RAJEEV esCHARgot!

2011 - Looking Back...looking forward...

2011-12-05T13:24:00.000-08:00

My races this year:

2011 - Looking back.

2011 was another great year for Team Asha (SF, SV & SV Bike program). Our runners & bikers participated in races all over the country. Starting from San Francisco Half in July, San Jose Rock n Roll in September & Twin Cities, Chicago, Marine Corps, Morgan Hill Marathons in October..the runners had a great time. A few even ran CIM in December. Huge congrats to all our runners and bikers. Team Asha runners are the ones that get me get up & off my lazy butt and running! Thank you!

My Family had great year too!

Renuka (my wife) ran her first marathon, Chicago Marathon! YAY! She breezed through the race on a warm Chicago day. The temp did touch 88F.
Mallika (Niece) - Also ran her first marathon, Chicago!! Incredibly poised and confident girl. She made the race seem easy! She showed me how one can text and run at the same time :-) - The ease, confidence and sheer enjoyment of her race was a breath of fresh air. It was such a pleasure running with her.
Nandini (sister) - She came to California and we ran The Big Sur Marathon together and then we met up in Chicago for the Chicago Marathon. Nandini has gone from not running at all 2 years ago to a complete running machine. Her incessant running updates is pure motivation for couch potatoes like me.

Friends:
Rajeev Patel - What can be said about him! Incredible guy! He attempted one of the most difficult and aggressive ultra-distance races, the 250Km Spartathlon, in Greece and made it all the way to mile 60+ before the cut off got him. He is back in training and will be heading back to Greece next year to give it another shot.

Nishad Singh: This young man, not 16 yet, completed a 100 mile race! 100 miles...160 Km! He is an inspiration to many (including me) and I can only wonder what his next athletic adventure will be. Here is the NBC program on him

Anil Rao: He has shown us what dedication can do. After becoming a dad, he shifted gears from ultra running to marathons and his goal was to run a sub 3:15:00 marathon. His previous best was 3:38:00. Anyone who has run marathons will know that cutting off 23+ minutes from your time is a HUGE achievement, over a minute per mile!! It is extremely difficult to get such improvements after the 3:30 stage...laws of diminishing returns sets in...but on December 4th 2011 Anil Rao ran CIM in 3:14:47! Amazing! Big congrats to him. Focused and consistent training got him there.

Martina Koldewey completed "Racing The Planet - Nepal" a race over 250 kilometers/155 miles through the foothills of the Annapurna mountain range, starting and finishing near Pokhara. Total elevation gain across the full course is 9,000 meters/29,500 feet. Total elevation loss is 9,700 meters/31,800 feet. She was on the move for 49+ hours over the 6 days of the race! Amazing athlete!

Tony Fong completed his 100th Marathon at MCM. He is never stops amazing (or running).

Murali Krishna (MK) and Rajeev Shankar: Both completed their first Ironman races, MK did the ironman Coeue d'Alene and Rajeev finished the Vineman Full distance race. Congratulations to both!

Chandrika Srinivasan completed her first Half Ironman Distance triathlon (Napa Vintage) - congratulations to her!

As for me, the year began with promise but I lost my way after the Napa Marathon. I did not make it to the Ironman Texas race in May and then decided to take a break from Triathlons this year. I did only one triathlon (SV Triathlon) and ended up running my first Ultra Marathon (Run De Vous 50 miler).

I spent a bit more time backpacking this year, a couple of back country trips to Ansel Adams Wilderness and one to Mount Whitney. This left me with a stomach bug in October that made me miss Twin Cities Marathon (TCM). Given that TCM was to be my A race, I ended up with no Personal Records this year but a lot of easy races.

I did do a few more open water swims and I have been wanting to move into long distance swimming. The only catch is that I'd have put on about 20 pounds in order to survive open water swims, as wetsuits are not allowed in long distance open water swimming...for now that stands between me and long distance open water swimming. I cannot see myself adding 20 lbs! That will be too much and will kill my running & biking for sure. So stay tuned!

As 2011 marked my 10th year of running marathons, 2012 marks my 10th anniversary of Ironman distance racing. To celebrate a full decade in Ironman races I plan to do three Ironman distance races next year, lets see how that pans out. 2012, here I come.

Blog index 2011:
1) Well Begun is half done (May 2011)
2) Ansel Adams Wilderness - Lillian Lake (Aug 2011)
3) Run-De-Vous 50 mile Ultra Run (Aug 2011)
4) Alcatraz and Back swim (Aug 2011)
5) Mount Whitney Trip (Sep 2011)
6) Bridge to Bridge 10Km Swim (Sep 2011)
7) Chicago Marathon 2011 (Oct 2011)
8) The 2011 Season round up. (Dec 2011)

Chicago Marathon 2011

2011-10-09T16:18:00.000-07:00

Chicago Marathon 2011.

Temp: 78-88F, warm.

My 7th year of running Chicago and this year was special as both my wife and my niece were running it as their first marathon. I flew into Chicago on Friday and it was great meeting mom who was with my sister in Chicago. Saturday the 4 of us drove into town to stay at the Congress Plaza (right at the start of the race). Picked up of bibs and spent almost all day at the Expo. Mallika had both her knees taped (kinesiology tape). One knee was hurting, but she had to get both done so they matched!! Crazy kid! Renuka go a mild massage and Nandu too got some tape work done. The weather forecast was mild to warm for race day. We skipped the Asha carbo load and settled down for a meal at our hotel. We (Nandu & I) had a few beers and we all had a good evening, walked around to the Buckingham Fountain and then settled in for a good night.

[Evening in Chicago]

We were up early and off to the Asha Tent at the Charity village. This year they had pushed us further south and the walk was a good mile + from the village to the start. It was warm and only getting warmer.

[Walking to the start]

[At the start]

We all started off together at the 14 min mile mark and before along we split up, with Nandu and Renuka running on their own and Mallika and I running together. Running with Mallika was fun, she rarely stopped smiling! She was just so relaxed throughout the race that it was incredible. We kept pace with the 5:15:00 group and the plan was to stay with them as long as possible. Around mile 16-18 Mallika’s knee started acting up so we decided to dropped back and stick with the 5:30 pacer. She was adamant that she wanted to beat the 5:30 pacer – no matter what! I had to talk her out of that and kept reminding her that it was her first marathon on a rather bum knee too…so relax and go easy. She eased up and continued on with her texting and smiling :-)

[Texting]

As we came upon the final mile she picked up the pace and then sprinted the last 800 meters!!! Good lord! That last burst of speed almost killed me, I hung on to finish with her :-). We waited till Renuka & Nandini finished and I then headed back to the tent to collect or bags. The hotel was kind enough to get me an extension to get in and have a quick shower. Nandu dropped me off at the airport and I headed home that evening. Another good Chicago Marathon...warm but well organized.

[Still texting]

Thank you Chicago Asha for the superb arrangements and congratulations to all finishers.

[At the Asha tent]

Bridge to Bridge 10K Swim

2011-09-10T07:45:00.000-07:00

Route: Golden Gate Bridge to Bay Bridge
Distance: 10Km (~6miles)
Flood Tide: 3+ Knots
Finish Time: 1:34:40 (One Hour Thirty Four minutes and 40 Seconds)

It was Murali Krishna (MK) who pushed a bunch of us to register for the B2B10K swim. He sent out an email saying he had signed up! It does not take much cajoling for this group to sign up. Mouli, Chakri and I signed up. We had all trained well enough (Read Alcatraz and back) and were decently prepared for this swim.

We left Sunnyvale at 5:00am and after picking up MK at the ferry building in San Francisco we made our way to Capurro’s for the pre-swim briefing. After parking our car at the end of a nearly empty Van Ness street, a guy gets out of the next car and strikes up a conversation. He proceeds to explain to us that he intends to swim from the Golden Gate Bridge all the way to the Bay Bridge…6 miles, he said after an appropriate ‘let it sink in’ pause. After a brief silence we told him we were doing the same swim! He felt a bit embarrassed that he had gone on about his swim, but we all had a nice laugh about his boasting.

Race Meeting

Capurro’s was already crowded and bustling when we got there. We collected our yellow caps and our blanket (No T-shirts, medals, buckles – just a nice warm blanket makes up the race bag) signed in and waited for the legendary Bob Roper to begin the meeting. The meeting was quick and all of us first timers had a bunch of questions. Mark Rosen who was pretty much a co-race director was extremely helpful, very patient and really assuring with is answers. There were some ground rules,

1) Be on the boat immediately after this meeting as we will sail at 7:00.
2) Once aboard, get ready and be ready to jump in upon the our orders.
3) Listen to the kayakers and boat captains, their say is final.

Much to our consternation there was very little information about the sighting and swim path that we had to follow. We were told that the kayakers and boats would help us along the way. Just aim for the Aquatic Park entrance and keep going past pier 39, and the pickup boat will be at the base of the Bay Bridge pillar.

We all walked to board the Bay Celebrations and Stan came by. He said he would be biking around to check on our progress and would stay for breakfast after we were done. Once aboard, we set about getting ready. Mouli was doing the swim without a wetsuit! Crazy guy! The rest of us suited up.

On the boat

Around 7:35AM there was a bit of chop and the calm foggy morning had become a windy choppy morning. 7:45AM the call went out, ‘Jump!, jump!, JUMP!’ I saw MK standing at the jump off as I was pretty much pushed off the Bay Celebrations (even though I was ready to jump). The first few minutes in the water were really disorienting and confusing. It felt like the tide was sucking us out under the Golden Gate Bridge towards the open ocean…there were a few muffled screams and concerned shouts as a few swimmers were on the verge of panic. I managed to look back and see that we were not really going back out, but it did seem confusing indeed. I quickly asked the other two swimmers I was with to look back and calm down, I pointed towards the bay and said ‘We go that way…lets go’. There was a follow up ‘Are you sure?’ and I said ‘yes I am’…off we went. The water was choppy and I quickly found myself alone…not a kayak in sight! I just dug my head into the water and plowed on. About 15 minutes in a kayak came into sight and he gave me a ‘thumbs up’, that really felt good and I just pushed on.

About 30 mins in I saw a swimmer waving his hands. I stopped and asked if all was ok, he shouted back (rather calmly) ‘I’ve been bitten by a seal…I need to get out!’ I saw a boat making its way towards him and so I plugged on (The thought of blood and sharks did cross my mind :-)) . I went past the AP opening, past pier 39 and made a right turn to see the Bay Bridge in front of me. The thing about open water is, no matter how close you think the destination is, it is pretty far :-) - I had to ask the kayak for directions as I could not see the Bay Celebrations and was worried I would head past the Bay Bridge. He said I had caught a great line and I should just keep going…another smile and thumbs up…off I went.

Almost done

About an hour and 20 minutes in, a RIB swung by – the lady was waiving her hands and wildly pointing towards the shore…I looked up at the Kayak and he smiled so I just kept going on. The RIB was back in about 5 minutes…she said something to the kayak and he asked me to correct course and make a sharp right towards the shore. Finally I saw the Bay Celebrations! After a bit of struggle I managed to get up that ladder and back on the boat. Most of the swimmers had already finished…and there was a good bit of energy. I grabbed some water and the two folks I had chatted with at the start, came by to say thanks! That was sweet of them. I asked the crew about the weird start and the feeling of being pulled out to the ocean, even though the tide was coming in pretty fast. The explanation was that the boat (Bay Celebrations) was moving into the bay faster than us, so it felt like we were being dragged out into the Pacific!

Done!

A note from the organizers:
"Congratulations to all swimmers on an inspiring and fast swim in challenging conditions of 20 knot winds and 2 foot chop.

Thanks also to all of the pilots, paddle boarders, kayakers, boat captains for ensuring the safety of all swimmers. There is no swim without your great volunteer help!

And many thanks to all other volunteers for spotting, check-in and all around help. Special thanks to SF Police and Fire Department for their support."

It was a good swim and a bit tricky at the start. All in all a very well managed event. Big round of cheers to Bob Roper, Mark Rosen, Lee Bruno and all the volunteers!

Press Release

Mount Whitney - September 5, 2011

2011-09-05T04:00:00.000-07:00

Chakri had a few open reservations for Mt Whitney and he asked me if I wanted to do it. In I was!

Hike: 22 miles out and back. 6,150 feet elevation gain.

Participants: Chakri, Samanvita “Sam”, Krishna, Stan and myself.

Sep 2nd to Sep 5th, 2011

(I have not proofread this post - corrections will be done anon.)

