Aerobic Base Building Week #7
Why morning runs?
I was born at 5:36 AM on a Saturday in August 1990. (This sounds like an excerpt from my yet to be written autobiography, “The diaries of an ordinary man with extraordinary loquaciousness.” )
Since I woke up that early and I like routine, I decided to wake up early for the rest of my life. Honestly, I don’t know if you birth time has an influence on whether you are a morning person or an evening person, but based on empirical evidence, I have reasons to believe that my hypothesis might have some weight. Why am I writing like this?
Anyways, the thing is I am a morning person. I love waking up early. In college, I used to go to bed at 8:30–9:00 PM and wake up at 2:30–3:00 AM to study during the exams. Most of my friends used to stay up late but for me, the early hours of the morning were the most productive time. While walking in the forests on our way to Croix Chatel on Saturday, I was reminded of Metallica’s song “For whom the bell tolls” where a lyric goes “He hears the silence so loud”. I crave the silence. I crave stillness. Somehow, this silence is easier to find early in the morning than in the afternoon or the evening. Well, it is easy to find anytime deep in the forest but the forest is far from my house. So I rise early, not at 3:00 AM like I used to and head out.
When I step out in the morning, there is a sense of calmness about the universe. Things are still not in motion. Most people are still asleep. Granted some of them are asleep while driving, which makes certain intersections tricky AF but hey, you take the good with the tricky. Once I hit the lake, all that I hear is the sound of the waves crashing on the beach, the sound of the wind and the chatter of birds who are already up and about their day. In this silence, no matter what mental state I was in before I began, a sense of order begins to incubate. Thoughts which are congealing in a sea of chaos in my head begin to flow normally. Some of my best ideas come to me when I am running in the morning, the earlier the better.
I know that from a performance perspective, I do my best training between 9–11 AM. I am fully awake and usually fed at that time. Especially in the winters, you have light and the temperatures begin to go up after 8 AM. But for the gift of anonymity and silence, especially on work days when my mind is overloaded with information, morning runs work like a charm. I have tried running in the afternoons and even evenings. But towards the end of the day, I am left with no will power. It’s okay to run on a Sunday evening for example, when I wasn’t sitting in front of a computer all day but during a work day, trying to run (and worse still, trying to do a session) is next to impossible for me. A run which leans towards commute, where there are no performance goals might be the ideal scenario for me if I have to do a weekday evening run. Afternoons are not bad at all, but again there is a lot of noise in the afternoon.
I have a feeling the reason I like to run in the morning is not just because I am morning person. I am a hugely introverted person and I enjoy solitude or the company of a small group of people Whether I am alone in the morning or running in 1–2 friends, it is always a wonderful feeling. There’s also a feeling of completion. For me, running is not just a hobby. It is something which I do as a lifestyle. It makes me laugh when people ask me how I run everyday. For me (and millions of others), it is as normal as drinking water everyday. Running is on my checklist for the day. Once I am done with it, I am able to put a cap on it and not think about it for the rest of the day (until I am running twice. Or thrice? ). I can be done with my run and go around with the rest of my day. And finally, the views on a morning run are just incredible. I rest my case.
Monday (15/01/2024)
Positive temperature today I believe. It was +1, but the wind chill made it feel much colder. To my delight, the sky was a lot more open and I think my mood is really linked to the sky because I felt a lot happier because of how the sky was. The run was an easy 8 mile recovery run. I just jogged on rather heavy legs from nearly 1000 meters of climbing in the last 2 days (including a hike where i had all my camera equipment on my back and was walking in the snow). The run went by well, got splashed by the lake a couple of times which was a lot of fun!
In the evening, we did some strength training focussed on knee strength followed by dynamic stretching with Sean Vigue. And then I stretched some more while reading Dune which finally became interesting. RIP Duke Leto Atreides.
Tuesday (16/01/2024)
For me, the definition of fitness is how easy a 10 miler feels. When I’m properly fit, I can bang out a 10 miler in 66–67 minutes at 150–155 bpm and it feels like the data indicates, an easy jog. When I am unfit, if I try to do 10 miler at the same pace, the heart rate will be atleast 10–15 bpm higher and it will feel as the data indicates, a 10 mile struggle. It’s funny how 10 miles is not even a long distance for serious runners. 70 minutes for 10 miles was basically the “Easy run” for Scott Fauble. (Of course, he was running at altitude.)
This morning, I ran a lovely 10 miles just shy of 70 minutes at 159 bpm. So, definitely I am fitter than before but not yet close to my peak. What was great though was that after almost 2 weeks, Lausanne finally had a sunrise! The clouds dissipated (a little bit) and the sunrise this morning brought me to tears. It just kept getting more and more beautiful.
