Hope you got a chance to review the second week. Let us find out what third week brings us.
Day 11 – 01/11/2021 – 1996/355
The first and second run of the week came today. More importantly, I could run twice today, which is always a good feeling for my runners high.
The first run came before my work day started. I went out for a quick run, but my runners high got better of me and I ended up completing a 10K distance, crossing cities like Northville & Novi. I love this route and whenever I feel like finishing a big distance run, I try to follow this route and end up having good time always.
The second run came after the workday, looping my favorite spot. As much as I wanted to finish the 10 lops, I could cover 6 loops to finish a 5K distance. This helped me bring the miles to cover to 1,996 miles.
Day 16 – 01/16/2021 – 1965/350
What an awesome day – FIRST ULTRAMARATHON OF MY LIFE!
When I started running this year, the only I regretted the most in 2020 was *not* running an ultramarathon in 2020. Because of that, the first long run that I wanted to do in 2021 was an ultramarathon. Fortunately, this long weekend, I had a plan in mind to do that and it was time to execute it. I was so excited for this run that just before waking up today, I dreamt of running – silly me!
The run was split in to the 5 mile distance. The plan was to do 10 loops of 0.5 miles each and take some break before resuming my run. It sounded like a brilliant plan & it came down to how I execute it.
The first round of 10 loops went fine and I made sure to keep my pace a little less than I wanted to as I had more distance before me. I spent the first break sipping on some water before heading out for the next round of 10 loops. My legs and body felt great.
The second round of 10 loops was done without any difficulties and the Ultramarathon distance of 50 miles looked in sight. During the break, I was getting hungry, so I drank a glass of water and ate a banana.
The third of round of 10 loops was crucial, as it enabled me to cross the Half Marathon distance. This was the longest distance I was running so far, so I was a little nervous about my leg and gut, but it was still under control. As soon as I reached the end of this round, I knew I had to cook something for lunch so that I can start with the next rounds of running. Unfortunately, this break took the longest and I ended up spending almost an hour cooking, eating, and resting. This time could have been trimmed had I already prepped some food for myself.
The fourth round was such a blur for me. Before starting the fourth round, I told myself just finish this round and we will worry about the rest later. Starting this round, it started to go downhill as I was getting mentally drained. The distance of 50 miles seems a little far fetched by this time as it was 2PM by the time I was done with 20 miles. I started my run at 8AM, so it took me roughly 6 hours to finish 20 miles. At this pace, I told myself, it would be 12AM-1AM at night when I would be done with 50 miles and I wasn’t sure if I had the stamina to do that.
Unfortunately, I had to take the decision to trim my target distance from 50 miles to 31 miles (50K). It was a hard and sad decision, but glad that I did that to prevent further injury (both physical and mental).
The break following 20 miles distance wasn’t fun. I was exhausted and the food that I had was starting to sit in my gut and I had to drink some water to be comfortable with the amount of food in my gut.
When I started the fifth round, I thought I would take one more break before attempting the sixth and last round of running. As soon as I started the run, I knew if I would take a break, I would not be able to finish the 31 miles distance, so I told myself to push through the last 10 miles at a stretch and be done with the run. It was a risky decision, but I had to do it to push through the last few miles.
During the last round, the first 10 loops were slower than previous ones and I had to walk for a few steps in between running through the loop in entirety. Walking, limping, and running slowly helped a lot to maintain the momentum throughout the run and keeping my heart beat just under 160-170 BPM. As soon as I completed the 10 loops, I started walking and limping more and reduced my running time. This helped me reduce the stress on my left toe and could see myself running slowly and conquering the 30 miles. I decided to walk the entirety of remaining distance of 1.5 miles.
After running 30 miles, walking 1.5 miles seemed a big and hard deal, but I had to go through this rigor to see myself finishing my first ULTRAMARATHON. The feeling at the end of the run was simply amazing. I had that amazing realization that I had done something spectacular at the beginning of 2021 and it felt like a great way to kick of the year. I could finally put the disappointing past of not running an ultramarathon in 2020 behind me and look forward to an amazing 2021.
I was done at 5PM. It took me almost 7 hours 18 minutes (excluding the breaks) to finish the distance of 31.5 miles (50K). I would have loved to cover more distance, but for a first ultramarathon, this felt like a respectable decision.
My friends, Monika and Anupam, were kind enough to help me with the dinner as I was extremely tired. I had a good time catching up with them and chatting with kids, who were busy showing me their school work and different things that they had been working on during the school week.
It was perfect way to end the day.
Before you go, please check out the week number 3 highlights. I finished 41.4 miles this week, bringing the distance to cover in 2021 to 1965.0 miles, that’s 5.61 miles every single day!
See you next week!
stochasticity 
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