The Plan: Leave on Friday, stay at June Lake Friday night, Lone Pine on Saturday night. Start the hike on Sunday morning, camp at 12K Sunday night. Monday morning 4:00AM start for the summit and head back to the parking lot by Monday evening and drive back home…and back to work on Tuesday.

Friday September 2nd we left for Mount Whitney, we drove across one of my favorite roads, Tioga Pass, as we crossed Yosemite at 9,900 feet and drove down to 395 at Mono Lake. We spent Friday night at a nice Swiss Chalet at June Lake. Morning of Sep 3rd the gang went to see the sun rise at Mono Lake…I decided to sleep in and only awoke once they were back. After a decent breakfast we headed off to Lone Pine, the city at the base of Mt Whitney. Along the way we stopped, ate and took photographs (of food) and pretty much enjoyed the drive on 395 south.

Once we got to Lone Pine we stopped at the rangers office and collected our passes and WAG Bags. WAG Bags are basically large specifically made garbage bags that one has to collect ones human waste in and carry it back to the trail head for disposal (Mandatory 'Pack it out' program instated by Inyo National Forest). This is done to ensure that the Whitney trail, streams, lakes and wild life are not destroyed by a deluge of human poop. The normal ‘dig, crap & cover’ is not allowed due to the heavy traffic on the trail (aren’t you glad you are more enlightened now). That done, we settled into our hostel room (2 bunk beds and Chakri took the carpet). We sat and sorted through our bags, consolidating the food, fuel and other items so as to minimize the amount to carry up the trail.

Sunday morning (4th), after a good breakfast (which I skipped in lieu of 2 cups of coffee) we drove to the Whitney Portal (8360 feet) which is the start of the trail. There is a lot of bear activity at the Portal and due to the many cars parked there the bears have gotten used to checking and breaking open cars with food left inside. Given that it was my car :-) I made sure everything was removed and packed into the bear lockers. Just as Chakri was directing me into a rather tight parking spot I saw a black bear about 10 feet behind him! I kept waving my hands and pointing & he thought I was asking for more directions! Finally he saw the bear and managed a quick photograph just as it ran into the bushes. Once we were done packing and cleaning, off we went on a nice easy paced hike to Trail Camp at 12,000 feet. The hike was about 6.3 miles with about 3,640 feet of elevation. My backpack was weighed in at 32 pounds, I did not carry my tent as Sam and I decided to share a tent.

At the start

The hike was nice and easy paced – the trail was single track and we had to make frequent stops to let people pass as it is a very busy and popular trail. Stan was in his element, jogging around and taking photographs of bear turd (he said it was bear turd...I have no idea...he could have missed his WAG bag for all I know). We met a couple training for their Himalayan Base Camp trek – I kept pace with them for a while, stopped and chatted about what their diet was and how they made this trip here as often as they could in the past few months...they had been up to Whitney several times recently and were testing out altitude sickness pills. The Diamox was causing some side effects and she was not too happy, but she would carry on and see how long the side effects lasted.

All of us stopped for lunch overlooking Lone Pine Lake – it was a nice spot and we spend about 30-45 mins resting and eating. All along I was feeling fine, drinking enough water and moving on at a steady pace. After lunch I pushed on with Stan and after a while I was walking alone (Stan probably stopped to photograph more poop) – after a while I decided to stop and wait for the others. I relaxed and the wait turned out to be close to 30 mins as the rest had stopped to take photographs. I met Steve (Stephen Rodzevik) who was backpacking the John Muir Trail over 15 days. We chatted for a while and since he too was camping at the Trail Camp he said he would meet us there.

Lunch

As we passed the Outpost Camp site at 10,000 feet I thought we had reached our destination...I quickly dumped my backpack and claimed a decent spot for our tents. Stan came by and smiled, ‘we have a bit more to go, this is the Outpost Camp not the Trail Camp’ so off we went again. We made it to the Trail Camp – some of the sections leading in were a bit sketchy but not too bad. There were a lot of campers out there already, some leaving, some coming, it was a busy place. Stan had found a spot for us and as I put my pack down, I saw a few used wag bags lying around...ugh! Why do people not behave responsibly and carry their ‘shit’ back with them! Disgusting! I shifted campsites, as Steve found us a few good spots near where he had pitched his tent. Once everyone came in, we set up tents. The wind had picked up and it was COLD. We started our stoves and cooked up some dinner. All of us huddled behind a rock trying to stay away from the wind...did I say all? Well all except Stan, he was still in his shorts! The kid is crazy! Anyway, I ate a bit, not too much as I was really cold and tucked in for the night. The tents were really flapping in the wind and around 1:00am I stepped out for natures call...the night sky was spectacular! Reminded me of the star studded skies in Muscat,Oman. It was still breezy but not all that cold.

We were up at 3:30am and after a quick breakfast we started for the summit. We just carried day packs and left our tents and packs at the campsite, the packing up would be done upon our return. There was a long line of headlamps heading up the 99 switchbacks. I had about 3 liters of water on me and some gels. I had on several layers and a jacket but I was still cold! We began the trek real slowly as it was dark. Stan had taken off and was already way ahead of us. The switch backs were painful, you don’t really feel like you are making any progress at all. After a while I could not hold a slow pace as I was beginning to shiver, so I picked up the pace. As I crested the switchbacks the sun was coming up, I was dying for some sunlight and warmth. Stan was making his way back towards me (he did this out and back several times during the day) and saw me shivering, he said something to the effect that the other side is sunny so I should be fine in a few mins. I followed him to a spot that had a superb view of the valley and some much need sunlight. I sat there for about 5 mins to warm up. Chakri, Sam & Krishna were just behind taking photographs.

Section of the trail

After that short break I started heading back up the trail...there was a downhill section after the switch backs and that irritated me because it meant that there were more up hills coming. I met Steve, he was on his way down! He packed up and left early as he wanted to be on the trail quickly. He looked at me and shook his head, ‘you need to keep moving, you are really shivering’, I laughed (or I thought it was a laugh!) and moved on wishing him a safe trip. Some of the sections were a bit tricky, narrow with a steep drop-offs on one side...I’m not really good with that kind of terrain and the shivering was not helping. There were a lot of folks on the trail and I stopped and gave way to just about everyone. My heart rate was shooting up to 170+ after every few steps! I would stop, bring it back down to 100, and start again. At one point I thought I was beginning to cramp...I sat and massaged it out. A couple stopped and asked if I was ok and looked a bit concerned when I said I’ll be fine. Slowly I made it to a spot where you could see the cabin on the summit (you can see that for a long time). There was a 15 meter section of the trail covered with packed snow, that really bothered me. Stan was at the other end and he shouted out “Get low, stay low”. My running shoes were sliding around a bit, but with some help of a hiker coming down I made the last bit. Stan walked me to the top...phew! I was tired and did not bother to look around much :-). I managed a photograph and just sat down and waited for the others. Stan ran (yes ran!) back to get the others.

Sam @ Snow crossing

At the top

The wheels come off!!

Once we all rested for a bit, I borrowed some water from Krishna, and Chakri said he would stay with me as I was not feeling all that great. Chakri, Sam and Krishna were tired too, but holding up much better than I was. As we headed down I noticed my fingers were swollen and my balance was not all there – bit of a problem but not too bad. We stopped often as I was getting tired and I began to suffer a bit more with some perception issues. My depth perception seemed off, I was reaching for the rocks but I was a few inches off...weird feeling indeed and not too calming when you are on a steep mountain! Chakri was always a few steps behind and kept engaging me in some conversation to keep me focused. I was out of water by the time I had reached the 99 switchbacks, Chakri shared some of his and we made slow progress. There were a few hairy moments but we kept plugging along. Then about a few miles from the camp (It seemed like a few miles!) I saw Stan coming back up! What a dude! He had water with him and he made us drink up and accompanied us back to the camp. I just collapsed for about 30 mins and tried to get some sleep.

At around 5:00pm we started to pack up the tents. I struggled with my sleeping bag and finally Sam/Krishna took over and packed it for me! They also packed the tent as I stood around half dead (Thank you guys!). We loaded up for the 6.3 mile hike back to the Portal. I was fine and my energy was coming back. I started to feel better – it was late and not many people on the trail. We passed the Outpost campsite and I started feeling really tired...it was that deep exhaustion you get when your body is saying no to every movement. I stopped at a small stream crossing...stared at the few rocks I was to hop across...Chakri asked if I was ok...I mumble something and just about made it across.

Chakri stream crossing

Five minutes later, I was done! I just sat down and said, ‘guys, you all can carry on to Lone Pine, I need to stop’. There ensued a long debate/discussion as to what needed to be done. I tried to stuff some food into my system, but it revolted. I was done! Finally everyone decided that we would walk back to the Outpost Campsite and stay the night. Krishna carried my backpack and since we were out of food, Sam borrowed some from other hikers coming down from Whitney. Sam/Krishna/Stan/Chakri (Rock Stars!!) set up my tent and my sleeping bag...I just crawled in and tried to sleep. I struggled for a bit with a blocked nose and a queasy stomach before I drifted off to a deep sleep. I could tell Sam was really worried as she saw me sitting up in the tent for a good 10 mins before I drifted off to sleep. What an amazing bunch of folks! I am glad I was with them for they really took care of me. Thanks a million you wonderful people.

I was sure there was a bit of panic back home as Renuka was not sure what was going on and she was expecting us back that evening. Stan and Krishna walked about half a mile from the camp site at night to find cell phone reception and finally called home to let them all know we were ok and would be back the next day.

Morning it was a different me! All the energy was back the fingers had come back to normal! We made our way down packed up and drove back to Lone Pine – All of us called our respective managers for the day off (Tuesday was a working day) then headed back to the hostel for a nice long shower. After stopping at Mono Lake for a quick tour we got back home at 10:00pm!

End! Still leaning on Chakri

It was an eventful trip for me and I must say my first brush with altitude above 10,000 feet was not very good :-) But I am glad I was with the folks I was with, the company, food and all the help was just awesome!

Sam, Stan, Chakri & Krishna you guys ROCK!

3 Mile swim (Alcatraz and Back)

2011-08-22T06:30:00.000-07:00

After our trip to Ansel Adams, Murali Krishna asked me to arrange a long open water swim in preparation for the Bridge to bridge 10K (6.2 mile) swim.

I got Gary Emich’s contact from Tandy/Doug and set up an Aquatic Park (AP) to Alcatraz and back swim for Monday August 22nd.

We got to South End Rowing Club bright and early and after a quick tour of the facilities – Gary explained the tides and the various signals he would be using to keep us bunched together. Chakri and I were still a little sore from our 50 mile run on Saturday. I was hobbling around with a few large blisters...but the cool bay waters would be good for the sore legs.

Given that we were heading out at the peak of the flood tide (6:30 AM SHARP), we had to aim to the west of Alcatraz and the slowing tide would drift us towards Alcatraz Island. Gary asked us to get suited up and wait for the horn at Aquatic Park. There we stood; Chakri, Mouli, Murali Krishna (MK) and I waiting for the large yellow RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat) to show up at the opening of AP (The RIB was not allowed to enter AP). 6:30 sharp the fog horn wet off and through the murky light of dawn we could just about make the outlines of the RIB. The four of us started off and we stayed together as we slipped out into the bay. Once out in the bay, Gary pointed to the direction he wanted us to swim and off we went. Slowly, as the sun rose, we could see the outline of Alcatraz and Gary kept the boat to the east of us so we would not be sucking in all that exhaust.

Out of Aquatic Park

The going was good and the water was calm. Being a left side breather I had to make an adjustment to keep the boat in sight (it was on my right) – Mouli and MK were 5 to 10 meters ahead and Chakri and I stayed together. We had all discussed that we would stay in a group, so every few minutes Mouli and MK would stop and wait for us to catch up. Once we settled in to a decent pace we kept drifting to the east (tide coming in) and Gary would point us to the west…finally we made it to the island and stood up on the rocky beach on the west end of Alcatraz. My wetsuit had begun to chaff around the neck and was getting a bit irritating. After a brief break (about a min) we headed back. The tide had begun to shift and was now moving west (out to the ocean).

