One of my goals for 2014 was to run a half marathon. I was successful in achieving this goal early in May 2014. My stretch goals for 2014 was to run a full Marathon. I had earlier submitted an application to Marine Corp Marathon and to my surprise, I was selected in the lottery. With a looming marathon in October, I decided to look for training resources.
I was referred to First Time Marathon (FTM) by someone that had run marathons in the past. I applied to join this training group by writing to the coordinators, Conroy and Audrey and they accepted me in their training group. The first run for this training program was a short distance run of 7 miles! No kidding. I had to get in shape just to complete my training run!
Training started in earnest on the first Sunday of May at Ken Gar Park. A lot of the folks including me saw how unfit they were. In my defense, I did try. From early April onwards, I started running 4-5
miles 3 times a week with a goal of running at least 15 miles a week. I
guess it was not enough.
We were segregated into groups of varying speeds with the fastest group around 9minutes-per-mile and the slowest 13minutes-per-mile. I fell into the second slowest group 12minutes-30seconds-per-mile. Our pace group coaches were Omar and Judith. Here is a picture of the group on a trail during one of our long runs.
The training was hard with slow and steady increase in both Sunday long runs and weekly total mileage. The Wednesday speed training became a nightmare especially in August with temperatures and humidity hovering around 90. During those times, we tended to question our sanity. Instead of simply asking "Why am I running", I took to asking a simple existential question "Why".
During the training, I took part in two half marathons. I ran my first half early in May at the Delaware Marathon. The second one was a Road Runners Club sponsored run called the Parks Half. I found it very hard to run the Delaware, but the Parks Half was a walk in the (I am sorry) park.
We persevered and our long distance runs inched up to 20 miles; nearly a full marathon! As the season changed to fall, the weather slowly cooled to a point where it was now cold! We would have highs in the 30s during some of the Sunday runs in early October. No complaints; the cold was little more easier to handle than heat.
The big day dawned. J and M also came along. The run was an amazing experience. Group of marines parachuted down to the start line. Because we were with the FTM program, we started with the early crowd. And it was crowd of 20000 runners! People could barely move their elbows! With several folks in our pace group running along with me, I was never alone. I did not feel tired. I was on a high just being there. I can barely remember much of the details during the early phases.
After a few miles, I found myself running with Kara, Na Alia, Prasanna, and Laura. Kara is good natural pacer. She maintained a steady speed and I stayed behind as I had a tendency to speed up a little more than I should. It helped me later when I grew tired. We all were wearing our FTM shirts
and one of the other runners observed this and actually asked me, if I was a virgin! I kid you not.
Around 15 miles, only 3 of us were left in our group, Kara, Na Alia, and myself. Na Alia dropped behind around 17 and I stayed with Kara till mile 21 when I had to stop running. I walked a bit, ran a bit and kept this up till mile 24 when I fell in with Sridhar from the 12minutes-per-mile pace group. I could see that he also was struggling a bit. We ran the last 2 miles together encouraging each other. The last 100 yeards was uphill but it was a great feeling crossing the line high-fiving all the marines lined along the path.
My time was 5 hours and 39 minutes. I had three goals for the marathon
Complete it - Done
Complete it under 6 hours - Done
Complete it under 5 hours and 30 minutes - Never mind, 2 out of three ain't so bad.
I was happy.
 |
| With Conroy and Audrey |
 |
| The 12:30 Pace group |
We were segregated into groups of varying speeds with the fastest group around 9minutes-per-mile and the slowest 13minutes-per-mile. I fell into the second slowest group 12minutes-30seconds-per-mile. Our pace group coaches were Omar and Judith. Here is a picture of the group on a trail during one of our long runs.
The training was hard with slow and steady increase in both Sunday long runs and weekly total mileage. The Wednesday speed training became a nightmare especially in August with temperatures and humidity hovering around 90. During those times, we tended to question our sanity. Instead of simply asking "Why am I running", I took to asking a simple existential question "Why".
During the training, I took part in two half marathons. I ran my first half early in May at the Delaware Marathon. The second one was a Road Runners Club sponsored run called the Parks Half. I found it very hard to run the Delaware, but the Parks Half was a walk in the (I am sorry) park.
We persevered and our long distance runs inched up to 20 miles; nearly a full marathon! As the season changed to fall, the weather slowly cooled to a point where it was now cold! We would have highs in the 30s during some of the Sunday runs in early October. No complaints; the cold was little more easier to handle than heat.
The big day dawned. J and M also came along. The run was an amazing experience. Group of marines parachuted down to the start line. Because we were with the FTM program, we started with the early crowd. And it was crowd of 20000 runners! People could barely move their elbows! With several folks in our pace group running along with me, I was never alone. I did not feel tired. I was on a high just being there. I can barely remember much of the details during the early phases.
 |
| As we were running |
Around 15 miles, only 3 of us were left in our group, Kara, Na Alia, and myself. Na Alia dropped behind around 17 and I stayed with Kara till mile 21 when I had to stop running. I walked a bit, ran a bit and kept this up till mile 24 when I fell in with Sridhar from the 12minutes-per-mile pace group. I could see that he also was struggling a bit. We ran the last 2 miles together encouraging each other. The last 100 yeards was uphill but it was a great feeling crossing the line high-fiving all the marines lined along the path.
 |
| Sri And I at the end |
Complete it - Done
Complete it under 6 hours - Done
Complete it under 5 hours and 30 minutes - Never mind, 2 out of three ain't so bad.
I was happy.
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