Week 27 was like a mixed feeling. You can check it out here. With 450+ miles under my belt, let’s see how far I can go in this week.
Day 1 – Sunday, July 19, 2020 – Quarantine Day 125
First day of the week and I must admit that I started the week quite lazily. Having spent almost 12 hours on the road, driving and hiking, my body needed some quite time, so skipped the run for the day.
By the time it was evening, the weather was so nice that I couldn’t stop myself from going out for a 13 mile bike ride with Jinx. The bike ride was followed by a belly full of delicious food. Awesome Sunday well deserved!
Day 2 – Monday July 20, 2020 – Quarantine Day 126
This week is special. As I am done with half of the year (26 weeks), I reevaluated my mileage to maximize my running efforts to finish 1,000 miles for the year.
Based on the 15 minutes that I spent counting mileages each week, I concluded that I need to run at least 23 miles per week to finish with more 1,000 miles by December 31st, 2020. 23 miles per week translates to roughly 3.3 miles per day. So, I decided whenever I will go out for a run, I will try to run at least 3.3 miles, preferably a mile more than that, so that I will stay ahead of my target/schedule.
With this target in mind, I woke up at my usual time and went out for a run. By the time I finished a 5K, I could feel that I was a little tired, but went for longer distance just to keep up with my target. I was glad I finished 4.1 miles of running and then called it for the day.
The work was a little bit more as compared to other day, so in the evening, it was a 13 miles bike ride before having some wonderful food!
Day 3 – Tuesday July 21, 2020 – Quarantine Day 127
Trying to stick to the plan and keeping the target in mind, I went out for a morning run for the second day in a row. This one felt better than yesterday, since I could finish the same distance on the same route in lesser time.
Post run, I had some wonderful breakfast and Kheer after lunch, that you see in the picture below.
Day 4 – Wednesday July 22, 2020– Quarantine Day 128
I could not go out for a run today because of two reasons – the first one was I woke up late (& that’s completely my fault) and the second one was the I had an early morning meeting, which I couldn’t skip – so I ended up skipping the run for the whole day.
The day seemed quite long with some work and too many things to handle; however, I got a chance to go out for a 13 miles bike ride with the kids and friends. Loved spending time with them and Jinx got some much needed outside time too.
Day 5 – Thursday July 23, 2020– Quarantine Day 129
Ah! I have been waiting for Thursday and Friday for this week to get over and relax for some time over the weekend. Yesterday, we slept in the tent, so I woke up quite late today. After getting socks out from the wardrobe, I looked at the clock and decided to work instead of going out for a run.
The work seemed never ending to me, especially today! I was relieved when I was done with everything around 4.30PM and we finally got a chance to head to NHS to run on their track.
It was such a pleasant feeling to run on the track with kids. I was especially impressed with Mr. Aryan. Today was the first day I saw him actually putting as much efforts in running as he puts in other sports. I thought the kids would get tired after 2-3 rounds of the track and the adults would get to run on their own. Boy, was I wrong!
I was running with their pace to act as a pacer and for them to have someone to look after while running. The strategy of taking a break after alternate rounds worked for them and they never seem to get tired because of it. When I was at miles 2-3, I was so surprised to see Mr. Aryan still running and couldn’t help but be proud. At the end of the run, he managed to finish 10 rounds of the track, covering roughly 2.5 miles. It was such an amazing feeling and I am sure I will remember it for some time.
After finishing the run, we devoured some freshly made basil pasta and beer, which I had been craving for a few days. Sam Adams Porch Rocker is my third most favorite beer, and they sell it only during summer, so had to go with that!
Day 6 – Friday July 24, 2020– Quarantine Day 130
PR & 7TH HALF MARATHON OF 2020 & 500+ MILES FOR 2020
What a wonderful way to accomplish three things in one run. Yesterday, as I was tired staring at my laptop screen for more than 10 hours and having just one beer in the evening (which I did after almost 6 months) made me sleep sooner than my usual time. I remember going to bed at around 9PM, which helped me get up at around 4.30AM today. The moment I was up, I knew I had to maximize this advantage by finishing a Half Marathon today. Glad that I listened to myself and I was out the door at around 5.05AM.