AT ALCATRAZ

On the way GGB in the background

On the way back my goggles started leaking and I had to keep clearing them, no matter what I did it just would not seal tight! As we swam on the tide and wind picked up and Gary kept pointing us to the east. The AP opening is pretty tricky and can’t really be seen from the bay. Then we heard Gary say something but I could not hear him or follow what he was trying to say. MK said we need to swim to the wall on the west of AP, that did not make sense to me as we were to head inside AP. I kept fighting the current and trying to head to the opening...finally I swam close to the boat and asked Gary what was going on. He said we missed the opening and the tide was too fast to try swimming to it, he said 'aim for the rock wall' to the west of the opening. Off we went, I saw the buoy zipping past me...well it was actually me zipping past the buoy :-) the tide was moving really quick. I looked back and saw that Chakri was still close, so I started a sprint to the wall (I thought it was a sprint). I got to the rocks and stood up, and cut my feet on those sharp rocks. Then headed back to the boat.

As I climbed onto the boat Chakri came by and we told him that he had to touch the wall and then come back to the boat, so off he went :-). Gary looked at us laughing and said, "I'm sure Chakri is saying, 'what a bunch of bastards'..." :-). Once Chakri was on board, I patched up my cuts and off we went for a nice warm shower and back to a normal day at work.

ALL DONE

Big thanks to Gary, he is an awesome guy.
Gary Emich web site: Lane Lines to Shore Lines

Run-de-vous (50 mile run)

2011-08-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

Run-de-vous endurance runs
(All photographs from Rajeev Patel's race page: http://rajeevtherunner.sports.officelive.com/PhotoandVideo.aspx)

When Rajeev Patel sent out an email saying he was organizing an ultra race to celebrate the people you love, I was in. My brother had just been diagnosed with cancer and was getting ready for chemo. I signed up and said I will run to help him fight his cancer...that was April. By the time he was ready for chemo, the cancer had already metastasized and spread, and on May 24th he passed away. After coming back from India, training was the last thing on my mind and I kind of fell back on a lot training. Swimming seemed the only activity that gave me some relief. Come August and I was chatting with Anu Singh and Patel and I said that since I was not ready for the 50 miler I would skip the race...I immediately got emails from them saying I HAD to do it in Raghu's memory :-) - so well, off I went to run, jog, walk & crawl my way to the finish.

My final impetus for the race came when 15 year old Nishad Singh (Raj & Anu Singh's son, coached by Rajeev Patel) was running his 24 hour run in preparation for his first 100 miler. I was inspired and thought, 'let me go and run with him for a few hours and see how I feel'. I hung around with Nishad and stayed on my feet for about 6 hours walking, running, jogging around the tracks. That evening I knew I could do the 50 mile run without hurting myself :-). Nishad went on to run 60+ miles in 24 hours, he is an incredible kid.

Renuka and I went for the carbo load dinner at Bucca-de-beppos in Palo Alto and met all the other runners. It was great to meet Alan Geraldi after years! This is the crazy guy who helped push me towards doing my first Ironman race in 2002. After a nice evening exchanging stories with all the ultra veterans we headed back for a good nights sleep.

We got to the start at 5:15am and after setting my things up, I headed to the start line where Race Director Rajeev Patel was giving some last minute tips. On my request he played the Beatles song 'In my life' in memory of my brother. That was a really nice gesture and I thank all the other runners for indulging me this request. 6:00AM sharp we were off, whooping and cheering in a chilly, foggy morning. I had decided to run a fast(ish) 19 miler in training for Twin Cities Marathon on Oct 2nd, 2011, then slow down to a decent pace for the next 10 miles and then jog/walk the rest. The race was around a flat 2 mile loop and it was nice because you got to the aid station every 30 mins or so and there were always plenty of folks cheering, helping and ready to walk a few laps with you.

(a walk break)

I kept to the plan and then walked a few laps. Alan and I kept company for a while then he took off. It was nice talking to the other ultra athletes, a few of them were regulars at the 100 mile circuits and it was great getting race and training tips from them. Nishad was in fine form and he had his AWESOME friends with him. These kids must have each run well over 45 miles for sure. Bill McCarthy was there too running his first 100 miler, Bill has always been a big inspiration and it was nice meeting him. Anju came by and she kept me company for close to 6 loops (may be more) and it was nice catching up with her and hearing about her recent world travels.

(My right Anju, left Sahana and Eshaan)

The miles just melted away, and before I knew it I was done with my first ultra. The only damage was a few blisters on my feet.

(the finish: 11:22:44)

Next morning Renuka and I came back to help others finish their 100 mile races. It was humbling to see all these folks pushing and willing themselves on, they had been running through the night! I walked with Alan for a few miles and then cheered as all of them came in to finish. Such an amazing bunch of folks. After helping Rajeev Patel and his crew wrap up all the stuff, I took a bike ride around the 2 mile lap to ensure that there was no trash on the trail, I must say that the runners were very good at keeping the trail clean.

(Nishad & Alan with their 100 mile finishers buckles)

Big thank you to Patel, all the volunteers and folks who came to cheer the runners. This was a fun race and I'll probably be back next year again.

Rest In Peace Raghu, you are missed...more than you you know.

Ansel Adams Wilderness: Lillian Lake Loop (August 13th to 15th

2011-08-15T15:19:00.000-07:00

Ansel Adams Wilderness: Lillian Lake Loop (August 13th to 15th)Thanks to Chakri for inviting us to the Lillian Lake Loop backpacking trip. This was Renuka's first backpacking trip and I was hoping that she would enjoy the awesome experience.The planning involved about 80 emails :-) but we finally nailed it down to 7 of us (First timers: Renuka & Megha, Chakri, Stan, Abhijit, Krishna and I). We left the Bay Area around 3:30pm on Friday Aug 12th and stayed at the Sky Ranch in Oakhurst, CA. As soon as we checked in we worked our way to the bar. Sky Ranch is a nice cozy place tucked away in a corner of Oakhurst. The bar (The Branding Iron) is supposed to be part of a 100 year old converted mountain ranch, and has a nice old bar feel to it. The walls around the bar are covered with dollar bills signed with memories of past patrons. As we walked in the bar was closing, but the extremely friendly bartender Johnnie Rae (an Elvis impersonator) opened the bar for us. All of us has a few drinks, Abhijit and I had a few few more :-) - The evening was great with Johnnie bringing out his guitar and singing a few Elvis songs for the 5 of of still at the bar.

(Rest stop)

(Renuka)

We began our drive up to the trail head at Clover Meadow at around 9:30am. The road to the trail head was really bad, most of it was potholed and in terrible shape. After squeezing into the packed trail head parking lot we set off on the Walton/Fernandez trail towards our first campsite, Flat Lake. With about 30lbs on our backs we made our way up to Flat Lake. Some of the climbs were tough but by and large the 7 miles there were beautiful and everyone made it without any issues. The only problem we had was the immense amount of mosquitoes in the area...just swarming. Thankfully we all had head-nets and plenty of repellent. Once we got to Flat Lake we set up camp and found a nice fireplace build with rugged stones. After we were all settled, I took a quick dip into the lake to freshen up and were all set for an evening with a small fire, a sip of vodka and some dried 'Mountain House' food packs.

(Flat Lake campsite)

We were up and packed by 10am the next morning and made our way back to the Lillian Loop (Flat Lake takes a small detour off the main trail and is on an extension of the Fernandez trail) and continued in our anti-clock wise direction towards Lillian Lake. The route to Lillian was a bit more challenging than yesterdays trip to Flat Lake, so Stan, Abhijit and I did some out and back runs to relieve others off their backpacks for short steep climbs. We made it to Lillian and hung around for an hour. Then we made our way towards Staniford Lakes. Once at Staniford (around 12:30pm) we stopped and tried to figure out our next step. So Chakri, Abhijit and Stan decided to head up to Chittenden Lake (our next campsite) and set up a few tents and then come back for the rest of us at Staniford. Megha, Renuka, Krishna and I climbed our way to the largest of the Staniford Lakes and found an awesome spot to rest and swim. The water was clear and cool, I'd hazard it was in the low 60s (F).Stan, Chakri and Abhijit joined us about 2.5 hours later and after we all had a good swim we headed for Chittenden Lake which had a decent climb and an unclear, rocky trail. The climb there was one place a lot of us were not very comfortable. Some of those ledges seems a bit hairy specially when you have 35lbs on your back :-). But the campsite was awesome, Chittenden Lake reminded me a lot of Minarets Lake, rocky, clear and edged with snow. With all the tents set up we settled in to watch the sunset and moon rise and then for another nice evening with a campfire, jokes, a few drinks and food.

Chittenden Lake

By far the highlight of the day was the swim at Staniford.

(Staniford Lake)

The next morning we headed back to the trailhead with a brief stop at Vandeburg Lake (we skipped Lady Lake as we were getting a bit tired) - The trip back was easier as we were dropping from the 9000s back to the 7000s.

(Renuka at Chittenden)

(Renuka[in blue] and Megha on our way back)

2011 – Well Begun Is Half Done

2011-05-04T10:32:00.000-07:00

It has been 10 years since my first marathon (Napa Marathon – March 2001) and I thought the best way to celebrate it was to go back and run Napa again. 10 years! Wow! Hard to believe indeed. I still remember Rajeev Patel talking to me about marathons back in 1999 and 2000. He was well into marathon running by then and was ready to impart his encyclopedic knowledge to anyone who showed even a little interest in running. It was around that time that I had fallen into the bad company of ultra athletes, such as Alan Geraldi, and it did not take long for Alan to convenience me of signing up for an Ironman in the next few years (I did my first IM in 2002).
The other milestone I hit was 20 years of doing triathlons, starting from my first race in Bombay back in 1990.

2011 – Well Begun Is Half Done.
Races: San Francisco Half (Feb 6th), Napa Marathon (March 6th) & Big Sur Marathon (May 1st)
San Francisco – Kaiser Half Marathon
I started 2011 in decent shape, my normal winter hibernation was shortened due to my signing up for an early Ironman race (Ironman Texas – which I will not be doing). I had been training since December and decided to run the San Francisco Half marathon in Feb (Kaiser half). The half went well…well, not really, but kinda OK – I did not PR and I did feel a bit of that ‘aw, shucks, I could be sleeping right now’ feeling coming on around mile 9 and just backed off and finished in 1:42:36. I just did not feel fresh at all. I carried on with training and put in a few more decent rides/swims/runs and took off for Napa Marathon a month later.
Napa Marathon – (My 5th time running this race)
We had a good group running, Chakri, Mouli, Krishna, Vinod and Anil. All folks I admire and have raced with them in the past. Chakri, Krishna, Mouli, Renuka and I had a wonderful pre race dinner at Fume in Napa (Nice place) and once we realized it was going to be a wet race day, we enjoyed the evening a bit more..may be a bit too much :-). I was up early on race day and walked to the finish line where the busses took us to the start. It was drizzling and a bit cold. Once I got to the start I just stayed in the bus till about 20 minutes before the start. Then on to the Porta John lines (far too few portas). The drizzle was light but constant and I just did not feel that ‘race feeling’ at all. (Napa in 2001 was wet, windy and cold! Napa in 2011 was wet but a lot better than it was 10 years ago.) We took off and I decided to aim for an easy 4 hour run or just under. I met a few other Indians running and chatted a while – since I was carrying my phone with me I was keeping them and myself updated with the cricket world cup match going on (India V. Ireland)…with spotty cell phone reception is was a tad bit frustrating. As the race progressed I met Vinod and he was suffering from painful blisters – we walked together for a mile or so (I had pretty much decided to slow down and did not really feel like running) – the course was beautiful with vineyards on both sides – green hills and foggy conditions, felt like I was back home in England (I’ve never been there).

(Some photographs along the way)

Finished the race in 4:12:48 and headed home. It was around then I decided that I needed a break. Over the next few days/weeks/month the rains came back to the bay Area with a vengeance and my training suffered (especially the bike)…

Snow on Kings Mountain/Skyline.

In April I decided to drop out of Ironman Texas and just take a break from training.

Big Sur Marathon:
Nandini (my sister), Renuka and I had signed up to run Big Sur – they were to run the 21 miler and I was going to run the Marathon with Arun Simha…Nandini switched to the full marathon and after an injury Renuka switched to the 9 miler, I decided to run the race with Nandini. In hind sight that was a good decision as Arun went on to run an amazing race and set a PR on a very tough Big Sur course. I doubt I would have kept up with that 4:18:50 pace..HUGE CONGRATS TO ARUN…he really has trained hard for this and had an amazing run. Nandini, Satyan and I finished the race about 1.5 miles short as they closed the 1.5 mile out and back Point Lobo loop to us by the time we got there (I was happy!). Renuka went on to finish the 9 miler (with no training in the last two months) she had a blast and enjoyed the awesome day we had. Bright blue skies, blue as blue can be Pacific and green rolling hills…sheer beauty! We did the 24.5 miles in just under 6 hours. It is a really really beautiful course and a must do race for all runners.

