Yesterday, chatted with Praveen Giriya, a comrades finisher this year and planned to catch up today for the "Chiku Buku" ( forgive me for the wrong spelling) route run. Praveen told me that he designed this route for the group and is called this because it runs along the Mambalam station railway tracks( 'Chiku Buku Raile' song in Tamil -- does it ring any bells?). It is a very nice route covered by greenery at most places especially on Bazullah road.
So, today morning, I woke up and decided to run till Ashok Pillar and meet up with this celebrity runner of Chennai and of course my newly found friends Arun Jain and Ramachander Babu Radha. I left home at about 0445 and reached Ashok Pillar about 2 kms away by 0455 hrs and could find no one there. It was quite dark there and then suddenly as if to provide me with light, the Saravana Bhawan restaurant there switched on all lights and opened their shop. I waited for about five to ten minutes and finally saw one person arrive at about 0505 hrs on scooter. I introduced myself and we both waited and slowly people started trickling in. They waited for one of their veteran runners to take stretching and warming up, and soon Praveen Giriya, Arun Jain and Babu also were there and we started our run after a customary group snap.
Four of us ran together and as the roads started becoming narrower on Lake-view road, we had to break into a formation of twos. Interestingly, one cyclist burst his ire on us as we were blocking his path and he was getting late for milk packet distribution and his lady was perched on his back seat. When I said "Sorry", he burst back in anger " What Sorry" and five to ten metres ahead, he reached his destination and stopped. We were highly amused by his behaviour, but that is how a "mind in hurry" works. I sincerely expressed my apologies to him in Tamil and moved on, his wife smiled and justified that they were late for milk packet distribution.
It was a beautiful morning, weather was good, and I was enjoying the pace, and suddenly I realised that myself and Babu had actually paced up much ahead as we got off the flyover and entered Bazullah road, when Praveen called out and told us to slow down, as Babu had to run a race on Sunday. So we waited for Praveen and Arun and then continued at a normal pace. Hereafter, Praveen Giriya was always ahead of us and his pace was fantastic, and though I kept pace with him till we crossed Panagal park, I realised that I was pushing myself more than my capacity and I reduced my pace and let him go ahead, and self and Babu paced together and continued to run. Praveen in his best form, was itching to do 16k and asked us, and we refused as we were happy with 12k for today, being the fourth consecutive day for me after a long injury break. So self and Babu maintained our pace comfortably and continued as we watched Praveen glide past us comfortably and he was about 100-150 m ahead of us constantly, and twice he came running back and asked us to pace up with him as only 2.5k was remaining. Now Praveen was very comfortable at his pace which was probably a bit more than our pace, but the mind is a devil and in such situations, I normally switch into "race" mode and most of the times, this is the cause for injury because you push yourself more than your capacity. On a particular race day, it is OK if you have been targeting a PB and it is the D-day, but on a normal training day, unless you are fully in form and up to it, it is not worth pushing yourself more than necessary. So I curbed my instincts and thanks to Babu who also maintains a similar cadence as me, we paced comfortably and we finished the 12k in about 1 hr and 04 min. Perceived effort was about 8.5/ 10 today, because somewhere in my mind, I was trying to compete with Praveen Giriya, but I was no match for him as he runs like a deer and in extremely good form. He is an accomplished Chennai Ultra runner who has just finished Comrades successfully and is an inspiration for all runners here. It was a pleasure to run with him today. Thank you so much ,Praveen Giriya, for the awesome run today, which I enjoyed immensely.
So if you read this post, you will understand that while maintaining a pace is important, pushing a "little bit" more is also important, because that is what leads to improvement. Only the "little bit" is difficult to quantify as there are many factors like, how you are feeling on that day, weather conditions, etc. etc. But being in touch with your own body and mind while running is of utmost importance and you will know where to draw the line, because sub-consciously, when we cross the line, our form deteriorates and becomes the cause for injury and set back. I still have to learn a lot, because I do cross the line many times, without realizing it, because I have got used to running faster than what my body can take. So as I write this, I am telling myself that I need to slow down and control my instincts while running to avoid injuries. Learning never ends.. running also hopefully will never end for me till the very end... Thank you "Chennai Runners Pillar Pacers" group for the lovely run today. I believe there are about 34 groups in Chennai and the total strength is greater than 5000. Way to go, Chennai! Keep Running!
