half-marathon), you start of running 10Ks and every week add a kilometer or two. (I'm not doing a 21K, because Dada says for a 16 year old it is physically too demanding, so I've decided to stick with the good old 10Ks.) 

Stretches: What I haven't mentioned is that before and after every session, we do stretches. Dada says stretches are one of the most important things to do. Warming up and cooling down your muscles are very important, and without these, you become very injury prone. At the beginning, we do stretches to increase blood flow to the muscles, and at the end of the run, we do them to relax our muscles.

Well, so that's our life now. Running. And it's a wonderful life :)