At Safeway keeping warm

Complaint: I have to say that the Big Sur organizers really did screw up the morning for all of us. They insisted that we get bussed to the start and then did not make any provisions to keep us warm! We were at the start at 4:20AM! It was FREEZING!! Thank god for Safeway, they let us squat in their aisles for almost 2 hours.

Lesson from this year…take a break in winter…after a hard 2010 season I needed a break (mentally) and should have taken it. Training through winter (specially biking) is not my thing. Running and swimming was fine, but biking was hard with it being cold and wet on the hills.

Next steps…skip Ironman Texas and concentrate on a decent run at Twin Cities in October. I may do the Vineman Iron distance race again, but right now am not really thinking about it.

Other news:
Asha 2011 season has begun, the SF, East Bay, South Bay and biking programs are well attended and full of enthusiastic new runners.
The Asha Alumni continue to excel in other events such as ultra running and triathlons:
Chandrika Srinivasan finished her first Half Ironman at the Napa Vintage Half Ironman Race.
Srikanth Dola and Megha Chawla took their first steps into the wonderful world of triathlons by participating in the Wildflower and Napa Vintage sprint races respectively.
Congrats to all of them and others who have kept up the racing and cross training that triathlons give you.

Chartoon - Hitting the Wall!

2010-10-26T21:33:00.001-07:00

Nice read: "Metabolic Factors Limiting Performance in Marathon Runners" - by B. I. Rapoport.

The research paper:

The math got to me, hence the pathetic cartoon attempt. :-)

2010 - Season

2010-10-25T15:46:00.000-07:00

2010 season highlights:

> Chakri & Mouli finished their first Ironman Distance race (Full Vineman)
> Nandini (my sister) Finished her first Marathon (Chicago marathon)
> Murali Krishna, Vinay Kini, Mahesh Palekar, Rajeev Shankar finished their first half Ironman triathlon (Wildflower and Vineman 70.3)
> Team Asha bike program was launched and was a huge success, they completed 60 and 100 mile rides! Big thank you to the coaches, Lyresa, Jeff and my good friend Stan Ho for guiding them through the season. (more bikers = more triathletes :-)) Thanks to Megha and Dilip as well for starting the program.

My 2010 season was great, other than a minor knee issue, it was relatively injury free. I ran The Twin Cities marathon in 3:32:33, my best time so far, but I missed out on qualifying for Boston Marathon by 94 seconds! Close but no cigar :-)..Ah well, next time.

My on going FUND RAISING EFFORTS for Asha for Education:
I have raised over $2,000.00 so far. here is my runnernet donation page, please do DONATE if you can. (Thank you in advance)

My races for 2010 were:

Big Sur Marathon 4/25/10 & Wildflower Triathlon 5/1/10

2010-05-12T13:27:00.000-07:00

(The group at Big Sur - prerace dinner)

BIG SUR Marathon - probably one of the most beautiful courses around. We get to run north on Highway 1 from Big Sur to Carmel - 26.2 miles of beautiful coastline. Arun Simha and I had run this in 2006 and he wanted to do it again in 2010. Having signed up for the race very early I forgot and also signed up for the Wildflower Half Ironman the week after Big Sur! With a 3 week trip out of the country just before the race I was in absolutely no shape to run this race. But hey! it is BIG SUR...you don't have to 'run' this you just enjoy the experience. We were really lucky to have a perfect day - clear sky, blue ocean and just superb views. Anil Rao, Arun & I ran together. Arun is great shape and he just eased through this race with virtually no issues at all. We had Chandrika, Balu, Vinita, Gargi, Kini brothers, Anup - runing the full Gayathri (21 miler) and a bunch of folks running the relay (Arul, Shishir, Roli, Anil, Meenakshi, Rahul, Deepa....the list goes on)

We took a bunch of photographs and just enjoyed the race.

(Arun, Rajeev, Anil)

(Bixby Bridge - Big Sur marathon 4/25/10))

(The Jagged Edge of the world - Big Sur marathon 4/25/10)

WILDFLOWER half Ironman distance Triathlon (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run)- May 1, 2010

I've heard about Wildflower triathlon for years. I was told that it is a 'must do race'. It’s the 'Woodstock' of triathlons. The thought of camping the night before the race always put me off from participating. I like my creature comforts on race morning. However, this year was different...I finally signed up and after a lot of back and forth I decided to camp with the others before the race. We left the Bay Area around 1:30 in the afternoon on Friday and by the time we got there all the campsites looked full! Luckily Vinod Herur had done the race in 2007 and he knew the layout of the campsites, we drove about 1.5 miles out to the other end of the park and found a decent spot to pitch our tents. Rajeev Shankar & Chakri were doing their first half, Rajendra Kadam, Vinod and Swamy were doing the relay. Mouli & Veena had come in earlier and picked their own campsite. With registration done we headed back for a dinner of pasta and curd rice (yea! South Indians in the house Yo!) – We settled in for a cold cold night. We had a bit of a slope and I kept sliding down during the night, I did not get much sleep.

(The Indian Flag at the finish line)

(the group - after registration)

We were up at 5:00am – packed up the tents, Chakri helped in setting up the stove and we had a cup of coffee…hmmm good! We rode a couple of miles to the start line. It was a sea of bikes! What a sight! Lots of people and lots of energy. My wave was at 9:00am – the lake looked beautiful – BLUE water and calm. The swim was great, took my time at the transition – got on to the bike – the legs felt a bit tired, but within a few miles I was fine. The ride was fun – chatted with a lot of folks along the way, met Chakri and Rajeev Shankar – the last 10-15 miles of the ride was challenging (I remembered most of the ride from having done it with Rajesh back in 2006). Coming into the transition I was feeling great, but I had no idea what the run course was like.
(My tent - the morning getting ready)

(Lake San Antonio)

The run is a mixture of road and off road (more off road) and man was it hilly! I met Mouli at the start and he was struggling with severe stomach issues, we ran together for a bit and then I took off (Mouli dropped out at mile 7, his stomach issue was getting worse). Rajeev Shankar was in fine form and he was running well. As we hit the hills I was walking the hills and jogging the down hills – the trail dust was a bit thick in places – but the views were beautiful. The CalPoly volunteers were full of life and were constantly cheering. I started cramping at mile 6, after borrowing a few salt tabs from a runner managed to get a few more miles of running before beginning to cramp again around mile 10. I walked / jogged the rest and finished felling good but a bit irritated that I had forgotten to carry my salt tabs! Doug, Rajeev Shankar and I had finished around the same time. We met up with Mouli, Veena, Vinod, and settled in to wait for Chakri and Swamy to come in.

(Bike transition)

Chakri finished his first half Ironman distance race - and as he ran in we heard the announcer calling out his name and adding "Representing Team Asha" good show Chakri - you picked a tough race and finished it in style. Big congrats to both Rajeev Shankar and Chakri on their first Half Ironman finish.

The next day Murali Krishna (Asha SF), Venkat Subbiah (Asha SV) & Tandy finished the Wildflower Olympic dist race. CONGRATS!!

(Post race)

Dallas White Rock Marathon Dec 13, 2009

2009-12-14T12:50:00.000-08:00

(With the Asha Dallas folks)

With Shri and Madhu moving to Dallas earlier in the year and buying a lovely place, it was a must that we all got there to pay them a visit. Of course the Dallas White Rock Marathon was a perfect excuse to get there and have a party! Renuka, Arul, Gayathri, Rajeev Patel & I flew in from SV and Nandu, Ravin, Rohan and Mallika flew in from Chicago. We had great time at The Rajan house. They hosted a prerace dinner for the Asha Dallas runners which was a blast!

Race morning was cool and calm - Patel was running with my niece Mallika, helping her finish her first half marathon. Congrats Mallika!! I accompanied Nandini for a while and after the half marathon turn off I ran with a few Asha runners. Rajeev Patel also continued on after the half to help a lot of Asha runners through the marathon race. Madhu ran a good race and got her PR! Way to go Madhu! Gayathri ran the half, her second of the year after San Jose RnR! We had great support from Shri, Arul, Renuka, Rohan and Ravin.

White Rock marathon is a nice flat race – it starts in downtown Dallas, circles the lake and heads back into downtown Dallas. It is a well organized race and has pockets of good crowd support. With good friends now settled in Dallas this could become a regular on my marathon circuit.

Chicago Marathon Oct 11, 2009

2009-10-12T11:00:00.000-07:00

(Team Asha runners - before the start)

This was my 5th year of running the Chicago Marathon with Team Asha and I was looking forward to improving my PR by about 5 minutes.

The hotel offered us breakfast at 4:30am which was a blessing - there was a lot of nervous energy and excited faces - but most of all, a lot of concern about the temp...it was COLD! While we were in the bus heading out to the start the temp was 28F (-2C)!! It was not snowing but it was COLD. After a quick warm up I headed out to the start. The temp warmed up to about 33F and then topped out at 40F. I kept pace with the 3:45:00 pace group and eased into a 3:44:07 finish.

All our runners came in beaming and smiling, they really enjoyed the race. Almost all of them had set their personal best times. The cold weather seemed to have helped us Californians.

Asha Chicago had done a superb job, our tent in the charity village was heated and there was awesome food & massages awaiting us post race. I love this race, there is just so much energy in this city and the support is amazing. Looking forward to running Chicago 10/10/10 with my sister...it will be her first marathon.

2009 update & Vineman August 1, 2009

2009-09-21T16:19:00.000-07:00

(Photograph by - Rashmi)

It took a reminder from Stan for me to get started on my race report for Vineman 2009.

First order of business is to congratulate my friends on their accomplishments:
Big congrats to our first time Vineman (Iron distance race) Finishers.
Doug Obester, Abhijit Karmarkar, Nick French & Karen Bonnett – Welcome to the club!

Relay teams for the Vineman
Chandramouli “Mouli” Balasubramanian (swim) and Anil Rao (Bike & Run) – Anil is now just a short swim away from an Ironman race finish.
Tandy Chouljian (swim), Kevin Sorensen (bike) & Tony Fong (run) – they won their age group.

Manisha Ghosh, Som Ghosh and Stan Ho also participated but had to stop due to bike issues (Manisha/Som) and severe GI issues for Stan (his race report). They really toiled hard but at times mechanical issues and stomach melt-downs are beyond our control. Stan has continued training and has his mind set on his big race in November “The Silverman” Triathlon. Best of luck to him.

Congrats to my sister, Nandini - she started running this year and has finished 2 half marathons in Chicago! Way to go Dini!

100 mile and over 100 mile runs:
Anu Singh joined the elite group of 100 mile run finishers – Rajeev Patel accompanied her and finished his nth century race
Rajeev Patel ran an incredible 186 miles of a 250 mile Thames Ring race in the UK
Anush Elangovan for his Mt Denali expedition.

Further congrats to the Next Generation of athletes – Manisha’s son Samir (age 13) swam the Catfish 2.4 mile swim without a wetsuit and finished in 1:55, Som’s 10 year old daughter Shewli swam the Alcatraz swim and dedicated her swim to breast cancer survivors! (Her Blog) Anu Singh’s son Nishad ran 25 miles with Anu as her pacer during her 100 mile run…all incredible and budding athletes.

Tandy, Doug and I participated in the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon, we had a wonderful time on a perfect day in beautiful San Francisco. The swim was different from the 4 prior crossings I’ve done – as there were 1000+ swimmers jumping off the San Francisco Belle. A few weeks before the race Doug & Tandy invited me to join them on a trial swim – the 3 of us swam with the Race Director guiding us through the sighting process and coaching us on the areas to avoid during the swim. It was beautiful and one just cannot help but stop and gawk at the city of San Francisco from the water. It looks so beautiful with the Golden Gate bridge to your right and the Bay Bridge to your left and the cold bay water surrounding you in a protective embrace (Yeah right!! The last bit was just a bit much!).

(Photograph by - Vinod)

Now on to August 1st and the Vineman – the drive in on Friday was PAINFUL! The traffic was just UN-BEE-LEE-VA-BAL! Anil, Renuka and I drove up together. After getting there we registered, met Tony, Doug, Tandy, Abhijit, Stan, Manisha and Som. Checked into our rooms and headed for dinner. Tony, Karen and Kevin could not join us but the rest of us has a super time at dinner and we headed back to the hotel for an early night.

