Marine Corps Marathon Race Report

Lets get done with this as soon as possible so that I can get it out of the system

Going into the race I was really happy with my preparations. I had put in work required to run my first full marathon. I had diligently followed the plan and did all the key sessions as required. I had also rested well in the week leading to the race. We (Me, Ramesh and Bharathi) arrived at DC on Friday late night. On Saturday we met up with the other Asha folks staying in the same hotel and we all went to the expo for the bib pick up. Rest of the Saturday was spent between resting at the hotel, watching ironman world championship on nbc, watching weather conditions and meeting an old college friend for dinner.

On Friday prediction was there might be high winds and heavy rain on race day late morning/early afternoon. But by Sunday morning predictions had changed and Sandy was only going show up late Sunday night or early Monday morning. There was really too much uncertainty around the timing. Irrespective of its timing I think I wasn't really too worried. It wasn't like I haven't run in rain or wind before. On Sunday while catching the race shuttle to the start location it was drizzling slightly. Nothing too scary. My plan was to wear my wind breaker as the second layer during the whole race. I had never run in that wind breaker before and since I have a very high sweat rate trying a new second layer in the race was bit scary for me. Usually, I don't like doing anything new in the race. By the race start time (7:55) we had the most awesome weather we could ask for the race. Cloudy, bit cold and no rain in sight. Seeing that I removed my second layer before going to the start line.

Going into the race my plan was simple. Follow the 4 hour pacer as long as possible and then if everything goes well then up the pace in the last 7-8 miles. This did seem pretty doable on a good day. So I lined up behind the 4 hour pacer. As soon as the horn went off, 30,000 runners all started with the single goal of conquering 26.2 miles. Honestly, I had never seen so many people running at the same time. It was packed but still there was enough room to run.

First 5-6 miles
As soon as the horn went off my single goal was to keep an eye on 4 hour pacer all the time.  As soon as we approached the first water stop (at around 2.25 miles) I had my first accident. I was running to the extreme right and the water stop was to the extreme left. Crossing over was a very risky affair with runners every where. The problem is you cannot abruptly stop or cut in as people are running (at high speed) behind you and you might end up colliding with them. Some how I managed to get to the other side by cutting in (pretty scary stuff) and once I was done as I was trying to go to the center I got tripped by the runner in front of me. I went down on my knees. Both my knees scratched against the road and started bleeding. I gathered myself and check if I could run. Luckly I was OK. I did have slight pain but nothing too alarming. By this time the 4 hour pacer had pulled up. I didn't wanted to loose him this early so I started the chase again. Luckly by mile 3 or 4 I caught with him. After mile 4, the same accident happened all over again. The guy behind me tripped me. Here I was again on my knees on the road. This was really getting scary for me. Luckly, I survived that fall too. At the next water stop I quickly regrouped myself, cleaned my knees and checked if I could run. There was certainly some discomfort with some bleeding from both the knees but then the pain was bearable so I decided to get back at my chase of 4 hour pacer.

Middle miles (6-17)
In all this early mile madness I had completely lost sight of 4 hour pacer. So for this middle miles my goal was simply to up my effort a bit per mile and try to bridge the gap. By mile 12 I was able to bridge the gap and I was running behind the 4 hour pacer. I had read the pace timing sheet that he provided and it said we would cross mile 13 in 1:59 and indeed we did cross it in 1:59. I was really feeling well at that point. There was some pain in the knees (because of the bruises) and slight pain in my quads which was unusual but still nothing alarming. Everything went smooth in those miles. I was keeping good pace and watching my footings very carefully. I was certain third fall would end my race :)

Torture miles (17-26.2)
This is where everything went south. At mile 17 water stop as soon as I started running again I got a striking pain in my left quad. Initially I thought it might be just one of those odd cramp which  would go away and I did not take it seriously (big mistake) and I continued pushing myself through the pain. Since the weather was cold it was even more important to stretch the quad. I did not. I saw my pace dropped for mile 18. By mile 19, my left quad was completely locked out. Moment I tried to run I would feel a striking pain as if someone had stabbed it. I kept trying but nothing was happening. I tried stretching it but i guess it was too late by then. By mile 19 I knew that my day was complete and I had accepted the fate that it was going to be a walkathon for the remaining miles. Every time I saw someone running past me I would try to hang on with them but eventual pain on quad was too much to bear. By mile 20 even my right quad started acting up. At mile 22 water stop I asked the volunteers to point me to the medical tent as a last chance effort if they can provide me some magic pills to revive my quads and I could run the remaining miles. They told me lot of people had similar issue and gave me two glass of warm chicken stew to up sodium intake. But that also did not help much. At that moment I really thought of quitting and staying in the medical tent but then I knew that would hurt me lot more when I wake up next day. I decided to stop worrying about time/pace etc and just soak in the environment and walk the remaining miles. At mile 25 I met up with Sudarshan (south bay runner) and he also had a horrible experience and was cramping from mile 16. We stayed together for sometime with some slow running but then I had to ask him to go ahead as I was barely able to walk straight without pain. Eventually, I crossed the finish line in 4:53. The highlight of the day was getting the salute and then a medal from the marine. That moment was worth all the hurt. During the expo they had a bus with the slogan "Earned   never given". I definitely had to earn that medal. 

