August 04, 2025 - Road to BM HM

If you’re wondering what this is about - One year ago I crawled through a 5K in 50 minutes—now I’m attempting the slightly unhinged goal of running a sub-2-hour half marathon, documented through daily brain dumps complete with training chaos, 5 AM existential crises, random tangents, and way too much heart rate data.

Disclaimer: Posts are lightly edited with LLMs for grammar and spelling, but the sleep-deprived thoughts and stubborn optimism are 100% human.

Sleep: 6h19m – Good
RHR: 57 bpm
HRV: 73 ms

Workout: Intervals
Warmup: 5 mins
Main Set:
3.22K - Zone 2
6 × (60s goal pace + 30s 10K goal pace + 1min Zone 2 rest)
6.22K - Zone 2
Cooldown: 5 mins

Total: 12.34K - 94 mins

Pre-Run Brain Dumps

I took it light these last 2 weeks. The week before last was supposed to be a deload week — but the mileage I hit was lower than target. Last week I just ran twice. I was trying to nurse an injury near my inner hip flexor that flares up after the first few kilometers. I’m not sure about the cause behind it. I’ve been doing some hip strengthening routine, along with Myrtle. Saturday’s run with MCR was better. I did around 6K. There was some soreness, but it didn’t feel bad.

I’m worried that I may have lost the battle already with my goal. Because of this pain and then the break. But also, I’ve been training well so far, I think — and earlier too. So I shouldn’t be worrying much about missing these two weeks. I can reduce the next deload week a bit or even skip it entirely.

My new shoes got delivered on Saturday. Finally. I had ordered them through Myntra. I wanted to go out locally and try them first, but no local ASICS showroom had the model. I went for the Magic Speed 4. This is a super trainer. I got these after talking to my friend RS, who seems to enjoy nerding out on shoes.

I, for once, could not understand this — or nerding out on gadgets and gears. Back when mobiles were interesting, my friends were well-versed with the new models. I could not give less of a damn. I’m also impressed with people keeping up with laptop stats or new vehicle specs — my brain just never could. So I’m really happy to have friends like RS, who know this shit and can recommend.

Magic Speed 4 are said to be good for speed and tempo work. Has a carbon plate inside. I got them from Myntra and was worried if they’re legit. The seller, Sports IQ, is said on various Reddit forums to be ASICS India themselves, so that’s good.

I need to get another pair soon for easy running, but the whole process of shortlisting and then spending so much money on them makes me feel tired already. I envy those folks running barefoot.

From today, my 7 AM group class at the box is going to be split into 2 — 6-7 AM batch and then 7:15-8:15. I’m going for the 6 AM class, and then will go for a run later. I’ll try this out for a week and see how the traffic and road situation is at 7 AM.

Coming to the interval workout today — I’m worried about the interval sessions here. They don’t really sustain for the 3-4 minutes required for hitting the VO₂max level. I need to restructure this from next week.

I’m also a bit nervous about how my legs will feel — I hope I can sustain this further.

I plan to also work on mobility every alternate day in the evenings. I can probably do some stuff mentioned in the Recover app that comes with Strava, and also do some of the stuff given by Coach. Strava Recover is mostly for stretching and cooldown, I think. I need to figure out a proper program to deal with this. Need to work on mobility — my mobility is shit, and probably that’s where the problem is arising.

Post-Run Brain Dumps

Workout Summary:

Warmup: 5 mins [Done]
Main Set:
3.22K - Zone 2 [Done]
6 × (60s goal pace + 30s 10K goal pace + 1min Zone 2 rest) [Done]
6.22K - Zone 2 [Skipped]
Cooldown: 5 mins [Skipped]

Total: 7.1K - 47:31 mins

I had to change plans last minute — I reached the box at 6 AM, but decided to go for a run instead. I was able to complete the interval workout, but could not complete the 6K Zone 2 part of the workout.

I think I went faster than expected. I did jog during recovery, instead of walking — although it was slower.

With the current interval workout, I may not be spending a lot of time in the VO₂max zone. The intent of interval runs is to increase VO₂max capacity. With current intervals, I’m hitting a max of 185 bpm heart rate — which is just about 90% of my MaxHR. Although I cannot measure VO₂max directly, for interval training, HR needs to be in 95%-100% of HRMax. So I think I need to modify my interval workout to be a bit longer (say 3-5 mins vs current 1.5 mins).

Running with the new shoes was great. I could feel the difference compared to my old shoes. It almost propelled me forward, and the cushioning was noticeable. I did get some discomfort in my inner thigh, but it was better than earlier. I didn’t have the pain post-run.

Post-run, at the box we did some pause squats, walking lunges, and wall ball shots.

I need to plan to run a bit more to manage the mileage this week.

But I’m happy with the run so far. Also, today’s workout felt really good. Gave a sense of satisfaction and a good dopamine rush.