My friend, Anupam, shared a good 5 minute video about kinds of stretching to do before a run, so I tried that and it worked like a charm, so, I think, I will do it before every run now. Here’s the link if you want to check it out.
Also, a few things special about this run – I think this was the first Half Marathon I finished without my knee cap – which is extremely good to know as I had been relying on the knee cap quite heavily, especially for longer runs. Also, I didn’t wear my compression socks for the run – which also didn’t seem to make a lot of difference to my running form and pace. The last thing that I did differently was not wearing a nipple guard. I have been wearing nipple guards for every run now to avoid nipple chafing. For this run, I decided to skip this part and wanted to see if the newly bought Under Armor gear helps prevent it. IT DID NOT!
As you will see below in the picture, you will be able to see a red stream from the ride side of the T-shirt. I didn’t realize that my nipple was chafed, until someone gave me a weird look, when I was walking home after finishing my run. I took a peak and was pleasantly surprised to find it out myself. Good that it didn’t hurt much compared to the last time and I could carry on with my day like any usual day.
One more special thing about this run – this was the first run that I didn’t check my Apple Watch at all. The last time I scored a PR for a Half Marathon, I went for it after covering a distance of 10 miles; but this time, I wanted to check whether my body can run for that long with a consistent pace and glad to know that it could. I must say the weather helped tremendously to run faster than my usual pace. It was cold throughout my 2 hours 15 minutes run and I didn’t have to carry any water or food supplies for the run. When my Apple Watch made a ding sound, telling me that I just finished 13 miles, I was so eager to look at the time, but, I calmed myself as I still had 0.1 mile to go. Once I knew I was well over 0.1 mile, I finally took a look at my watch and was so overjoyed to look at the timing. It was amazing feeling to run back to back PR for Half Marathons and not sure if I will be able to accomplish that again.
Let’s see I might just surprise myself. The evening was well spent with kids and soccer. The work hours stretched a little bit, but that’s a usual Friday for me, so no complaints there!
Day 7 – Saturday July 25, 2020– Quarantine Day 131
Ah! The last day of the week and so glad about all the things that I accomplished during this week.
Now, before starting with the regular updates for the day, a couple events that are worth mentioning.
The first one is kind-of a bad news, but I had already anticipated it – THE DETROIT FREEPRESS INTERNATIONAL MARATHON IS VIRTUAL NOW. This is such a bummer as I had been preparing it for some time and was excited to cross the US-Canada border on foot during this race, nevertheless, they gave us option to defer it to the next year, which sounds like a good deal to me, so I will go ahead with that.
The good news is – I got approval for my application to the work visa i.e. H1B. Those closer to me knew that it was a last attempt for me, so it was very crucial to score it this time, and glad that I did. With this approval, I got few more years of relief.
Anyway, getting started with the updates. After running a PR HM yesterday, I decided to skip the run for a day and we went to Highland Recreation Area for some hiking. After experiencing the best hike at Holly Recreation Area last week, I was not sure what to expect from this place, so went with some open mind. The one thing that I didn’t like about the hike was the Gravel trail. It was 88F and the gravel trail didn’t help as it stayed hot whenever we walked on it. I think, this was one of the reasons, my friends, Anupam and Monika and their kids, felt some pain in their toe muscles. Hope they’ll be better soon.
We anticipated a distance of 6 miles for the entire hike, but, ended up finishing 8.4 miles. At the end of it, I was super tired, so ended up having a pizza.
You can check the photos here.
And that brings us to the end of this week. It was an amazing week and I could successfully achieve my target mileage. I could cover 29.6 miles in 05:03:47 at 10’16” pace. At the beginning of this week, I had a target of only 23 miles, which I successfully completed and with some extra miles, keeps me ahead of my target.
I am hopeful about the next week and beating the target again! Let’s see.
Enjoy the weekly highlight, though!
stochasticity 
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