NEWS FLASH - Finished Kaiser Half in SF

On a cold, rainy, and windy day, I am happy to report that I met my stretch goal for the Kaiser Half (sub 2 hour race)! Here are the results:

Finish time: 1 hour 57 mins 05 secs (just under 9 min pace)
Gun time: 1:59:59

Woohoo!

Not one and done!

Certainly, finishing the SV Marathon gave me the noted 'Runner's High' and it was hard not to feel a sense of accomplishment (and also oncce again start questioning one's sanity for doing this!) But a combination of reflecting back on the season that was, and the newly acquired fitness (and not wanting to let it go!) made it a fairly easy choice for me!

I am happy to report though that I have been keeping up with running in the 'off-season'. I took 2 days off after SV and thanks to Coach Martina, we were back running on the Wednesday after the marathon!

Since then, I have been running 3 days a week for the most part (except for one down week when our son was born and another due to a bad bout of the flu) and trying to keep between 20 and 25 miles a week. Also, one of the added benefits of being where I am now is the proximity to Rancho San Antonio Park - man, that place is made for Hill Training. I have been running exclusively at Rancho for the past few months and most of my runs have been hill runs.

Winter running is not for the really warm-blooded :-) Some days it was so cold in the morning that there was a sheet of ice across the puddles in Rancho. The temperature more often than not was in the 30s and it was COLD. After one foolish run without gloves or a cap to cover the ears (as a result of which my hands were so cold that I could not drive for 15-20 minutes), I invested in a pair of gloves and a ski-type cap. The other annoying factor has been the constant rain the past month or so - sometimes I wonder if I have somehow been teleported to Seattle!

So, in January, after a couple of months of running, I realized that it is hard to keep running (especially in the winter) without a goal. So, I picked the Kaiser Permanente PAMA Kids Half Marathon in San Francisco (on Feb 3, 2008) as a target to see where I was in terms of fitness and time etc. (I have not run a half since San Francisco in July). And after being on the fence for ever, I figured with all the training, why not give Big Sur a shot? I am happy to report that I have also registered for the Big Sur Marathon on April 27, 2008 (the tough hilly course which makes up for it with the outstanding scenery!)

Goals for the Kaiser half:
1) Try and better previous half marathon time (I finished the SF first half in 2 hours and 15 minutes - 10:20 pace)
2) Try and finish under 2 hours.
3) Enjoy the run and have fun!

I am positive I can achieve 1) and 3). 2) is a stretch goal as I have not had much in terms of speed workouts/tracks in the off-season. My hope is that all the hill training has added strength and also will help with pace on a fairly flat course.

Can't Hibernate Forever!

So a lot has happened in the past few months since I ran the Silicon Valley Marathon - and I promise that is the reason (and not sheer laziness on my part) for no recent postings to the blog :-)

We were blessed with our second child, a son, in December 2007 and we have named him Rohan. Things have been pretty hectic as you can imagine and we are having to re-adjust to life with an infant around!

Now that he is almost 2 months old, and we are able to grab a few winks at night, I will try and post more regularly as there is a whole lot of stuff coming up in the next few months on the running front!

Veni Vidi Vici - Part 2

My wife had said that should would be there at the halfway point (along with my daughter and my in-laws who are visiting) - so, I looked forward to seeing them at the High School. We entered the high school track and I scanned the audience looking for them, but could not find them (I later found out that they just missed us by a few minutes as they had a hard time finding parking). This was a bit of a bummer, but I soldiered on. We were at about 2 hrs 13 minutes at this point, and things looked pretty good. They split the half-marathoners and full-marathoners at this point, and we made sure, we went in the right direction. As we got out of the school, and onto the streets, Kumar seemed to be tiring or aching - we checked in with him, and he told us to go ahead as he would be taking a walk break. Coach Martina and I decided to carry on running. Miles 14-18 were pretty good and we were keeping to about a 10 minute pace on average. On our way, we were glad to bump into the 'Terrific Trio' - Karthik, Kiran, and Gurpreet - they seemed to be high and on spirits (oops I mean in high spirits) as always :-) We waved to them as Gurpreet gave us his best coach Raman impression - 'Looking Good!' We reached the ASHA Water stop (back on the trail again on the way back) and there were even more folks there now - Navneet and others shouted words of encouragement, and this helped lift my slightly sagging spirits!

