Cape Town Marathon - Weekly Buildup

Week 2

Training began in right earnest this week. I kept it simple with three very easy 10 km runs during the week — mostly just time on the feet. Closed the week with a 15-miler on Sunday close to home. Did a couple of loops of Sobha City → Bhartiya City → Hajj Bhavan and back. Work was particularly hectic and stressful through the week, I’m glad to have gotten the runs in and closed it out.

  • Distance: 34 miles
  • Workout Duration: 5:47:50
  • Weight: 69.6 kg 

Week 1

A complete washout week — no running or strength training. This was the week my mom was in the hospital, so most of my time and energy went into juggling hospital visits along with office work. There was a lot of running around in a different sense. Training understandably took a back seat this week. Hoping to get back into some rhythm in the coming week.

Week 0

The 12 weeks leading up to this training block have been below par in terms of both volume and intensity. I ran Malnad Ultra at the end of November (race report here). The plan was to gradually ramp up mileage through December after the race, but that didn’t quite happen. I ended up closing December with a meager ~80 miles, and January was even worse at about 65 miles. In hindsight, both months can largely be written off from a training perspective. Part of this was due to personal challenges — my mother’s health since mid-December required a lot of my time and attention. That said, it would be unfair to attribute the lack of training entirely to that. I haven’t been in the best mental state either, and that has made it harder to maintain the discipline required to take care of the basics: running consistently, exercising, hydrating well, eating clean, and getting enough sleep. There’s clearly some work to be done on that front.

Since 1-Dec-25 (past 12 weeks)

  • Distance: 243.61 miles, avg ~20 miles/week
  • Strength workout: 1:29:01, 3 workouts in total!
  • Weight: ~70 kg 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Boston Marathon

Image
My Boston Marathon specific 13 weeks training block started end of Jan. The detailed buildup should you be interested is here . I ran an Ultra Marathon mid-Dec in Rajasthan more about it is here , so I had decent mileage in Nov and Dec which aided in ramping up mileage and pace for Boston. Just like my recent marathons, I ran 5-6 days a week and strength trained 3 days a week. The running comprised of easy, intervals and tempo runs.  Unfortunately, my dad was diagnosed with cancer (NHL) Aug last year, I have been spending a lot of time traveling back-and-forth to Pune for his treatment and to be of little support to my mom. Whilst I was preparing for this marathon, back of my mind I wasn't even sure if I would be able to travel and run the race. All the more reason this race is very special and close to my heart. The idea was train and keep my fingers crossed. Thank god my dad has responded to treatment well and is in recovery. Back to the marathon training, I usually do a race sim...
Read more

Sub 4 hours marathon

Image
Background: Due to work travel in mid Oct 2018, I had to take a decision to skip running Bangalore Marathon. As a result, I ramped down my running mileage in Sep as there was no marathon in sight. This sadly also meant I would not run a marathon in 2018. But hey ho! Surprise training plan: Amongst numerous topics that we talk during our runs, during one of such easy runs with Shailja Singh, we were discussing which would be a good marathon for me to train for, she suggested I run the Mumbai Marathon in Jan. Given the horrid weather in Mumbai, I was not too inclined and got myself off that trap. I casually told her I could consider running the Tokyo Marathon (if I made the lottery) or run the New Delhi Marathon in Feb. Shailja at that time was making a training plan for herself for Tokyo Marathon, New Delhi Marathon a week earlier was a perfect race to choose, that way we could training together is what she said. After that chat/run in the morning, I got to work and was quite sur...
Read more

Sydney Marathon

Image
The thought to run Sydney Marathon this year came when Gautham CB, GCB (runner friend) having finished the Abbott World Marathon Majors (WMM) Six Star in 2024 registered for Sydney Marathon in Jan to claim his 7th WMM Star, GCB promptly called me and told me to register and run Sydney Marathon end of Aug. Initially I rubbished the idea stating, I would be running Boston in Apr (you can read about my Boston outing here ), and that I did not want to run another marathon in 4 months and that I would look at running Sydney Marathon Aug 2026. GCB and Rashmi persisted, I decided to reluctantly give in. But then I also convinced Bharath and Vinay to register which on hindsight, I am sure they'd agree was a brilliant idea. As a few weeks passed by, I came to realize there was a huge contingent of Abbott WMM Six Stars finishers, many of my friends who'd be running the race this year. I can't thank GCB and Rashmi enough that I registered for the race too.  The 13 weeks training block...
Read more