Friday, October 20, 2006

Chicago marathon - ARE YOU READY???

Months of preparation, shin splints, recoveries, iliotibial band injuries, breaks, suckall weather, rainy days, busy days, lazy days, new shoes, millions of gatorades, introspection, repentance, encouragement from friends, support from outsiders, unexpected donations to my cause and a few other episodes later... yeah baby! ITS CRUNCH TIME!!!!!!!

The Chicago marathon is slated for this Sunday (Oct 22nd), and yes, I am running it.

I'm still not confident that I'll complete the Chicago marathon. When I started serious running a couple of years ago, I suffered from shin splints. There's a big ass bone running on the inside of your legs between the knee and your ankle. With the constant pounding while running, shock waves travel up this bone, weakening it and causing inflamation and acute pain. So I did some research and realized that the main causes were bad shoes and improper running style. That's when I got my first pair of New Balance shoes. I also realized I was landing on my heel and that's not really recommended. Slowly, I changed my running style to land on my foot. Its a lot more smoother and painless. Result: No more Shin splints.

A few weeks ago, after I ran my 15-miles, I couldn't get rid of the pain around my ankle. Heeding a fellow runner's recommendation, I made my way to Runner's High, a specialty runner's store in Arlington Heights. The saleswoman, a marathoner herself, asked me to walk around and inspected me as I did. She told me I had a habit of pronating my feet a bit on the inside when I land my feetand she produced a pair of NewBalance shoes that has extra cushioning for people with this problem. Result: Ankle pain disappeared.

It was the weekend of a 14-miler. I was running with a group of ASHA runners when I started feeling a slight muscle strain in my left thigh. Shrugging it off as a temporary glitch, I kep running. And the pain got intense. Around the 9-10 mile mark, I could not run anymore. Even walking took a lot of effort and I limped my way back to my car. I was told that I had an iliotibial injury, commonly referred to as the IT band injury. These are a bunch of strong muscles that run along the outside of your thighs connecting your knee with your torso. When these muscles tighten from the run, they start pulling at the knee causing excruciating pain. Once you stop running, the pain automatically goes away only to reappear during the next run. Apparently, this is one of the most common injuries for runners. that did nothing to cheer me up obviously. So I researched some more and talked to fellow runners who've been through this. I started a series of stretching exercises and applied icepack regularly. After almost a 2-week break, I decided to risk it and complete the longest run in marathon training - a whopping 20 miles. The injury did show up, but I managed to combine a lot of walking with my run and somehow managed to complete it. That has given me a lot of confidence. Result: Hoping to atleast crawl to the finish line on Sunday.

In the meantime, this year has been the busiest of my life by far. This was the year that I made the commitment. Yes, i'm soon tying the knot with my best friend of 7 years. In the meantime, I'm also applying to Business Schools for a full-time MBA starting Fall 07. Targeting 5 schools in Round 1 is not easy, and its been a whirlwhind of essays, recommendations, e-mails to friends and cry for help. Meanwhile, at work, I've moved into a position where I'm leading a project and managing a few people. As you can see, training for the marathon has taken a lot of commitment. There's a lot of wedding planning I need to be doing at the moment. But considering my other commitments, my girl W has been incredibly supportive. During my weekday runs, she gave me company on her rollerblades and kept me motivated. When I came back home after my run, tired and hungry, she had delicious food on the table and even an occasional beer.

I'm immensely grateful to all those people who've contributed to my ASHA cause. You've really made all this worthwhile. I'm very close to my $1800 goal, and am hoping to reach it very soon with my Seattle friends pitching in at the last moment.

Here's a funny personal story by funkaboy about running.

Here's an inspirational video about what a marathon actually means. And finally, I leave you with this incredible video on the Chicago marathon. I don't care if you don't click on any other link on this blog, please click on the second video on this page (The LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon Highlights Video). 40000 runners and around a million supporters and watchers on. This promises to be the adventure of a lifetime. I just hope I'm left standing at the end of it all. And 30 years later, when I have my grandkids on my lap and recount stories from my life, I can say "Yes, I ran the Chicago marathon"...

1 Comments:

Blogger Chandru said...

all the best dude....
do they have any consolation prizes??? :D
ju's kidding...

10/21/06, 11:28 AM  

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