This is the point where the real race began for me :-) Having breezed through mile 18, I noticed that I was suddenly beginning to tire a bit and the legs did not have as much. I had started Gu at Mile 13 (as I normally do) and had been taking it per my regular schedule. Could this be the dreaded 'Wall' I wondered? Mile 19 was slow (11:40 pace or so) - coach Martina saw this, and kept talking to me and encouraging me. I took some more Gu and told myself - Wall or no Wall, I was finishing this race (either on 2 legs or otherwise :-) and that was that :-) Miles 20-22 were at between 11 and 11:15 pace as we got out fom the trail and onto the streets of San Jose. There was a marked change in conditions as by then it was around 11 am and the it was getting hotter plus there were no trees to provide shade (the trail was fairly comfortable in that respect). We ran into and passed Sanjay around here somewhere and found Kamal slightly ahead of us. Coach Martina started running a little ahead with Kamal and kept egging me to push on. The sight of them running in front somehow helped me press forward and eke more out of the somewhat tired legs.


Nearing Mile 23, I finally had had enough - I told Martina that I needed to walk for a bit (I don't normally take walk breaks). She asked me to push till the Mile marker and then take the break. I walked for about a minute or so, and then decided to resume running - this was way harder than I thought and I had a tough time getting the rhythm back. So, I told Martina, come what may, I was going to continue running (albeit at a slow almost walking pace) . Miles 24 and 25 can be summarized thus(12:40 and 12:10 pace respectively):

Martina - 'Bharath! You can do it! Only x miles to go (2,1.5,1.2 etc.). Think of the finish line and what awaits. Think of the jalebis coming up' etc.
Me - 'Ok Coach' (not wanting to be my usual loquacious self in order to conserve precious energy!)

As we neared mile 25, Kamal stopped and was bent over. We stopped by to make sure he was ok (he wanted to walk for a bit) and continued on. Suddenly, out of the blue, Coach Raman appeared running in the other direction with jalebis in his hand. I decided to pass on the jalebis but his words of encouragement definitely provided some additional momentum. Coach Raman also mentioned that we were doing great ,and only 3-4 ASHA runners were ahead of us. We got to the ASHA water stop at mile 25 where Sathya and others checked to make sure I was ok, and told me to finish strong. The combined boost (Amino-Vital, ASHA folks, Coaches etc.) served to somehow jump start me and fueled by adrenaline, I told Martina - let's go for it! We passed the 1 mile marker (in the other direction) and I went for broke (well, at least I thought so relative to my flagging pace the past few miles).

We passed a few enthusiastic supporters (few and far between I must say) with cow-bells shouting encouragement - Looking strong! Only 1 mile to go! Awesome job! etc. Even the cops blocking the streets were cheering, as we neared Discovery Meadow and the finish. The crowd noise grew louder and Martina kept talking to me and cheering me on. Passed the 280 exit and knew I was almost there! We burst (!!) into Discovery Meadow and finally, I got a glimpse of the promised land! Picked up my pace (finish strong the coaches had said) and had Coach Martina right there along side me. We neared the finish line as the announcer said 'Put your hands together folks - here come no. 444 Martina Koldeway and no.682 Bharath Prabhakaran. The final push, and Martina picked my right arm up with her left and raised our arms aloft as we crossed the finish - 4:39:13 - 'Mission Accomplished!'

Picked up the finisher's medal from the girl handing them out and put it on. My daughter had seen me and came running to me and I managed to bend and pick her up (wish I had seen her earlier so I could have finished while holding her in my hands ala Praveen did later).

Coach Martina told me to keep walking and so I walked down and met my wife and family. Then went to the ASHA tent, where Coach Tony gave me a high five and Raghav, Anand etc. congratulated me! As always, the co-ords and volunteers had made sure we were well fed and nourished and I had a banana and some cold water - felt really good! The Samosas looked really tempting, but I decided to wait a while. I went over to Coach Martina and gave her a big thank-you hug for all that she had done. She was a huge reason that I finished the race and finished well! Then went over and chatted with the family and accepted their congratulations and hugs etc. Walked back to the ASHA tent and decided to partake in the festivities. Had a Samosa, and by then, the real food had arrived (courtesy Tirupathi Bhimas restaurant) - Pongal, and a Sweet Dish. Had some hot pongal and washed it down with some Gatorade (quite the combo don't you think!) and felt quite rejuvenated all of a sudden! Chatted with the folks, and then walked over to the finish line to cheer the other ASHA folks as they came in. Took up a position next to Raghu (who was taking pictures of the finishers and did a superb job - much better than the official race photographer!) and watched Sanjay, Kamal, Vivek, Praveen, and a host of others come in. Was relieved to see Kamal come in ok, and even more so when Kumar crossed the line. It was getting quite hot and my daughter came running towards me and was getting quite cranky. So, decided to take a quick look at the official race results, and then stopped by the ASHA tent to let Martina know that I had to leave (even though I would have loved to stay). We decided to take a quick sub-group picture (with the finishers (look at those happy faces!) up to that point) and then I said Good-byes to everyone (and once again thanked Martina, the coaches, Raman and the co-ord team etc.) and left.

