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• Women’s hockey team will be playing for the first time in the semi finals. Did you check their first goal in the quarterfinals; which was a “short corner”. It was a clean stop and drag flick inside the “D”.

• “Can we have 2 gold”?! Yes you can! - hearing those golden words made the high jumpers hug tight and cry of joy. Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar and Gianmarco Tamberi of Italy both went home with a gold.

• Jamaica is reigning in the 100 meters women’s race.

The striking commonality in the above is “camaraderie”. Some sports by nature are individual, however, they have a relentless team working together and getting them to succeed. In the case of hockey they were confident, believed in their practice and each “pass” was a work of art.

It doesn't matter how much time we take to reach the podium, as long as we understand the importance of the team we belong to. Also when reaching the top, it is important to have good company, at times it gets lonely in there.

I wish and hope we have our team in order. Till then, stay safe and happy reading.

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Workout of the week - Yasso 800s

There are no magical workouts to improve your running, but “Yasso 800s” has a special place in marathon training. It is deceptively simple when you see it for the first time, but can be very challenging to execute. Yasso 800s workout is coined by Bart Yasso, an accomplished runner and book author often referred as ‘Mayor of Running’.

How to do it?

• The structure of the workout involves running intervals of 10x 800m repetitions.

• Jog for 400m or the equal amount of time duration of the run as recovery. For example, if you have taken 4m:10s for 800m, recover for 4m:10s.

• Run each repeat with an effort of 10k race race.

• Choose a flat track or road for the workout

How does it help your training?

Yasso 800 is primarily meant as a benchmark or predictor workout in marathon training. The question often we have is what should be our marathon goal time? The average time (in minutes and seconds) for 800s repeats can considered as a possible marathon goal time when converted to hours and minutes.

An example may help explain this better.

If you have executed and finished each of the 10x 800m repeats with an average time of 4m:10s, your marathon goal time will be close to 4 hours 10 minutes.

When to do it?

As a benchmark workout, it can be run 2-3 times in your marathon training cycle, possibly one after each mesocycle (every 4/6 weeks). You can tune your marathon goals accordingly as per the benchmark. Please note that there is no science behind this workout, it is empirical and is a decent indicator of your marathon finish time.

The World of Running - Olympics Special

The Olympics are most generally associated with sporting excellence. The men's marathon has been present on the Olympic athletics programme since the first edition of the Olympics mega event in 1896. Nearly ninety years later, the women's event was added to the programme at the 1984 Olympics.

Unlike the event being typically held in the hosting city, rising heat concerns forced the road racing events like marathon and race walking to be held in Sapporo, a city located 800 kilometers north of Tokyo. Sapporo Odori Park has been designated as the venue for the Olympic Marathon. The route features a large loop which is about the length of a half-marathon through the streets of Sapporo, passing by Nakajima Park, Sapporo TV Tower, and Hokkaido University, followed by two trips around a smaller (approximately 10 kilometres) section of the large loop.

The women’s marathon final is scheduled on 7th August and the men's final is on 8th August. Considering heat, both the events start off early in the morning at 7:00 hours local time (3:30 hours IST). Last week’s newsletter gave you a glimpse on some of the strongest women’s contenders.

This week, let’s look at the strongest men’s contenders and assumedly, the first name is everyone's hottest favourite.

Eliud Kipchoge - the current world record holder and the defending Olympic marathon champion is surely everyone’s bet. He was back to winning ways in Enschede in the NN Mission Marathon after a major setback in the 2020 London marathon. In a last moment's surprise, Kipchoge’s arch-rival, Kenenisa Bekele, will not be lining up. He would be eyeing for the Olympics record.

Suguru Osako - the local favourite and the Japanese national record for the marathon of 2:05:29 set at the 2020 Tokyo Marathon. He finished 4th in the race. He finished 3rd in the 2018 Chicago marathon with the national record at the time of 2:05:50. His consistent finish in sub 2:06 and acclimatization to local weather makes him the strongest contender just behind Kipchoge.

Lelisa Desisa - acclaimed for the fastest ever marathon debuts by winning the 2013 Dubai Marathon in a time of 2:04:45 hours, the then course record and his personal best as on date. Desisa also went on to win the Boston Marathon in the same year, the edition since remembered for the bombing incident. His recent best was at the New York City marathon with a winning time of 2:05:59.

Shura Kitata - the youngest among the strong contenders, at 25, he has raced in several World Marathon Majors including the 2020 London Marathon where he won the race in a time of 2:05:41 and the 2018 London Marathon where he finished in second place behind Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya. His other best performances include the 2018 New York City Marathon, where he finished 2nd behind Lelisa Desisa with a time of 2:06:01. Kitata won the Ethiopian trials held over 35km at high altitude.

Lawrence Cherono - the winner of the Chicago Marathon and the Boston Marathon with the time of 2:05:45 and 2:07:57 respectively. His personal best came at the 2020 Valencia marathon with the time of 2:03:04. He was ranked 3rd in the race.

Galen Rupp - Tokyo will mark Rupp's fourth Olympic appearance, well remembered for his 2017 victory, when he became the first American to win the Chicago Marathon since Khalid Khannouchi. Rupp's Chicago victory was followed by a rough journey back to the top as he underwent Achilles tendon surgery in 2018. Coming back to the road, he went on to win the 2020 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials.