how I ran my 18th Half Marathon with merely 2 hours of sleep and no recovery.

Everything went wrong that day.
But what went right was : My Joy or running and injury free running journey went intact.

- My watch started with wrong mileage ( almost around 50 plus miles) - so I was not able to understand how much distance covered / left.
- My headphone went off and refused to play my favourite playlist :D
- my jaw got locked during the run. :D

One day before, I was not properly prepared for this run as the previous day went by with my studies, work and most importantly my kid's studies.

That Saturday,  I was busy teaching maths to my 12 years old. May be because of the calculative nature of maths, or some stress, now it was difficult for me to catch on my sleep.

I went to sleep by around 2 am and woke up at 3:30 am.

I had sudden unknown pain in my inner thighs as I couldn't focus on my recovery the previous days.

Every day's roller coster schedule didn't allow me to practice more than 10k.

I felt sleepy at start line and planned to run first 10k at a slow pace so that I can manage the blood sugar drop too. ( I get blood sugar drop during my long runs and I have to manage that with hydration and snacks)

I was going steady as always, but suddenly at around 16, I got locked jaws. It was really hard to run that time as I had to get rid of it in order to breathe well.
I stopped immediately to recover from that and kept walking till the time I felt better.

It had never happened with me before. So I hardly knew how to handle that.
Being a fitness trainer and a clinical dietitian,  all what I know is to breathe deep when you feel uneasy with any symptoms.
So i did the same for around 1-2 minutes.
Keep my mouth opened wide and kept walking.

Later, I discovered the reason for this was lack of sleep and high stress. But I managed that phase well and the reason was my strength workouts and the knowledge of breathing to recover.

We have immense strength and energy inside and should keep it stored inside to use it at the right time.

Over all I managed to finish the race strong and there was no injuries too within a decent timing of around 2:35 hours. overall time was 2:40 for the route almost 1.5K more than 21.

I have resumed my workouts the next day.
Have finished my dose of 500 jumping Jack's, 15 minutes of whole body weight training and 30 min of easy recovery spinning before posting this Blog.

I strongly feel, I would be able to help you understand your inner strength after reading this piece of blog.

Running had always been my ME time since last 4 years.
I wish to run forever.
I run in events not for medal / timing but to see and meet those enthusiastic runners whom

I may miss in my busy lifestyle.