Miles to go …

I’m recovering well after the marathon. My complete training calendar is below. I’ll be happy to take any advise on altering my schedule to accommodate a faster pace for the next race.

Technorati: Running Training Marathon svmarathon

4 hours, 6 minutes, 57 seconds and a pace of 9:25/mile.

This is what it took me finish the Metro Silicon Valley marathon, my first one. Almost 7 minutes behind my targeted goal but a PR. A hamstring pull on mile 18 & 23 completely slowed me down.  The complete results are available here. I read somewhere "After running a marathon, the only thing that does not hurt is your pride" and I fully realized that yesterday. The fastest male was 2:42:40 and the female was 3:07:25.

This was not possible without all the wishes from family and friends. Especially Sanjay, Satish, Dhiru and kids Ankit, Shubhankar, Vaibhav, Varun and Prateek who all ran along the last mile with me and those who could not support me as front runners. And of course the faithful and constant support of my wife and son for the 5 months of practice. I’m here because of this support system and now it’s time to payback morning time to family (which I’ve not been able to do recently because of early morning runs),  for at least next few weeks until I begin my training again for the next marathon.

Watch a 23 second video clip of run with them here. The kids were really enthusiastic and enjoyed running along. Check out the flickr slideshow.

Although there were volunteers scattered through out the trail but the race manifested into normal trail running at several places. At quite a few places there were more bikers and dogs and no spectators making you feel lonely on the track. I was also disappointed that there was no coverage in print edition San Jose Mercury News this morning but here is an online version.

I learnt the following lessons from the race:

• Practice more hill runs as the hillocks towards the end were hitting hard
• More cross-training to develop over-all body strength
• Not sure, but loose some more weight to keep chugging along towards the end

Over all, I’m happy with my performance and learned lessons to improve upon next time.

Technorati: Running Marathon Silicon Valley Marathon

I got the first feel of fellow runners marathon this morning when I was at Stanford University School of Medicine Hospital helping Dr. Suzanne Miller in a study on "The Effect of Endurance Exercise on the Cardiac Function of Recreational versus Professional Athletes". Read more about the study here. In approx an hour at the hospital, the following tests were conducted:

• Spoonful blood sample
• Height/Weigth/BMI
• Electrocardiogram
• Heart rate variability
• Heart Echocardiogram

The results of the study will be published in a medical journal and the results of personal heart tests (claimed to be worth thousand of dollars) will be made available.

"It’s all about Community" said the Director of marathon on the radio yesterday. 3500 registered runners from all over the country, 800 marathoners, The Health Trust, Hilton, NBC 11, ASHA, KLIV and a multitude of sponsors and charities shows community involvement. 

My next blog will be after the run and will talk more about community.

Technorati: Running Marathon Training Stanford

• 21 weeks of training
• Approx 640 miles of practice runs
• Average pace of 8:35

After all this, I’m in the last week of taper down and now ready for my first marathon on the coming weekend (10/29 to be precise). Reading this article (Marathon Smarts on Runners World) has an all together different meaning now. This article gives race day tips from experienced marathoners. Most of the tips would seem natural but it’s definitely worth reading again during the last days of training.

For family and friends, and anybody else interested in running along last miles:

The race course and the viewing map is here. The map gives the complete route and lookout areas.

The race starts at 7am PT. This is also the day when daylight saving ends, so the clocks move back by an hour. Going by the experience of my long practice runs, and if I don’t hit a wall, I plan to cross mile 20 around 10am and hopefully the finish the marathon in less than 4 hours (9:10 pace). My longest practice run has been 22 miles with a 9:25 pace but I’ve done slightly shorter runs with better pace. So this seems like a stretch goal but I hope to meet this goal with your wishes.

If you plan to run last miles with me, as some of you have told, you are most welcome. I may offload my sweat shirt to you if I’m feeling hot or may ask for an additional sip of water, so be prepared The weekend weather looks reasonable and I hope it’s an overcast for the first few miles.

You can read about my marathon practice and running related blogs here.

Technorati: Running Marathon Training