I am a Marathoner Now

On Sunday I ran the Silicon Valley Marathon. It was awesome experience!!

I started training for the marathon with TeamAsha about six months ago, and it has been a wonderful experience. Before May 2006 I had never ever run more than about 4 miles. On Oct. 29th 2006 I ran 26.2 miles. Wow!! I myself find it difficult to believe.

Unfortunately about 6 weeks before the marathon I developed a persistent knee injury (ITB syndrome), as a result of which I had to miss some of the longest training runs. In the last two weeks prior to the marathon I had been free of ITB pain, but my longest run in that period was only 10miles. I had also done a 20-miler three weeks prior to the marhathon, but I did fast walking there, no running.

On the day of the marathon I was a little apprehensive, especially with regards to the injury. I had packed some Tylenol pills. The weather was great. I started off with another TeamAsha runner, Vinay, and we consistently maintained a 12min per mile race and did the 1-mile-run-1-min-walk routine. At about the half-way point the ITB started acting up a little, and I popped in a couple of Tylenol. The Tylenol did the trick, but in any case, my pace also dropped down a little, and I lost Vinay at about the 16-mile mark. It was a huge relief to reach the Asha waterstop at the 25-mile mark, where my wife, Bonnie, ran out to hug me, and a huge cheer went up as I approached. The remaining 1 mile was smooth sailing, and I eventually eneded up fininshing in 5hrs 47mins. Not a great timing, but as far as I was concerned, I might as well have broken the world record!!

Also see this.