I enjoy consuming all kinds of content- race reports, emails and facebook posts but not necessarily authoring them. No wonder, I've been able to run lots of races with Asha in last 5 years without a single race report. Upon a lot of encouragement, am sharing the experience this time :)
Prequel
I joined Asha for Education, quite by accident. And what a happy accident it was - have met some of my now closest friends through Asha.
It all started in 2009 with a half marathon. I had never run before - I joined what used to be a small group of 5-6 runners in East bay plus coach Arun and Satya. I remember being inconsistent and being injury prone, but constantly encouraged by patient coaches and mentors.
Over the years, the inconsistency went away, injuries disappeared and I found myself constantly looking forward to running with friends and mentoring new runners. Got to run several marathons and half marathons.
Last year, my better half, Veena also joined the group. Between my constant travel, her travel, 2 over-scheduled kids, her training 4x a week and mine 6x a week, we seem to have found a happy balance!
Training
Earlier this year, I ran the LA marathon with a new PR (3:38, improving 16 minutes over last year). While training for Chicago, I briefly flirted with the idea of training for a BQ but decided against it. Set the goal of clocking 3:25.
I continued to mentor the AM teams for Monday and Thursday while running the remaining 4 runs weekly by myself. (Veena goes for tracks and long runs with TAEB while I am with the kids at that time).
The training was uneventful and consistent - did manage to train 6x weekly every week.
The weekly mileage peaked at 55+ and stayed above 40 for ~10 weeks. Along the way, I picked up another pair of Vibram Fivefingers.
I stayed true to Hanson's method throughout, which has worked well for me. Towards the end, the somewhat dreaded 10 mile tempo runs started to feel less punishing.
Race Day
The biggest excitement of the race day was before the race. I remembered the cut off time for corral entry almost too late. Once I got past the crowds waiting to get in, I ended up running what felt like MTT pace for a long while before I just made the corral. Thankfully, this stupidity did not come hurt me later on.
The plan was to hang between 3:20 and 3:30 pace groups and follow the 3:25 pace tattoo on my arm. Because I was late to the corral, I ended up starting behind the 3:55 group.
Once the race started, the miles flew by quickly. The pace and cadence stayed even. Here are the details:
http://connect.garmin.com/
I stayed ahead of the pace tattoo times at all times, which kept my happy throughout the race.
This was my second Chicago marathon - this time I got to enjoy the familiar course, different neighborhoods, wonderful running weather and the crowd support.
In my previous marathons, I would typically slow down for miles 17-24. This time around, the anticipation of seeing work colleagues at mile 20 kept the pace even. It was very exciting to see them among the crowd - this kept me going for another few miles. Had to focus last two miles to maintain the pace. In the end, it turned out to be a hugely enjoyable run on a perfect day!
Prequel
I joined Asha for Education, quite by accident. And what a happy accident it was - have met some of my now closest friends through Asha.
It all started in 2009 with a half marathon. I had never run before - I joined what used to be a small group of 5-6 runners in East bay plus coach Arun and Satya. I remember being inconsistent and being injury prone, but constantly encouraged by patient coaches and mentors.
Over the years, the inconsistency went away, injuries disappeared and I found myself constantly looking forward to running with friends and mentoring new runners. Got to run several marathons and half marathons.
Last year, my better half, Veena also joined the group. Between my constant travel, her travel, 2 over-scheduled kids, her training 4x a week and mine 6x a week, we seem to have found a happy balance!
Training
Earlier this year, I ran the LA marathon with a new PR (3:38, improving 16 minutes over last year). While training for Chicago, I briefly flirted with the idea of training for a BQ but decided against it. Set the goal of clocking 3:25.
I continued to mentor the AM teams for Monday and Thursday while running the remaining 4 runs weekly by myself. (Veena goes for tracks and long runs with TAEB while I am with the kids at that time).
The training was uneventful and consistent - did manage to train 6x weekly every week.
I stayed true to Hanson's method throughout, which has worked well for me. Towards the end, the somewhat dreaded 10 mile tempo runs started to feel less punishing.
Race Day
The biggest excitement of the race day was before the race. I remembered the cut off time for corral entry almost too late. Once I got past the crowds waiting to get in, I ended up running what felt like MTT pace for a long while before I just made the corral. Thankfully, this stupidity did not come hurt me later on.
The plan was to hang between 3:20 and 3:30 pace groups and follow the 3:25 pace tattoo on my arm. Because I was late to the corral, I ended up starting behind the 3:55 group.
Once the race started, the miles flew by quickly. The pace and cadence stayed even. Here are the details:
http://connect.garmin.com/
I stayed ahead of the pace tattoo times at all times, which kept my happy throughout the race.
This was my second Chicago marathon - this time I got to enjoy the familiar course, different neighborhoods, wonderful running weather and the crowd support.
In my previous marathons, I would typically slow down for miles 17-24. This time around, the anticipation of seeing work colleagues at mile 20 kept the pace even. It was very exciting to see them among the crowd - this kept me going for another few miles. Had to focus last two miles to maintain the pace. In the end, it turned out to be a hugely enjoyable run on a perfect day!
