Monday, October 23, 2006

Chicago Marathon

An interesting week indeed - after a flood of weather reports and updates that predicted rain and snow flurries...we ended up with a cold, windy but thankfully dry race day.
Huddled into our bus at 5:40 am we were all carted to the Asha tent - 70+ people in the tent at 6:30 am - the energy was flowing.

I checked the temp readings along the way and it was 39F with a decent wind - it was COLD! Ran an easy relaxed race - was wearing my bike leggings, arm warmers, ear band, two layers of quickwik shirts, a long sleeve cotton shirt (which I tossed at mile 5) and my rain jacket. Finished the marathon in 4:02:07 - happy with the time considering the lack of training!

All our runners finished - but it was a hard fought race - the cold really did not agree with a lot of us Californians!

We all owe a big thanks to all the family members and friends that helped cheer us, they braved the cold weather for >6 hours! Kalyan & Vivek did a fantastic job with the camera and with ensuring everyone came in and was accounted for. The entire team showed the selfless spirit that is coming to define Team Asha...mentors and some runners went back out to help bring in other runners and helped carry/support other injured/tired runners to the bus...great team spirit - great people - great race!

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