Shorter & Sweeter

That’s how I would describe my 2014 racing so far and I’m pleased that the results have been very sweet. After 3 years of only road running I decided to experiment on different terrains that were totally alien to me. So in 2014 I’ve only run short distance races from 5k – 10k and they were run mostly on trail or cross country courses.

Trail races at Morristown (5k), Chimney Rock (5 miler) and North face Bear Mountain (10k) were the races that challenged my road running legs to focus on picking up my feet and landing properly while running on rocks and roots. I think trail running helped in solving some of the foot drop injury issues I suffered for most of 2013. As I got comfortable my times on trail races improved as well. TCS World 10k was the only road race back home in India run in 95 degree hot weather. Just after Towpath training run heat and humidity were back in the east coast. My running club puts on an awesome cross country race series. I signed up just to treat them as heat training. I ran three of the four races in the series and all of them were pretty much in or close to 90 degree humid weather. These XC races totally put me in the most uncomfortable running zone I’ve ever run and the pay off was the tiny bit improvement with each race. Thanks to all the track & hill repeats in spring which helped to sustain and recover from these high intensity races. I hated each XC race after a mile or so into the race but felt very gratifying once I finished the race. I guess that’s the beauty of 5k races. This series has indeed become my favorite club event and I look forward to run or volunteer in the future. 

What’s next? Its time to add distance to my legs and see if I can get to the starting line of NYC marathon in November injury free. Absolutely no expectations. Just focusing on one workout at a time.