(Dinner)

(Post dinner pix - showing off our race band)

Race morning was fantastic – it was cool with some mist hanging low over the water and some fog rolling in. Met Kevin, he was pumped and ready for his promised 5 hour ride! After the body marking was done I headed off to catch my swim wave. The swim was crowded and shallow. The turnaround point was so shallow that I had to stand up as my hands were scraping the bottom.

After a quick change I was on my bike – Abhijit was right there with me we rode out together and then I decided to make use of the lovely weather and took off. About 10 miles into the race I hear a booming “GO Raj – turn those legs arooound”...Kevin zooms by me beaming...he was like a speeding freight train – I felt I was standing still! Wow! He was flying. I went on and around mile 35-40 I felt some pain around my right knee...expecting it to go away I pushed on and unfortunately by the time I reached the half way point the knee was hurting pretty badly. Tandy was waiting at the 56 mile special needs station, cheering us on. Nick was there too – he was feeling good and we chatted a bit as I tried to stretch. After borrowing some sun block from him we both took off.

(Special needs - mile 56 - with Nick- pix by Tandy)

By mile 70 I could not get into the big gears at all – the knee was really hurting...I was spinning in the easy gears and dreaded the thought of having 40 more miles of spinning to do! Man was that boring as hell...Doug flew by me and cheered me on – he was looking really good. Around mile 85 Anil and Abhijit caught up with me and we rode for a while – I stopped to stretch and I lost both of them as they powered on. After what seemed like an eternity (it was my slowest bike time EVER) I got to the transition – switched into my running gear and took off (well limped off) and I saw Tony swinging back on his second lap. (Tandy swam a 1:22 swim, Kevin took 5:09 and Tony eventually ran a 3:01 marathon – A 9:40:24 finish!)

(Kevin and Tandy)

(Tony finishing)

After cheering Tony on I saw Stan walking...WALKING! Now Stan does not walk, I stopped and asked him if all was well. He seemed to be in really bad shape, said he could not hold anything down and was really cramping. I told him to hang on and gave him a salt tablet and some water, he promptly spat it out (or threw it up). Stan said he would walk from aid station to aid station and see if he could make it, but he was in a pretty bad shape. He carried on and Abhijit and I ran on for a bit. I was power walking at this stage and Anil soon caught up. Doug was in fine form as he ran through for a super finish. As we jogged/walked through the finish of the second lap Anil said "come on we can go under 15 hours if you jog a bit faster from here on out". So off I went trying to keep up with him. Vinod, Rush, Renuka, Gurpreet, Krishna, Deepu, Chakri, Mouli, Tandy were all out there cheering us on. Arul who was a race volunteer was marshalling the mile one section which also was the last point before the finish – he was AWESOME in cheering and being out there for over 6 hours!

After a 5 hour 18 min Marathon I was done – my finish time was 14:43:01 (Swim - 1:24:09, T1 - 00:07:17, Bike 7:46:46 (ugh!), T2 -00:06:33 Run 5:18:15)

(Abhijit, Tandy, Doug and Rajeev - Finishers medals and smiles)

Weather was perfect – but the knee was not :-) All in all a great weekend spent with lovely people doing what we all enjoy.

Up coming races:
Chicago Marathon October 11, 2009
Dallas Marathon December 13, 2009
Big Sur Marathon April 25, 2010

Sept 14th Anil, Padma, Anush and I were invited on the Radio Show "The Indian Angle" The link is here for those with an hour to kill. Only sound no video:
The link

After the radio show (Anil, Anush, Rajeev, Padma & Shachi)

2008 update

2009-02-17T16:45:00.000-08:00

Finally a recap of 2008 and an update to my long dormant blog.

Team Asha had another great year, record number of runners and funds raised. Malati Gadgil qualified for Boston Marathon, making her the first woman to qualify from the SV marathon chapter – Congrats Malati!! A big thank you to Gurpreet, Ram and the entire Asha coordination team – they really put on a super show.

Update on events participated in by some of my friends:
Rajeev Patel: Completed 2 more 100 mile races and many 50-60 mile runs. He also was the Race Director for the Ruth Anderson ultra races in San Francisco.
Alan Geraldi: Apart from running 20+ miles to work – he finished the BadWater Ultra marathon (135 miles).
Padma: Finished 2 Half Ironman races.
Vinod Herur: Qualified for Boston Marathon.
Doug & Chandramouli: Finished their first Half Ironman – Big Kahuna, Santacruz, CA.
Stan, Abhijit, Tandy, Doug & I participated in triathlons in Auburn, CA.

6 races and a bit of travelling in 2008, also the first year I did two ironman races.

Races completed in 2008:

Total Race miles in 2008: 474.2 miles

A bunch of us also backpacked through the gorgeous Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite Valley, CA. A wonderful 3 day trip.

2008 saw us go Boston (last visit was in 1989), Gwalior - India (visit after 25 years), Chicago twice, Seattle & Eastern Washington State (Grand Coulee)

2009 – update:
Decided to skip the Napa Marathon this year – just not ready or motivated for it. I reduced my training to the minimum (1-2 short runs a week) after Chicago marathon in October…In January I managed to put together a few runs and signed up for the KP San Francisco Half Marathon on Feb 1st. We got there late and had to run almost a mile to the start! Managed a decent finish and enjoyed some lovely Dim Sum in San Francisco. Since then I’ve tried to get my season going again, a swim here, a bike ride there and a few runs...let’s see how 2009 shapes up. The rains have finally come to the Bay Area, YAY!

Tagged by Rajeev Patel

2009-01-11T17:16:00.000-08:00

I was tagged by Rajeev Patel with the questions below.

1. What was your 2008 running highlight and running low?
The highlight was an injury free year. No low in 2008

2. What race are you secretly planning on doing (or contemplating) for 2009 but haven't made it known to the public....until now.
No surprises - just a few regular races, nothing fancy.

3. Where would you like create and direct an ultra that (to your knowledge) none exists?
Huh?? I stay away from Ultras.

4. What is your "primary" race for 2009?
Full Vineman in August.

5. What is the most exciting thing about your upcoming race schedule?
The excitement is not for my race but a relay team that I helped set up for the Full Vineman. Tandy (Swim), Kevin (Bike), Tony Fong (Run) - they are hoping to finish in under 9:30 hours! It will be fun to see these uber athletes take on the race clock.

6. List your planned races for 2009:
SF half Marathon - Feb
Vineman - Aug
Chicago Marathon - Oct

The Grand Columbian Triathlon - Sep 13, 2008

2008-09-23T16:07:00.000-07:00

(The gang at Dry Falls on the way back)

We flew into Seattle on Wednesday night and it was good to meet Ruchi, Anup & Rohan –had a few glasses of wine and some awesome lamb curry that Anup had made and called it a night around 12:30am.
Thursday morning we loaded up the Jeep and set off for the 4 hour drive to Grand Coulee – the contrasting terrain which changed from a lush green hills of Seattle to flat farm lands to barren hills to the granite canyons of the Grand Coulee area were matched by Anup’s eclectic music collection. We heard music that spanned UK bhangra, Bollywood hits, Turkish music, Japanese instrumental, Sufi songs and a collection of North African/Arabic beats.

Got to Grand Coulee around 2:30 in the afternoon dropped my bike off at the bike shop and headed for lunch and a few cold beers. Checked in at the Grand Coulee Motel which was right in front of the imposing Grand Coulee Dam. Went for a 30 min run in the evening and had some good Chinese food for dinner. Spent the evening relaxing by the pool, sipping a few cold brews. Friday morning picked up my bike and went for a short ride – rode the bike to the swim start and had a 15 min swim – rode back to the motel. Late afternoon as we were sitting in our room I noticed that the rear tire was flat – so set about pulling out the tiny metal shrapnel and as I was inflating the new tube Anup noticed there was hole in it (I’m glad these guys did not diversify into making condoms!) – any way, used my last new tube and headed to the registration/packet pick up (bought a few more tubes at the expo). As the pasta dinner was included in the race fee I had dinner with the athletes and headed back for an early night.

(Fixing the flat)

Race Day:
Up at 4:00 am got to the race start at 5:15 – dropped my T2 and special needs bags – placed my bike bottles – topped off the air in by tires and headed off to the start. The water in Banks lake was beautiful – bluest of blue and calm. The Race Director had placed a white rope all along the floor of the swim course – that was a huge help, although in a lot of spots it got hidden by the grass on the lake bed.

Swim: 2.4 miles (Time 1 hr 23 mins)The first 700 meters was swimming directly into the rising sun – the visibility was ZERO – but I had this guy drafting off me so I assumed he was following the rope or buoys…I was also very flattered that someone found it fast enough to draft off ME! But after about 1.5K his constant slapping of my feet and scratching my toes started getting me pissed. I just stopped – thankfully he carried on and I finished the second loop all alone.

(Swim Start)

Bike: 112 miles (Time 7 hrs 43 mins) Changed had a Porta stop and off I was – the bike starts with a 3.5 mile climb to the Mesa – (We drove up the climb on Friday and it looked steep in some spots) but with fresh legs and a cool day it was not all that bad – it was a easier than the Old LaHond climb in Portola Valley (Woodside, CA) – then once on the Mesa (Table top plateau) you could see for miles in all directions – it was desolate country – not a tree in sight – miles of farm land. The first 60 miles were all rolling hills with long stretches of 2-3% grade – The 10 mile stretch out of the town of Almeria was especially painful – the blustering cross winds and the irritating 3% grade just sapped my energy – this plateau was deceptively hilly! For miles I saw no one, accompanied by dust devils and tumble weed – the only way I knew I was on the right track was by seeing the occasional gel pack or CO2 cartridge on the road. Around mile 60 Ruchi, Renuka, Anup & Rohan were at the Almira aid station.

(At Almira - Pix by Anup)

I stopped and refilled my bike bottles and headed off for the next 52 miles. The last 37 miles on Hwy 155 were the worst – this historic route has not been maintained and there were partition ruts every 10-15 feet (for 35 miles!!) the constant “Thump, Thump, Thump” was very uncomfortable – I tried riding on the white lane marker but every car/truck that went by made my bike wobble. I was glad to get off the bike. The ride over the Dam was pretty cool (only the participants were allowed over the dam – it is closed to public due to security issues)

(View from the top of the climb to the Mesa)

(Hwy 155)

Run: 26.2 miles (5 hrs 19 mins) The run was off road on well packed dirt all along the river (Two 13.1 mile loops) – I was cheered on by the gang from the bridge and had Rohan’s company for about 100 meters going back up the hill to the bridge at the end of the first loop (2 hrs 33mins) – As I was walking up the short hill, Rohan said “Isn’t this a running race? Aren’t you supposed be running?” I had to laugh and watch the 10 year old scamper up the slope…Ah! to be young again!

(View from the bridge -Pix by Anup)

(Grand Coulee Dam - Pix by Anup)

I made the turn around and ran on for the next 5 miles at a nice steady pace – I met Richard Jones who had also participated in the Vineman Iron distance race 6 weeks ago. He was in good shape – he really powered away from me on the bike on that bumpy 155 stretch...We ran together for a half a mile and then he asked me to carry on. Richard went on to finish the race, big congrats to him…he had suffered badly due to the heat at Vineman and could not meet the cutoff – that DNF was taken care of at the Grand Columbian Iron Distance triathlon – He is an Ironman! I finished the marathon in 5 hrs 19 mins for a total finish time of 14 hours 47 mins. Rohan decided to run the lap around the block to the finish with me and as we neared the finish line he just took off – the crowd (and I) had a good laugh as we watched him sprint away and finish a good 20 meters ahead of me…Ah! To be young again!

(At the finish - with Rohan looking on - Pix by Anup)

Picked up my bags the next morning and headed back to Seattle – settled in for some lovely dinner and beer and had a good music session with DJ Anup.

Great race – very well managed – well stocked aid stations – lots of Porta Johns. If the full distance race returns in 2010 I will consider doing it again. Thanks again to Ruchi, Anup, Rohan and Renuka for all the cheering and support.

