Veni Vidi Vici - Part 1

Ok, so now I know how the Roman emperors felt after a conquest - oh wait, this was a battle against myself fought by myself :-)

Ok, so now I feel like Pheidippides did when he ran from Marathon to Athens, to deliver the momentous message "Niki!" ("victory") - well not really - he dropped dead right thereafter :-)

So, how do I really feel? Well, first things first!

The big day dawned bright and beautiful - Nov 4th, 2007 - 'A Day that will live in Fame' (with due apologies to FDR :-)) for many of us. Of course, things are never meant to be easy - as if having to worry about running 26.2 miles was not enough, our politicians in their infinite wisdom had ordained that the switch to Daylight Savings time would happen a week late this year - you guessed it - on Nov 4, 2007 at 2 am in the morning! Of course, in this case, it meant an extra hour of sleep (at least in theory :-)) - unfortunately, my biological clock did not have an auto-reset mechanism, and I ended up waking up at 4 am and pottering around the house (much to the chagrin of my wife!). I had listened to the coaches (well there's always a first time isn't there!) when they said that we should lay our clothes out, pin the bib on, tie the chip to the shoe etc. the previous night - hence, was all prepared on that front. So, like any good IT person does when they have time to kill, I powered up the laptop and started trolling blogs as is my wont :-) (gee, I wonder what people did for fun before Al Gore invented the internets :-)).

I had already arranged a ride with Vijai (who lived close by) the previous day and he was supposed to pick me up at 5:45 am (so we could get to the start by 6:15 or so). In hindsight, this was a brilliant move, as my earlier plan had been to go with the Motley-Crew (who, I later found out, had once again forgotten to get directions - this time, to the start :-)). So, around 5 am, I decide to begin the well-rehearsed routine which after all the long runs, was almost second nature. Body Glide was used liberally, nip-guards in place (that 17 miler without them and the resulting chafing are not lessons easily forgotten!), lucky grey shorts put on (ok, nothing really lucky about them - just happened to be fresh out of the laundry :-)), and last, but not the least, the Team ASHA T-Shirt (which we all wore as a badge of honor to display our team spirit and support to the cause). After putting my socks and shoes on, and triple-checking the lace knots, I got the fuel-belt ready with 4 packs of Gu and a flask each of water and gatorade (don't rely completely on course supplies - after Chicago, these words meant a lot more!).

Vijai, the epitome of punctuality was there at 5:45 sharp, and we set out to do battle. I expressed mild concern that there was a fuel empty warning light on his dashboard (would have been kind of ironic if we were stranded on 280 somewhere and had to begin our race there to get to the start :-)), but Vijai obviously knew his car better than me. So, we get to downtown San Jose and circle around looking for parking (the idea being to park as close to the start as possible to conserve our legs - on this occasion, it was actually true (unlike usually, where it's just an excuse for laziness :-))). We park a couple of blocks away, and start hoofing it to Park and Almaden to the Start line. It is pretty nippy and the sun hasn't come out - looks like perfect running weather for now (thought the forecast calls for a high of 79) - but given that we have lost an hour, need to see how that holds up.

There are already several ASHA runners and a bunch of other runners hanging around at the Start. I walk around exchanging pleasantries waiting for the gang to show up. After a little while, the crew do get there (saved no doubt by the fact that Kiran was still groggy without his coffee and had hence not managed to speed past the exit :-)). We go on a short warm up run and get down to the much loved and practiced stretching routine - so, far, things are holding up with no aches and pains.

Since, I had made the mistake of not eating and drinking enough before the 22 miler, I had wolfed down an energy bar at home and also had several cups of water. The ASHA program had done much for me in terms of physical strengthening - the one aspect that we did not work on was bladder strengthening and control :-) So, of course, I thought I should get that out of the way before the start - but, apparently, everybody else thought so too, and there were lines 25-30 deep at each of the 5 port-a-potties! Now, I knew from anecdotes narrated by other marathon veterans, about folks who are inside the port-a-potties when the start gun sounds and are caught in this dilemma about which business to take care of first :-) Not wanting to make that unpleasant choice, I decided to see how far I could get and lined up at the start.

Kumar (from the Fremont group) had indicated that he would like to run with me and he and I lined up. I received a strong boost when Coach Martina said she would run with me and pace me during the race - this was excellent news and did much to boost my morale (and Kumar's too, I'm sure!). We lined up somewhere in the middle of the pack - Martina noted that we only had one bunch of runners here as opposed to Chicago (with over 35K runners) where they had to put them in corrals (kind of makes them sound like horses :-)). The announcer at the start line counted down the seconds and we were off!

Given my overall goal of running at about a 10 minute pace, we decided to start off slow at about a 10:30 pace for the first few miles till we were warmed up. I moved to the right to let folks behind pass me (many of whom, we passed towards the end - but that's another story :-)) and we kept going at a consistent pace. Reached mile 1 - watch said 10:24 - was pretty happy with that. We engaged in some chit-chat and paused to look around and soak the experience in (of course, this being downtown San Jose, there wasn't much to look at :-)). We met the ASHA folks at the first water stop and paused to admire the Halloween outfits (quite creative I must add). The next 4-5 miles were done at around 10 min pace (I guess we accelerated without realizing it), but the legs felt good, and we all seemed to be doing fine. At every mile marker, I kept looking at the Port-a-Potties wistfully, but everywhere, there were long lines, and realizing that it would cost us some time if we chose to stop now, I decided to motor on. We ran through the city streets and Martina pointed out a couple of houses which were nicely architected and we took turns guessing what prices they would sell for (given that Bay Area Real Estate always goes up at 20% a year, that should have been fairly easy right :-)). We also stopped at all the water stops, and I drank the Amino-Vital that was on offer (not too bad actually - though Kiran had a bad reaction and would beg to differ!).

We soon entered familiar territory - the much loved (or hated depending on who you ask!) Los Gatos Trail. After having done many a long run there (including the one in 90+ degree heat), we were quite comfortable running there. The crowd had sort of thinned out based on running pace, and there wasn't quite the logjam along the narrow trail that I had expected. After a 9:58 Mile 6, we spied a couple of port-a-potties with just 1 person each in front. We decided that it was now or never, and got in line! Of course, as is my wont, I picked the wrong line, and this little jaunt ended up costing 2.5 minutes (most of it thanks to the guy in front of me). The other interesting thing was that while waiting, the other potty began shaking and rocking - not exactly sure what the person inside was up to (maybe they thought this was the Rock&Roll marathon from a few weeks ago :-)).

Martina and Kumar had run ahead to the water stop and I picked up my pace to catch up - we were now 2.5 minutes over, but it was well worth it! We kept going at a steady pace and soon came to the ASHA water stop at mile 8 - the folks there were in high spirits, and kept yelling 'Go ASHA' and generally having a good time!

After a couple of shots of Amino-Vital, we were off again. Mile 9 was out fastest yet at 9:33 and Martina checked on us to make sure we were doing fine (which we were). Miles 10-12 flew by and pretty soon we were nearing the halfway point and Los Gatos high school.