I would like to take a second to dedicate this race to the memory of my late mother, and also to my daughter and wife!

So, how did it really feel?

'In Pain, one can find pleasure' - ok, this is not a slogan for masochists or self-flagellators! On the drive back home, I could certainly feel the pain - knees aching, hamstrings sore, calves, quads - you name it, it was probably sore! There was also some sadness (I wish my mother were alive to see this) and joy (having my family and especially my daughter at the finish). There was also the sense of pleasure, of accomplishment, of having conquered my fears and doubts (both worthy adversaries I must add), of having set a lofty goal, and achieving it in such a short span of time! I felt elated, jubilant (and all related synonyms) - ala Leo Di Caprio in Titanic - 'I'm king of the world!'.

But, amid the confluence of feelings, there was one overwhelming emotion - 'Gratitude' - to the family that we call Team ASHA. The path to our glory had been laid one brick at a time, and there were many architects who helped sculpt our success! I was thankful for the wonderful coaches who got us prepared (Tony, Raman, Rajiv, 'Bonus-Coach' Harry, and above all, Martina), the excellent co-ord team (Raman, CK, G3 etc.) and volunteers who organized and supported us through all the runs the entire season, the ASHA cheering squad (and their wonderful costumes - glad to note that we won the 'Team-Spirit' award once again this year), fellow runners (esp the Mountain View crew), and the entire Team ASHA family for what had been an extraordinary experience leading up to an unimaginable accomplishment! The fact that I helped raise money towards the education of underpriviliged kids made it even sweeter (thank you for the support Donors!)

I also feel lighter, fitter, more energetic than I have ever been - this has truly been a life-changing experience for me. As Martina likes to say, it is a lifestyle change, and I am glad that my friend Rajeev convinced me to do this. I am actually looking forward to visiting Dr.Evil (ok Dr.Chan, just kidding!) and getting my blood work done again! And for this, I am really thankful!

I know, I know - this is beginning to sound like an Oscar acceptance speech where I am thanking all and sundry. But, this is about feelings right? It's never easy talking about feelings - but Hey Ladies - who says men can't talk about their feelings :-) :-)

It was such a blast that in the words of our famous Governator - 'I'll be BACK!!' (for the 2008 season that is).

For now, Veni! Vidi! Vici! - over and out!

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.

Adventures in Downtown San Jose (aka the SV Marathon Expo) & Carbo-Load Lunch

The Hilton on Almaden was our destination - seemed like an innocuous enough task right? I mean, how many engineers does it take to figure out how to get there? Let me backtrack for a second.....

The SV Marathon expo was on Nov 3rd, 2007 (Saturday) at the Hilton in downtown San Jose. The Motley-Crew (oops I mean the Mountain View group - Kiran, Gurpreet, Karthik, Coach Martina, and myself) had decided that we would carpool from Landells school in Mountain View (our usual stomping grounds). We all got there around 10:15 am as planned - that was the last thing that went according to plan!

So, we all get into the car and get settled - Kiran was driving. Then someone says - 'So, do we have directions on how to get there?' A deafening silence issues and one can hear crickets chirp!
'Well, Kiran, you are the designated driver - so we thought you would have them' followed by 'Why don't you have GPS - after all, you are a pre-IPO VMWare employee' and then, 'I thought Martina would have the GPhone prototype being that she works for Google and all', and then 'We'll figure it out as we go along' (kind of sums up our marathon season :-)).

The thing you have to realize is that Kiran is a Formula 1 driver wannabe (one can spend hours trying to figure out his theory of how one should actually speed up on a winding exit ramp with posted speeds of 25 mph - something about centripetal or centrifugal forces) and he drives his car like a Ferrari (of course barring the minor problem that it is actually a Toyota Corolla). He gunned the engine (in as much as you can gun the engine on a Corolla) and sped out of the parking lot tyres screeching (OK, I made that bit up).

So, we decide that we will take the 280 freeway and it should take us there. Gurpreet has a sudden idea - let's call Sathya (our mentor) and ask him for directions. So, the call is made, and we have to take the Vine/Almaden exit and then a few turns later - Bada Bing, Bada Boom - expo, here we come! Easy enough right?