Full Vineman Triathlon, August 2, 2008

2008-08-08T17:04:00.000-07:00

I did The Vineman Six years ago,
Half a dozen years! Oh! Where did they go?
2008 Full Vineman was to be a group event
Anu, Rajeev, Vinod, Padma - to injuries and a higher call they went.
Last man standing, I thought I might as well go on
Another race, and another poem will spawn.
Race day 3:15am I awoke - coffee , banana and oats ate
Off we went to T1 and the starting gate.
The last song you hear stays with you they say,
For me it was Khwajaji…alas that song did stick to my dismay!
Vinod, Rashmi, Chakri, Veena, Deepu, Mauli and Krishna,
They had all come to cheer and participate in the drama.
The swim was done in a consistent 1:24 – Off to the bike I strode,
First 56 went by in 3:14…I pondered a 6:45 as past the turnaround I rode.
Three bottles sustained energy and 3 gels down, I was on track
Plan the race and race the plan…there was just one little crack…
A weird thirst I felt around mile 40, mouth parched, I’d made a trade
I had stretched out my hand for some Gatorade.
That stuff, in my stomach does not quite sit so well,
At mile 60 it came back to cast its dastardly spell!
My stomach suddenly bloated felt like a balloon
I thought , if something did not give I’d be airborne soon!
Like a “born-again” seeker I began seeking in earnest
The little green portas , they became my eternal quest
Not to forget the song…I took some liberties with it by far
Porta mere porta, dil me samaja…
The run began with a serious attempt to get it on
My stomach lurched , I searched, where have all the Portas gone?
Taste of water felt bad, Gatorade was out of question
Coke, I hoped, would come to the aid of my digestion!
Out of the blue comes Stan..."Rajeev why are you walking?"
“Find a Green House” I say, “then I’ll tell you why I’m walking”
Go Rajeev shout Renuka, Vinod, Rashmi, Veena
Cheering me on are Krishna, Deepu, Mouli, Chakri, Sabita
My stomach with me following waddle on as they scream
The sun has set, my finishing in daylight is all but a dream.
Pitch blackness all around I finally begin to run
Fatigued, pained and angry…and I do this stuff for fun!
Finally I stumble over the finish - fifth one I’ve done
Those that say “it gets easier” - have been out too long in the sun!
Mani runs in to finish, of this man I’m now a fan
Cool, calm and collected he is an Ironman!
A big hug to the weary cheerers, they are tired to the bone
One final stop, this time a ceramic pot, we are headed home
What a day! I’m sure it would be different, had it worked out to the plan
But then again, if it were so easy, they wouldn’t call it the Ironman!

------------------------------

Cheering Squad: Stan is missing as he was on his bike cheering everyone

Off the beaten track! Yosemite version 2.0

2008-07-26T13:59:00.000-07:00

All righty then... Its been 13 months since our debacle at Yosemite - I still had to see the White Wolf to Soda Springs (Tuolumne Medows) route. Arun Sharma, who had organized the one day 32 mile run/hike last year, invited me to do the same route as a 3 day backpacking trip this year. I, in turn, invited my training buddy IronStan (soon to be rechristened "IronSherpaStan") to share the pain. I have never been backpacking before - so this was going to be interesting. I borrowed a backpack from Rashmi & Anil, bought a compact sleeping bag from Sports Basement and a $15.00 small tent from Walmart! (Pam called it a womb tent) - it actually is a studio tent, with an attached bathroom...the bathroom is only a zipper away...come to think of it...two zippers away...wait...including the sleeping bag...three zippers away...I call it my "zip zip zip zzzz...unzip unzip unzip wizzzz tent"...much more sophisticated name indeed.

Thursday July 17th 7:30 pm Renuka packed the backpack and weighed it - 32lbs! Leaping (expletive) lizards! there is no way I can walk 32 miles carrying 32 lbs...some repacking, lighter t-shirts, and 20 minutes later - 30lbs..."I'm screwed" I say...might as well enjoy it ... we had a 4:30am departure from Sunnyvale so I got to sleep early, 12:00am.

Friday July 18th: I was up at 3:00am and ready at 4:15 awaiting Chakri and Stan. 4:30am Stan calls "Rajeev, I just got up...sorry, but does this cause a problem?"..."Umm, no Stan we are just going to be late and Arun is going to #$%&^%$ KILL us!" We asked Stan to drive directly to Pleasanton and meet us at Pam's house. We started for Yosemite at 7:00am and got to White Wolf around 10:30. After parking two cars at Soda Springs (the end of the trail) and repacking the backpacks with the bear canisters, we started the hike at noon. (Smart move of the day: distributing the 5 wine bottles into 3 plastic containers and ensuring the 3 containers do not travel in the same backpack - I believe the President, Vice President and the Speaker of the House have a similar plan of action...except they are not in plastic containers...I think)
At the start: (L-R Chakri, Stan, Me, Arun Sharma, Aun, Pam, Karan, Heera, Arun Desigan)

The players: Karan (7-8 years old), Pam, Anu, Heeral (Age 20-25), Rajeev Char (millions of brownie points for my previous comment), Arun Sharma, Arun Desigan (Old), Chakri (like Madonna & Prince he only goes by a first name- ageless), Stanley Ho & Mike (both around the same age)

Stan's best friend (Mike)

We begin the hike at 12:00 noon - 10/11 miles to Pate Valley - with a 4000 feet drop in 2.5 miles... about 3 miles into the hike we meet a couple and the conversation goes:

They: "Lukens Lake is beautiful to swim in, you all will really enjoy it"
Arun Sharma (AS): "You mean Harden Lake"
They: "No - Lukens Lake - we just swam in it"
AS: "No Lukens is that way" (pointing in the opposite direction)
They: looking at each other "No Harden lake is that way, you are heading to Lukens"
Me Thinking: "Oh Shit!"
AS: "Really!? Sorry guys, we are on the wrong trail"

A bit of back tracking later we are back on track - Stan's previous comments (in jest) about Yosemite being too high for bears and snakes ... came back to bite us! Within an hour we see a bear about 20 feet from the trail...scary stuff.

(Pix by Arun Desigan)

We move on...by 3pm fatigue starts setting in - most of us have not slept much and the heat and the weight of the backpack starts taking its toll. We shift some backpack weight around and Stan, Chakri, Arun Sharma and I decide to press on faster to get a decent camp site. We tell Pam, Karan, ArunD, Anu and Heeral to take it easy as it is a full moon night which gives them plenty of light to make the treacherous decent safely. During the descent we see our second bear sighting...this one is really close...8-10 feet away.
(Pix by Stan)

Shortly later I hear a "SPLAT"...the plastic wine pack I was carrying fell out of my backpack and broke...wine leaking all over the trail...SAD...Chakri & Arun managed to salvage about half a bottle from that mishap. After the descent Chakri & I lose sight of ArunS and Stan...
Hetch Hetchy Reservoir - on the way down from White Wolf

We keep pressing on hoping that they would have stopped for us. 45 minutes later no sign of them! Chakri and I are out of water...I drop my backpack and tell Chakri that I'll run ahead for 2 mins and if we do not find Arun/Stan we will head back towards the rest of the group. Luckily at the two min mark I run into a campsite - I ask them if they saw 2 guys go by...they did...I ran on a few more minutes and spot Stan...I scream "What the @#$% Stan!...you guys should have waited!" I had a mini meltdown...memories of last year came flooding back....:-). I ran back to Chakri and we got into the camp site (The site was fantastic) Arun made a nice warm cup of Coco for us and half a liter of water later, Stan, Arun and I set out to meet the rest. We left Chakri at the campsite. 30 minutes of fast walking later we finally see the others coming down the last of the descent. Stan and I relieve some of the tired folks of their backpacks and let them head on to the campsite faster. With daylight fading Stan, Heeral, Pam, Karan & I made the hour long walk back with our head lamp lights on. 9:30pm we are all accounted for...cheers and a camp fire is lit. As we filled our buckets during the night I saw a snake swim away from me in the river...that was too close...A sumptuous dinner and a glass or two of wine later, we set the bear canisters 200 feet away from the campsite, dowsed the camp fire completely, and we all staggered into our tents.

Saturday July 19th: 10/11 miles -(camp just after California Falls) 7:00am we are all up - ArunS & ArunD are directing traffic...breakfast is being made, hot coffee is being brewed...life is good. Stan & Chakri are all packed and ready to go! The regular backpackers (ArunSharma/Pam/ArunD/Anu and Heeral) make us all comb the campsite and ensure that we pick up every scrap we brought with us...not even a corner of a wrapper was to be left behind...we really spent some time doing this - and I am glad we did it, the wilderness is so pristine that it is our responsibility that we "leave no trace behind." We start out towards Pate Valley and the infamous "right turn" that Anil, Vineeta and I missed and got horribly lost last year. Along the way hikers coming back warn us about a "rattler 300 yards ahead" Pate Valley is a Rattle Snake heaven. Luckily we do not see any rattlers. We pass Heeral and ArunS - Heeral seems to be in some distress (She was not well a few days ago) We continued through the tall grass and thick brush of Pate Valley. We slowed down to ensure that Karan/Pam/Heeral were ok and within sight. The temp started rising and it was 87-88F and humid. We left the tall grass and got to the Tuolumne River...GOR-GEE-US!

After a while Chakri, Arun and I decided that we should take Heeral's backpack and give her some relief so she can recover for the rest of the trek. We found a nice long log and hung her pack on it and 4 of us took turns carrying the "Pig" for the rest of the day.

The climbs were really painful...we had about 2ooo feet of climbing...Stan (and Mike) would take off for a few miles, drop his backpack and run back to help us - relieving one of us of our packs and heading out at double speed...the boy is insane!
(Pix by Arun Sharma)

For lunch on Saturday Arun D and Anu had chopped onions, shred carrots and cut avacados! We had tortillas stuffed with theplas, carrots, onions and avacados...we sat by the Tuolumne River...soaking our weary legs in the cold waters...sublime!

After a second grueling climb and some spectacular waterfalls we stumbled into a vacant campsite at around 5:00pm. Stan went for a 2 mile run...this kid is NUTS!

Set up camp and had an early dinner - finished off the wine and we were way too tired to hang around...by 10pm we were all in our tents. We had decided to get moving at 8:30 am the next morning.

Sunday July 20th: Campsite checked - we had a quick freshen up at the river and were off at 8:30 sharp. The 3 hour climb to Glen Aulin this was really tough and cumulative fatigue was getting to all of us...All of us?...No, one person refused to be conquered by fatigue...that was IronSherpaStan. He continued to do his relay work - he is insane! Heeral was feeling fine and was back in the swing of things. Karan and Pam were feeling much better too - the most memorable quote of the trip was during one of the million stories Pam & Karan were exchanging. Karan said "Medusa was cured by a good shampoo" I cracked up! this kid is special...for an 8 year old he is phenomenal. After a good lunch at Glen Aulin we had another 2 hour climb before we reached Tuolumne Meadows.

After that the trail flattens out at 8,600 feet...beautiful flowers and...meadows. A lady stopped me along the way saying "You have a face that is calming and says that you have a lovely voice, can you please sing a nice light song for me"...I sang (actually murdered) 'Country Roads' by Denver and both the lady and her husband rescued me by sing the song really well.
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/H8h7u-I96Gwqr5x1gS2yQA?authkey=SkTrcCFgLao

4:30 we were all done..we finally made it...this was a tough trip, but we all agreed that the next time we need to do it in 5 days so we can actually stop and smell the roses!
Karan at the end (Soda Springs) He seems sad that the trip is over!

Tagged: Thoughts On Running

2008-06-12T13:48:00.000-07:00

------------
My friend Anil “the horse” Rao tagged me and so here are my thoughts & answers to his tag.

1. How would I describe my running 10 years ago?
10 years ago – 1998 - Chicago was home, running was a challenge in winter but I do remember bundling up and getting those 5-6 milers in. Summers were great and I was in decent running condition – no injuries – nice easy 5-6 milers as I trained for The Chicago Triathlon and Lake Geneva Triathlon.

2. What is your best and worst race experience?
The best experience was during the marathon at the 2007 Ironman Canada – I felt really great and even thought I could have gone a bit quicker…pretty cool considering that I completely blew up during the 2006 race. This year’s Napa marathon was wonderful too – nice easy paced race which leads me to believe that if I stay uninjured I could improve by another 15-20 minutes in a year.

Worst race experience was during the Marathon in the 2006 Ironman Canada…I just imploded and everything went downhill. It was a slow tough walk. Other non-race bad/scary experiences were:
a) During a training run at Huddard Park (Woodside CA) in 2002-03 with Rajeev Patel. We got lost and ran out of water…the 8 miler turned out to be more like 16-20…the trails, hills were tough.
b) 32 mile Run at Yosemite where Anil Rao, Vineeta & I got lost - Details here

3. Why do you run?
Because it is swim, cycle, RUN!

4. What is the best or worst piece of advice you've been given about running?
I always listen to my body and no one else – and over the years the most regular and best piece of advice has been “relax today – have a cold beer.” I always listen to my body (and it shows :-))

5. Tell us something surprising about yourself that not many people would know.
I’ve been having a mid-life crisis for about 25 years.