In the hind sight I was disappointed. I had a good plan in place, I had trained for the day. I was really shocked and confused that how quickly things changed for me. There at mile 15-16 I was thinking of uping my pace and then mile 18-19 I was reduce to walking. I have never faced cramping issues in the training. I followed the same nutrition that I followed in all my long training runs. So I am still really confused what could have lead to that issue. May be I was over ambitious in my pace and ran too fast too early to have such a blow up towards the end or may be it was cumulative fatigue collected over the last few months with biking and running. I don't know. What I do know is that I am definitely looking forward to training harder and have a crack at 26.2 for one more time early next year. As far as this year is concerned this was the last race for me. So for now I just plan to take rest for 2-3 weeks to recover properly before getting back to biking/running/swimming (lessons)

Garmin file
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/238783071

Dreams...

I am 1 week away from flying to DC for MCM and I am already having goose bumps thinking about it. It has been an incredible last 1.5 years of my life and honestly I have never worked this hard for so long for any goal but then if you know me well I am a very stubborn character and I never and i mean never give up that easily..

I still remember that moment when my marathon dream was born. Last May, while going out for a lunch I saw a fit man running  on the road and in that moment I declared to my friends that I am also going to run a marathon. My friends laughed at me. They had every right to do it. I was 240 pounds. I had only heard the term marathon. I had no idea about the distance or training or fitness required to do it. For them it was one of those random comments that someone makes without meaning it. But that moment was very powerful for me. I don't know if it was the laughter of my friends or the look of joy on that person's face who was running or just my deep burning desire to run but I was fired up and was very serious about it. Later back at home I started reading about marathons and training programs. Somewhere in my searches I came across TEAM ASHA and their marathon training program for non-runners. I was completely sold by the idea of raising money for an important cause of education of under privilege children in India and in return getting  trained for marathon.

In all honesty, I did not respect the distance or the sport at first. I mean how hard running can be ??  I thought with few weeks of training I will be easily able to finish a marathon. I was reminded how demanding this sport is (and how unfit I had become over the last decade) during my first training run. It was not more than 1 mile but I could not even run 100 meters without completely getting out of breath.  That moment my (over) confidence had completely changed into self doubts. Seeing my condition even some of the coaches had doubts that I would return for the next training run. After the run (once every one left) I asked one of the coaches if I should just drop off from the program and try to get fit for much smaller distance like 5k (or even less) before thinking about marathons (or half marathons).

With lot of self doubt I decided to stick with the program and started showing up for the training runs. I was incredibly lucky to have a very supportive group in ASHA where i was never judge by my size or how unfit I was (even being the youngest person in the group) and I was allowed to be myself all the time. As I started getting familiar with the people and program my confidence started growing. I was always dead last in all our training runs. Often times faster runners had to come back to fetch me or push me or cheer me to finish the distance and in all honesty I was always bit embarrassed about it. At 240 pounds running was incredibly demanding activity for me. There were days when I could not climb the stairs of my home because of the soreness and had to sleep on my sofa, days when I would walk really funny (literally limp around) in office but then none of that mattered to me. With every Saturday long training run completed I knew I was getting closer to my dream and that's what mattered to me.

Lot of people think that I started running because I wanted to loose weight. In fact it was complete opposite of that. I wanted to loose weight so that i could run better. For me being over weight was never an issue. I had been over weight for over a decade and I was perfectly normal with that. As I started understanding the minor details about training/racing/weight etc I instantly knew that to run better (and faster) I need to shed excess pounds. I read somewhere loosing 1 lb would translate into 3 secs faster per mile. That was catalyst for me to really look into my diet and over hauling my life style. Changing a certain lifestyle that you have been use to for such a long time is always a difficult process and surely it was. Be it trying to eat healthy, staying away from booze during training, getting up "really" early on weekends for training, forming the discipline to get all the weekday and weekend workouts done without making execuses, mustering enough courage to go to local gym for cross training on non running days and LOTS of other small small things. I started changing things slowly and with time everything started falling in place. I am blessed with amazing support circle of my close friends and family who always listened to my training crap patiently, who kept a tight check on me so that i always remained grounded, who were always there ready to offer me any help needed especially in the times when I faltered from my plan.

By July end I had developed enough endurance to walk/run (more walking/less running) 13.1 miles and I finished my first half marathon in 2 hours and 58 mins. This was by far one of the happiest days in my life but at the same I almost immediately wanted to improve upon my time in the next race because I knew that I will not be able to finish the full marathon (if I do one) on time with that pace. Lot of the people encouraged me to continue training for next 3 months and do a full marathon in Oct. Mentally, I was really not prepared to tackle the distance (yet) and without mental determination it is almost impossible to train for full marathon. I just could not see myself running 15,17,20 miles at a time.  I decided against doing a full and focused on doing another half with faster time. Just as I started training for my second half I ended up fracturing my toe. I could not run for almost a month. That break made me even more determined to train harder and get fitter. By end of Oct I was able to reduce my walk breaks and in turn run a slightly faster half marathon.

With Asha season coming to end I knew I had still not achieved my dream. I continued running through the winter with the sole purpose of getting fitter and stronger for 2012. I planned my entire season around the marathon. This year I was mentally prepared to tackle the distance. Through out the year with every single road race I ran, with every long training week or hard training session completed I knew I was getting closer to my dream.

That day will finally arrive on 28th Oct.  When I go out and stand with 12000 first timers (and several thousands of repeat marathoners) near the start line I know I would be nervous, excited and scared but I also know that everything I could possibly do, physically as well as mentally, for getting ready for that day I have done it. It has been one heck of a journey to get here and I am very proud of myself. One thing I have realized in the process is that dreams are powerful and it eventually boils down to how badly you want it. 26.2 miles is LOT of distance and anything can happen but one thing that is certainly going to happen is I will be giving my 100% running the race I have always dreamed of.