Not quite - Kiran 'Schumacher' Kamath speeds by the exit so fast that we miss it. 'I guess, we can turn around at the next exit and take 280 North to the Vine exit'; 'Well, there is no such exit in the other direction'. More frantic calling ensues to Sathya. Meanwhile, Kiran has taken some random exit per some one's direction. Finally, we make the one sensible decision for the day - we stop to ask for directions (on the phone though - still, no mean task in a car with 4 men and a lone woman! I mean, Men and asking for directions? Didn't Martina know that we men all have pre-wired inherent GPS systems with global maps in our brains with a fail-safe compass based navigation scheme as backup? :-)).

Anyhoo - Sathya is summoned - cross-streets are given - and after much more 'Your left; No, I mean the other left' and near fisticuffs/strangulation between some of the parties involved, we finally get to the Expo and park.

You see, all major odysseys need to have a worthwhile goal at the end - that makes the tough journey and overcoming obstacles worth it. The SV Expo however, was certainly not in that category - to sum it up in one word - 'Underwhelming' !! I mean, you can't really call something that takes up all of one ballroom in a hotel, an Expo can you? There were like 10 vendor stalls and a pretence of a line to pick up the race packet. Of course, this being Silicon Valley and all, it was so high-tech that we had not been emailed our bib numbers in advance; so, we had to go look at notices stuck on the wall with names and bib numbers (brought back unpleasant memories of looking at examination results and grades in school!). So, it looked like there were about 900-950 full marathoners registered and about the same number of half-marathoners. The Chicago Marathon veterans in our group (Kiran, Gurpreet, Martina) snickered derisively - I mean 2000 runners and a 1 room expo? Karthik and I didn't take this lying down though (after all, this was our official marathon for the year and a home one at that) - 'Well, at least you'll get to finish this one, and hopefully have enough fluids on the course!' - ouch (the Chicago Marathon fiasco was after all fresh in every one's mind).

We had budgeted 1.5 hours for the expo - you know, we did really have a plan (get to the expo by 10:40, leave around 12:30 to get to the Carbo Load lunch at 1 pm etc.). 20 minutes after getting there, we're already ready to leave! We run into Raghav (the Boston Qualifier from Team ASHA this year also know as 'The Kenyan in Indian clothing'). In order to kill time, we potter around for a bit. I pretend to be vaguely interested in the sales-pitch being thrown at me for some online health-point allotting website (a really sound business plan from the looks of it - just the kind that attracts tons of VC funding like the current crop of social networking Web 2.0 startups :-)). A couple of group pictures ensue (with the objective being to induce an optical illusion in the picture so that the expo actually looks bigger!).

The only saving grace from all this is the guy handing out the samples of Popped (not fried or baked!) potato chips - those were delicious and helped Gurpreet get over a hunger pang (when does he not have one :-)). Martina says 'Starbucks' - of course, since we all live in a 'Starbucks World', there was one right inside the hotel (and I guess if you missed it, across the street, down the road at the next block etc.). We managed to kill some time over there while Raghav imbibed the nectar (or poison depending on point of view :-)) and decided to head back to Castro Street (Mountain View) to congregate at - you guessed it - another Starbucks (since Martina does not drink coffee at Starbucks locations without ambiance and elevator music (this one certainly had none)).

We get to Starbucks in Mountain View where Kiran has another adventure trying to parallel park ('I've never lived in a big city and needed to do this') - maybe this wasn't part of his driving test? I guess you don't really need to parallel park in the F-1 circuit (unless you count crashing your car against the barrier and coming to rest parallel to it, parking!) We wait for a bit and are about to leave for the carbo-load when Martina saunters in. Some more time is spent chit-chatting and we then move over to the lunch venue.

The Carbo-load lunch is at Pasta-? (or as Gurpreet calls it - Pasta Kyon!). We get in and sit at the table and surprisingly (by ASHA and Indian standards) there are quite a few people on time. We get settled, wait a while for more people to show up (and the coaches), a few speeches and last minute words of advice are doled out, bread is served (the only thing served for the first hour plus :-)), more bread is consumed, and finally the pasta shows up. It's decent and people dig in - however, Gurpreet only eats one plate as apparently this is not as good as the previous carbo-loads (where he approached 'Carbo-Overload' with 2-3 plates :-)).

And so ends an interesting day, which by all means should have been dull and boring - but as I have learned, no day can be boring when one is in the company of the Motley-Crew!

Base Camp - 3 days to go to D-Day

So, have been tapering for the past couple of weeks and think I am reasonably well prepared mentally and physically. Here are my goals for the SV Marathon (in order of importance):

1) Finish the damn thing!
2) Finish the damn thing on 2 legs!
3) Finish under 5 hours! (or more accurately - between 4:30 and 5:00).

So, count down with me folks and wish me luck! Between now and Sunday, we have the Expo and Carbo-load (Pasta anyone?).

Will sign off for now and be back with a race report next week - stay tuned!