I tag the following people:
Padma/Kiran
Mouli

Auburn World's Toughest Half Triathlon / Napa Valley Vintage Half

2008-05-20T15:26:00.000-07:00

May – Half Iron Distance races

Napa Valley Vintage Half Ironman – May 3rd
World’s Toughest Triathlon – May 18th

My Bib number was 44 in both races! What are the odds of that happening?

Napa Vintage Half Iron Distance race: (Swim 1.2 mile / Bike 56 miles / Run 13.1 miles)
When Padma mentioned she was going to be doing the Napa half I immediately decided to jump in and kick start my training season. Padma graciously let us share her hotel room which turned out to be a real blessing.

Renuka and I drove up later in the afternoon and after getting lost (Google maps suck!) we finally made it to the room at 9:30. Thankfully Madhavi & Padma had brought back some leftovers from their dinner. After vacuuming the pasta we had a fitful night – four of us cozied up in a small room. This was Padma’s first Half Iron distance race and she was pretty confident – (though she had niggling worries about making the swim/bike cut-offs.) The morning was pleasant – I opened the room door and I was in the transition area…AWESOME! We racked our bikes and headed for the swim, Superman Chakri drove all the way in the early hours to cheer Padma, what an amazing guy!

(which direction are we going?)

We had decided to swim together, but so much for plans – within 5 mins I lost Padma in the sea of back wetsuits. Since it was a relatively small event <250 participants the swim was pretty smooth – it also was about 300-350 meters short! Started the bike – saw Padma just after the first turn around and she was all smiles – the course was not easy – not very hilly - but it had that irritating grade where you just cannot get into a decent cadence. Got off the bike & proceeded to the run – it was warm (low to mid 80s) – the course was gorgeous, and I stopped to take in the views of lake Berryessa – beautiful course.

(How beautifully the blue of the Porta John stands out against green trees - oh and the Babe in grey track pants is gorgeous)

Padma called out as she ran by, she was all smiles and wearing her trademark panama hat and carrying her (ultra runner) bottle in hand – she was in her element – this girl loves to run and it shows on her face.

Chakri ran the second lap with her and she came in to finish at a fantastic 7:51:20 –Except for a mini GI meltdown on the bike she had a good race. Padma is in great shape for Full Vineman triathlon in August. Her Splits – (Swim 00:38:33 / Bike 4:17:23 / Run 2:44:11) With 11 mins in transition.
I finished in 6:33:34 (Swim 00:34:25 / bike 3:33:27 / Run 2:13) with about 12 mins in total transition!
BIG thank you to Madhavi, Renuka & Chakri for cheering us on.

Auburn - World’s Toughest Half Iron Triathlon: (Swim 1.2 mile / Bike 56 miles / Run 13.1 miles)
This race certainly lived up to its name. Six of us were planning on doing this race – Vinod unfortunately got injured and had to drop out. Tandy was doing the Olympic Distance, Doug, Abhijit, Stan & I were doing the half iron distance. This was to be Doug and Abhijit’s first attempt at a Half Iron Dist race. The drama started on Friday when Brad Kerns (Race Director) sent out an email saying that they expect 105F temperatures on Race Day (Sunday) so he was planning on reducing the run to 9 miles. By Saturday Morning the race was back on with the normal distances (by popular demand by the athletes!) Saturday Morning – after the Asha long run Renuka and I headed for Auburn – Abhijit drove in with his Mom and friend Ashish, Crazy Stan drove alone in his car without the AC. The temp was 102F and rising – We got into Auburn, registered and drove to T2 deposited our shoes etc. and checked in at the hotel. Met up with Tandy & Doug. After a nice dinner we called it a night.

Pre-race Dinner

5:20am - we left the hotel – Big thanks to Ashish and Renuka for driving us to the swim start. The place got really crowded as there were 4 races (International/Half Iron/Duathlon and a relay)

Before the race - Stan is missing as he was warming up

Which direction do we swim? As we were walking to the swim start I realized I had not looked up the course…had no idea where the buoys were – so I decided to follow the crowd. For some reason the crowd decided to leave me behind…darn I was just hoping I could keep sight of the swimmers past the half hour mark as that was when the International distance swimmers started – the last thing I needed was to follow the wrong crowd!
After a rather long swim (which seemed uphill!) I was out in 0:54:09 (Pathetic!)– Abhijit, Stan & Doug were there – so off we all went – Stan seemed to have the quickest transition. I saw Mouli and Veena who came all the way to cheer us on – such wonderful people (Thank you, Thank you).

Chicken on a slow roast: That is what I felt like on the bike. The bike course was HARD – it was HILLY and then some. The volunteers were great and it was amazing to see that they were still full of energy after almost 3-4 hours in that heat – IT WAS HOT! The reports had the temp anywhere between 93-102F (My car gauge read 77F at 5:30am and 102F when I finished!) The slow grind up the hills in those hot conditions were painful! I had managed my fuel intake pretty well so I had no cramping issues – just energy sapping climbs. Got through ~3.5 bottles of Sustained Energy (mixed with Succeed) and 3 eGels – aprox 1,200-1,325 calories just about enough for the 4:22 bike ride (a stellar 12.81 mph! I should retire! Steve Larsen, the winner, finished the entire race in 4:48:20!!!) – But wait, I have my excuse figured out. I did notice a lot of Cervélos flying by me and after doing a quick check I realized it was my glove buckle that had come unvelcroed (is there such a word?) – I was sure that this little flap was causing excessive drag - I quickly fix that – the next few Cervélos…went by much slower…but by then that drag had cost me the race. (How drool - what a drag)

New Shoes attract trails: The run was off-road through the trails starting from the Dam Overlook (this is the same section I paced Rajeev Patel during his 2006 RDL 100 miler) – All these years I’ve been running in trail shoes and doing road races – last week I bought my first pair of road shoes in years and ended up in a trail run. Well I really don’t like trail running – my low foot lift makes me kiss the earth more often than I'd like. Five minutes into the run...crash... I kissed the earth...a protruding root was the root cause of my fall, not to be routed by the route and after a routine dust off I started again. The down hills (well it was all downhill for me) were bad...boulders, holes, roots it was conspiracy. Finally we had a section of gravel road and regular good ol’ black tops. The volunteers were great, the cheering folk were fantastic, lots of bikinis around...(got to love summer.) I saw Abhijit on his first lap – he was in fine form – unfortunately both he and Doug would not be allowed to finish the second loop due to the time cutoff. They both did 64 miles of a 70 mile race in grueling conditions – and in my mind they are finishers. The run was done in 2:36:06
Total time: 7:52:32
Stan finished in 6:57:32 and came in 5th in his age group. Way to go Stan!
Tandy finished her tough International distance race in 4:21:38

Stan & Doug waiting & waiting for me to finish

Madhu, Shridhar, Dhvanee drove up all the way from San Jose to see us finish – thanks a million guys! I finished too late and was too tired to take you out for a decent lunch – but I’ll make it up to all you wonderfully supportive folks.

I look forward to racing with Doug, Tandy, Abhijit, Stan, padma and Vinod – Vinod I hope your injury heals quick – we need to resume our pre-race Beer tradition :-)

(Pix for the Auburn Tri coming soon)

2007 - a look back

2008-03-15T18:17:00.000-07:00

Another great year with TeamAsha - we survived the heat and chaos at the Chicago Marathon, ran the beautiful Marine Corps Marathon in Washington DC and finished strong at the Silicon Valley Marathon in San Jose. Along the way our runners raised money to help educate and change the lives of less fortunate kids back in India.

Another year with four marathons (including 1 during my Ironman). Napa in March, Chicago & Marine Corps (DC) in October and Ironman Canada in August. Apart from that a few of us did the Tri OneOOne Triathlon (3/4 Ironman Dist) in June, Vineman 70.3 (Half Ironman) and a century bike ride in July.

2007 was a year when a lot of my friends achieved personal sporting highs:

Anil Rao, Alan Geraldi, Gary Friedle and Padma - Finished their first 100 mile race.
Rajeev Patel - ran three 100 mile races in 3 months! He also finshed the tri 101 (3/4 Ironman Dist Race)
Vinod Herur - returned with me to do Ironman Canada for the second time.
Mark "Irondog" Williams - finished another (10th?) Ironman Canada!!

2007 was a good year for me as well - With Personal records at;

Napa Marathon (26.2 miles) - 3:56:40 (Previous Best 3:59:12 - in 2006)
Vineman 70.3 (half Ironman) - 5:48:29 (Previous Best 6:06:03 - in 2003)
Ironman Canada (full Ironman) - 13:14:52 (Previous Best 13:53:26 - in 2002)

First Quarter 2008 update:
Napa Marathon March 2008 - Here I am - 11 pounds heavier - but still managed a decent finish at Napa with a Personal Best of 3:49:00 - Vinod Herur ran a carzy 3:30 and qualified for Boston! Awesome Vinod. Gururaj, Bharti, Lila finished their first marathons - congrats to them - they are all 1/3 of their way to an Ironman finish...:-)

A week after Napa I went bowling with a few friends and on the first roll I pulled my piriformis muscle - that's it...the extreme sport of Bowling is out...I'll stick with Triathlons, Marathons and maybe some gentle skydiving.

Chicago Marathon Oct 7, 2007

2007-10-11T20:49:00.000-07:00

Chicago Marathon # 3...What A Ride!

6 AM Saturday - Sweet Home Chicago!

It was WARM! - Went to my sister's place to hang out for the morning. It was wonderful to see Mallika and Rohan (niece & nephew) - the last time I saw them was Chicago Marathon '06! Went for a short jog with Rohan (10 yrs old) while Mallika (12 yrs old) accompanied us on her bike. It was sweltering! I loved it...but knew we were in for a struggle on Sunday.

Race Day - up at 3:45am, had breakfast with the team and headed to the start. The Asha tent was larger than last year's and we had plenty of Porta Potties...awesome arrangement :-).

Tony lead the team in some light stretching and we all took off for the start. I thought of starting with the team in the Open Corral - but Satyan insisted that I go to Corral D, he said "This is your kinda weather - just go for it" I managed to get to Corral D in time. It took four and a half minutes to get to the start line. I hung on to the 3:45 marathon pace group till mile 17...where a quick stop at the green bank (to make a deposit of my liquid assets) caused us to separate forever. Mercury rising...the temp was up to 90F and it was humid! The pace slowed after the break and as I looked around I started noticing the number of people who were dropping out or just sitting by the road side...the heat was taking its toll...there was a constant wail of ambulance sirens! I realized that this was not a good day to attempt a quicker marathon...hung on to a 9:15min/mile pace to finish in 4:00:14.

Got back to the tent and on the way heard announcements that cooling buses were being sent out...Tony (3:09)and Raghav (3:29) - (Animals!!) - were already there - I had a nice massage - and waited for our runners to start coming in. Around then we started hearing reports about some deaths on the course and hundreds being hospitalized. With every siren Tony and I would look at each other and hope it was not one of our runners...the next two hours were tense, tough and scary! Slowly all our runners started coming in...most of them were re-routed to the finish.

All Fire Hydrants turned on!

For many, the dream of finishing their first marathon was cut short...there was a lot of disappointment and anger amongst the runners. We tried our best to pacify them but our words fell on dejected ears...all those months of training and anticipation were seemingly for naught...they were angry about the lack of water/Gatorade, the heat, the cancellation...frustration was high! The marathon...The "Chicago Marathon" had become a total mess. I was just glad the organizers cancelled the race...with their complete mismanagement the continuation of this race would have been a total disaster. It will take a few days, weeks for our runner's anger to subside and they will realize how lucky they were to come away healthy.

Could things have been better? Hell yes! Could things have been worse? HELL YEA! We were all lucky...all of us came back safe...ready to race another day.

I had to head back home the same evening, so after a quick shower and a few beers with my sister and Rajeev Shankar I made my way to the airport. As I waited for my flight, it struck me that after the finish last year we were all talking about how "Cold" it was...the temp had dropped to 39F during the race. Today all the conversations were about the record heat and that it had hit 90+F...same city...same marathon...same organizers...different outcome! Here's hoping that 2008 will be like 2005...perfect weather and a perfect race.

