Sunday, October 14, 2012

My Bucketlist marathon

This year has been my Bucket List year. Why Bucket List? because this year started out with lot of negativity. I was drowning in it and then decide to take charge of my life. Boom ! decisions were taken and off I went to India to settle some outstanding issues. But the stress had taken it's toll on me. I was overweight and out of shape. I received a lot of flak from family for all that flab. After my return, I decided to do something about it. I procrastinated about joining a gym, but then as the quote goes: "Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and it's toll on success and happiness is heavy."
And then my colleague and friend Xin mentioned about running a half marathon. Xin being a 3 marathon veteran suggested taking it slow and easy, while training for the marathon. I got interested in running the half marathon. I initially started running after office around the campus. For my first run, I took 42:05 mins for 2.61 miles and that meant an average pace of 16:06 mins/mile. I monitored all my runs using Runkeeper. I started running with another colleague, Jagadeesh but he injured his heel after a month of running. I was determined more than ever to achieve my goal of my half marathon. 
Another colleague Rajiv mentioned about a trail near my house and we ran on this trail one evening. I liked the trail a lot, it reminded me about Virginia. Also due to the intense summer, it was getting difficult to run in the sweltering heat after office. I changed my schedule and started getting up early at around 5:30 am. This ensured that I would complete my run at least by 7 or 7:30 am. I started enjoying my daily runs as this was my own personal time. I could think about anything and everything, sometimes things that bothered me personally, sometimes research problems. The endorphin rush at the beginning of the day changed my day and made me more productive. I started paying attention to my diet as well. 
I used to meet with Xin daily and we checked on each other's running schedule. Xin also emailed me a half marathon training schedule. Honestly, I never followed it but was glad to have a pointer on how many miles to run every week. I started referring to Xin as my 'Marathon Guru'. Xin gave me a lot of tips on diet and race preparation. We ran together a couple of times near our office and also along the trail near my house. At the end of six months, I had some wonderful statistics on Runkeeper (legend: green=walking, red=running):

I ran my half marathon yesterday and it was awesome ! Before the half marathon, I had run a maximum of 9 miles. After about 10 miles, my legs started cramping and giving away. The last 3 miles were excruciating. My pace went down from 11 min/mile to 13 min/mile. I chugged along and somehow saw the finish line. I cramped and slipped and heard someone shouting "Buddy, you can do it, Go for it !!" I smiled and ran towards the finish line. All my friends were cheering for me and the last 1 sec seemed like an eternity. Boom! I crossed the finish line and completed my first half marathon. 
I almost cried with joy. Everyone hugged me and congratulated me on finishing the half marathon. Mansi came to cheer me and was there for me. Thanks to Mansi for believing in me. Thanks Xin for all the motivation. Today, as I write this, I am content to have checked one item off my Bucket List :)