It was warm enough(It wasn’t windy and above zero, which means warm enough to me)to eat outside today. I saw Thibault run past.
In the evening I did the Pilates workout for side legs which had made me cry the first time I did it. It still had the same effect and shows so much scope of improvement. That plus stretching.
Wednesday (17/01/2023)
Some days you wake up and realize your life choices are going to result in some self discovery. Today was one such day. I have run in all sorts of weather and running in cold rain and wind has to be one of the more challenging conditions. There’s a point after which nothing is waterproof anymore. You get soaked to your bones and all it does is make you appreciate a warm shower. A warm shower never feels better than when you have spent 90 minutes in cold rain and wind. Or maybe if you were running 90 minutes in freezing rain.
But the suffering was worth it. I got a letter in the mail with my C permit (permanent resident). I am so grateful to everyone who wrote letters to support my application and especially to Bene who corrected my letter to the authorities. I had a little bit of a look back at my 2018 Strava logs and had a good cry after that. I felt sorry for the suffering the 28 year old me went through. But also grateful for what time has brought me in the last 6 years. If you are going through a rough patch, keep going. It gets better.
Pilates Core workout and a LOT of stretching and foam rolling to end the day. 300 pages into Dune and finally Chani has appeared.
Thursday (18/01/2024)
Run from the office today. It rained nearly non-stop yesterday and it has continued to rain today. I just felt tired, so I just jogged slowly. On days like this, I hide my watch and run on feel. That’s what I did. I was genuinely a good experience and I recommend doing that (if you don’t). I still feel very sleepy but it might be this gloomy weather.
Not much to write about today’s run. It was object oriented, nice and slow to feel recovered and it did that.
In the evening, did a really wonderful stretching video with Bene:
And then after dinner did some more stretching. For dinner, I tried mix up some Indian food with Italian. I came up with a Tagliatelle in a sauce of pepperoncini and paneer. Very good.
Friday (19/01/2024)
Running alone for an hour is fine. More than that and things begin to feel tedious. I was longing for a social run and I had the company of young Tom Sechyron, who will be doing Cross De Lausanne next weekend (I think I might go there to cheer my friends and take some pics). Tom will be 23 this year, and he is quite talented. But he is one of those who mixes his talents with restraint. At this age, he knows when to back off training and take an easy day. He said something rather wise to me which was “When you feel good and the workouts are feeling like a breeze, that’s when you should learn to hold back and not overdo it”. I mean, I wholeheartedly agree. For I have seen many a talented runners go beyond, keep pushing in training and then almost always having a bad race. Tom’s training methodology is built on sensibility rather than ego. Many years ago I had said, Thibault will be a wonderful talent on the marathon. I said that after a workout where we ran 23 miles, 4 years ago actually.
4 years ago, Thibault was 22 and he did this session. He wasn’t marathon training or doing 100 mile weeks. He pulled this off and I was like this guy has the temperament and endurance for the long stuff. I have the same feeling for Tom, he will be a star in the future.
The run was so good. We just talked about life and food and the miles just clicked by. I love runs like this. Weeks ago, I had run with Tom at 7 min pace and I was gasping. Today, in -2 degrees, I felt easy as we clicked Sub 7s. Ran back up to my place to get my 95 minutes for the day. I love training without a goal in mind.
In the afternoon, did a Power Yoga core workout which I enjoyed a lot. And I did a fair bit of stretching.
Saturday (20/01/2024)
Sometimes you aren’t able to do what you planned and you just end up doing something better. Jake and I didn’t do a threshold session this AM but instead, we did a lovely easy run under gorgeous sunshine. The lake side was freezing, since yesterday there’s a strong wind blowing and there was a fair bit of ice around and it was kind of cold, but it didn’t feel like it. The sun was shining, the company was about as perfect as it could be and the conversation flowed.
We caught up with Thibault and Alice and ran together, going up the “flattest uphill in Lausanne” (I love a good oxymoron) and then down again. Then some strides on the track and then I ran back home with Thibault. What a wonderful day.
Sunday (21/01/2024)
Had to succumb to cheating today. The run was long and solo and I couldn’t put up with being alone for 2 hours with my thoughts. So I used music. I also used my old pair of Alphaflys because in the end a 2 hour long run is still a 2 hour long run. With high mileage, I need something to not get beat up. If it means running with carbon shoes, so be it.
The run was smooth and non aggressive. I met a guy at km 17, Victor who turned out to be Tom’s friend and 1:51 800 meter runner and data scientist. Only in Lausanne do you bump into people like this, constantly. The lakeside is full of extraordinary talent.
The run ended up being just a shade under 2 hours and just a shade over 17 miles. Good week of training.