Race Pix:

My quest for a 3:45 finish did not materialize - but the fact that everyone was safe was a huge relief. Big thank you to Asha Chicago and our tireless volunteers, coords, supporters from Asha SV...what a wonderfully well arranged trip...amazing people. I would also like to thank the people of Chicago, the Police & Fire depts, Paramedics and all ancillary organizations...you saved the day and possibly many lives.

Chicago Marathon Organizers - you need to take responsibility for the mess. There was a lack of water at the aid stations - STOP denying it. Admit that mistakes were made - apologize and make amends.

On a lighter note, Dick Walstra - my friend and professor from Chicago wrote this wonderful poem!

Raj came to Chicago
To run the big race;
The weather was awful,
He couldn’t hold pace.

But Ironmen know
That conditions will vary;
So like it or not
He chose not to tarry.

The City sent cops to say
“stop where you’re at!”
But Raj went on racing
In four hours flat.

It wasn’t a record,
No PR this day;
But we all feel much pride
In our friend anyway!

- Dick Walstra

Ironman Canada 2007 - Race Report

2007-09-02T11:34:00.000-07:00

Lake Okanagan, Penticton.

Thursday: Got into Penticton in the afternoon and went to the registration booth and got myself registered. Later in the evening I went for a short jog along the beach. Picked up Vinod from the Airport at 9:30pm – 'Team India' had arrived!

Friday: Picked up our bikes. Vinod and I went for a short ride later that evening.

Saturday: We were up early for the 2K underwear run – totally hilarious! 150+ people in briefs running through town to the cheers of the towns' folks – the run ended up at the beach where we were put through some calisthenics. Vinod in his Boxers and me in my Speedos were among the crowd (I will not post the pix)

Ironfamily - Tracy, Janice, Mark "Irondog", Rajeev, Renuka and Vinod

Met Mark, Janice and Tracy for lunch. John, Vinod's team Sheeper buddy, joined us too. Finished the bike check in and relaxed the rest of the day. Met Lisa Bentley at the expo and Vinod & I had a photograph taken with her. (Lisa won the race the next day.)

Vinod Herur, Lisa Bentley, Rajeev Char

Race Plan: Swim easy, Bike easy and RUN the darn marathon!

Race Day: 3:30AM The Ironwoman Renuka nudges me out of bed – coffee and oats –
Vinod and I leave for the transition area at 5:10AM – Body marking takes forever – get into the transition at 6:00am do all the last minute checks and I slip into my wetsuit and trudge off to the beach.

SWIM 2.4 miles: 7:00AM swim starts – It was crowded! To me the mass start is really what defines an Ironman race, it is crazy out there. About 10 minutes into the swim a swimmer was having a bit of trouble breathing so another swimmer and I stayed with him for a few minutes, trying to calm him. He finally decided he needed to rest so he swam to the center channel to look for a surf board to hold on to. He told us to carry on....I hope it worked out for him.
I was out of the water in 1:24 – took forever in T1 – the Porta line was looong!
Video of the swim start:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=398110281959612946

BIKE 112 Miles: I had my nutrition figured out this time – Hammer Sustained Endurance – each bottle was 343 Calories (I had planned to use 5 bottles) and eGel, each 150 Calories (I had 6 gel packs). A total of 2600+ liquid / gel calories for the 7 hour ride with salt tabs mixed into the drinks. Now I had to remember to finish this during the ride. The first 40 miles were fast – by my bike computer I was at mile 40 in 2 hours and 5 minutes. Stopped just before Richter Pass and mixed my third bottle (so far the plan was working). The next few miles were uphill, I met Mark and saw his new bike with his "Irondog.us" logo painted on it – Black bike with a white logo, it looked really good. The down hills were great, clocked 45mph at one spot – lovely! Met Vinod at mile 70 he was having cramps and some issues with his bike – lower gears were slipping, luckily he met the awesome Bike Barn support team and they fixed his bike. Reached the final climb at Yellow Lake - eased up over it (...this is where my race had unraveled last year.) The crowds were lined up on either side and it was great! A 74 year old triathlete blows by me – totally amazing! There is a pretty girl with a huge poster saying "Looking for a husband" - I laughed and said "you are too pretty and I'm too tired - it won't last." The down hill section was smooth and again clocked 45mph at one spot. Off the bike in 6:57 – all 5 bottles and 6 gels were consumed – no excuse to fail on the run this time.

RUN 26.2 miles: The plan was to run a sub 5 hour marathon – started off at a decent pace and was wondering if I could hold it throughout. Told myself no walking this year. At mile two, I had run more than last year! At mile 14, I had run more than my 2005 Lake Placid race. Met Mark at mile 15 – he was too funny – his drill sergeant routine cracked me up – I was laughing for the next mile. Mile 21, I started on cola and was still holding the pace and was feeling pretty good – once back into town, the crowds and energy picked up, I increased the pace. The last 2.2 miles were the fastest of the lot – saw Renuka and she had a big beautiful smile on her face with a hint of shock! (I was way ahead of schedule) My finish time was 13:14:51 – I was thrilled – I ran the plan and it actually worked! The marathon time was 4:34....with negative splits - first half in 2:18 and the second half in 2:16...not too shabby Eh! I wanted a sub 5.....and got it!

The splits:
http://ironman.com//events/ironman/canada?show=tracker&y=2007&race=/events/ironman/canada&bib=1166

Million thanks to my lovely wife Renuka for all the support – the driving, bike pickup, cheering, diet & training tips - she is developing into a fine coach. Thanks to my good friend Stan Ho for all the bike rides and bricks this year. Again, a big thanks to Vinod - we have now made this journey twice – and hopefully 2008 will have a few more events we can do together. Thanks to Anil for the rides to and from the airport at unearthly hours. And of course all our family & friends who were tracking the race online – reading all the emails later was like reliving the race.

Was this just a one off good race day? A fluke? Or is there a 12:30 finish in me? Do I sign up for Canada 2008? Or Brasil 2008?
Decisions decisions...Life sure is tough! :-)

Vineman 70.3 (Half Ironman) July 22, 2007

2007-07-27T17:24:00.000-07:00

Vinod and I signed up for half Vineman as a training race for Ironman Canada – Vinod unfortunately ended up with a flat at mile 45 – since the glass on the road had torn his tire the replaced tube also flatted immediately. He waited for some help as he had run out of tubes. A fellow racer gave him a spare tube and with some ingenuity he fixed the issue by using an empty GU gel packet to cover the hole in he tire and inflated the new tube! All this cost him over half an hour – else Vinod too was on track for a 5:40ish finish.

Anil Rao, Rajeev Patel and Alan Geraldi started running their Tahoe Rim Trail 100 miler on Saturday – this race had a 35 hour cutoff – Alan finished in 27 hours – Rajeev & Anil finished in 34 hours! TRT is considered one of the toughest Ultra-marathons…Anil & Alan chose to make this their first 100 miler! Amazing!

The highlights of my race:

Swim 1.2 miles: The swim was horrible – too shallow and too crowded – I got kicked/hit right through and never got into a good rhythm.

Transition 1 (T1): Took me 2 minutes to find my bike…either I’m getting old or I had one too many kicks to the head during the swim!

Bike 56 miles: The bike section was great – maintained 19mph avg almost right through – got stung by a bee at mile 40 that was PAINFUL! I had a tough time trying to get the stinger out without falling off my bike. Bike time of 2:58:33 is my fastest in a half.

Transition 2 (T2): I struggled to get my glove off as my finger had swollen up due to the bee sting.

Run 13.1 miles: Run was like a flash back – I remembered the course very clearly even though the last time I ran it was 2002 during the full Ironman (same course twice) – the temp had gone up to a nice toasty 87F. There was a slight irritation around the left knee (tight ITB), managed to stick to a decent pace and finished in 1:56:22.

Stan took some videos,
Mile 12:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7893890064234574347

Mile 12.75:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4687730015417749146

The finish time of 5:48:29 was 18 minutes faster than my previous best!

Every time I do one of these races I get reenergized and inspired

Inspiring moment: At mile 7 I saw a runner limping really badly – I stopped to ask if he needed help in stretching it out – he said with a smile “It is a little worse then that” – I then asked if he was cramping – and offered him some salt tabs…he then said “Thank you so much but I have MS” I was blown away – here is a man who is afflicted with this ailment which to date has no cure…he was out there doing a half Ironman! There is no limit to the human spirit. We take so much for granted.

My biking / running buddy Stan drove over to Santa Rosa to cheer us on, at one spot I said my ITB was acting up and Stan said – “Come on Rajeev just think of your friends who are running a 100 miler – imagine what they are going through!” - Thanks Stan I needed that.

Vinod’s team mate Doug Fujii finished the race in 5:20 – which gave him an outside chance of getting one of the Clearwater, FL - 70.3 World Championship spots. He missed it by 2 people! That was really sad. You’ll get it next year for sure Doug.

All in all a great race.

31 mile run/hike at Yosemite

2007-06-18T23:18:00.000-07:00

(6:20am June 17, 2007 L to R - Pam, me, Anil, Arun, Vineeta)

We got back from an real adventure at Yosemite (got home at 3am!) - 5 of us had planned on running/walking 31 miles yesterday (Sunday June 17th) -

(Camp fire)

After a fun filled Saturday evening by the camp fire with a few beers and some good company we called it a night around 10:30pm - the temp had dropped to the high/mid 40s and I abandoned my plans of sleeping out in the open - took my sleeping bag into Arun Sharma's tent and was soon in deep sleep.

(The route)

We had planned for a 6:00am start which would have given us 14 hours of daylight to do this run/hike. We started at 6:30 am from White Wolf campsite (8,000 feet) and descended 4,000 feet in 6 miles - after a 4 mile flat section we planned to run the 21 mile route from Pate Valley to Toulumne Meadows which gradually went back up to 8,600 feet.

(the climb down to Pete Valley)

Around 9:30 am we stopped at the river to fill up on water - Arun and Pam decided to run on ahead to save some time. Anil, Vineeta and I started about 15 mins later - at the junction (Pate Valley) we missed the Toulumne Meadows Trail and ended up taking the the wrong trail.

(The water stop 9:30 am)

Under the assumption that Arun and Pam were motoring on ahead we too started pushing through the very overgrown and almost covered trail. Anil kept running ahead and shouting for Arun and Pam but go no response so we continued to run/walk for 2:30 hours - the ~ 4.5 miles we ran took us up about 2,600 feet (we were at 6,600 feet). The trail was overgrown and full of thorns - all of us have minor cuts on our legs/arms. At places I did see some big piles of droppings - I knew they were not mine :-)...so it was either a big deer of one of the Yosemite black bears! At times we heard some noises in the bushes - not a fun feeling. Finally we realized we were on the wrong trail and decided against pushing for the top (we assumed that around 8,000 feet we would see some camp sites/ Ranger station) luckily sanity prevailed and we turned back to make sure we got to the river, our only water source.

It took us about 1:20 mins to run back to Pate Valley - at every turn through the thick brush I would imagine a bear standing there...at times the black burnt tree stubs caught my eye - and my heart would skip a beat or three! By the time we got back to the junction and realized our error we were almost 4 hours behind Arun & Pam. After a brief discussion we then decided to head back to White Wolf Camp - although Rashmi & Lily were waiting for us at Toulumne meadows (20 miles from White wolf) we knew we could at least get the message to them through the rangers saying we were OK. Vineeta, Anil and I kept running and discussing various scenarios - What would Arun/Pam do? would they be waiting for us? Would they have come back? Gone on? What would we have done if we were in their place? It took our mind off the run for a while.

We stopped at the river and filled up our bottles and backpacks and braced for the climb back to White Wolf. The 6 mile 4,000 foot climb back to White Wolf was brutal. We had come down this trail earlier in the day - it was strewn with uneven rocks and bad footing which made a treacherous descent - but the ascent was just plain murder!

We were trying to ensure that we got back by 6:00pm so that we could get a ride to Toulumne and meet the others at that trail head before sundown. Anil was still in fine form - Vineeta and I were feeling fatigued. We made some stops to calm our breathing and heart rates and we pushed each other on, reminding each other to eat and drink water. We made it back at 6:30pm - Vineeta convinced the Rangers to give us a ride to Toulumne Meadows - the Rangers (god bless them) dropped us at Toulumne Meadows at 7:20 pm where we met Rashmi & Lily who were waiting for us. They were really starting to worry. Arun and Pam had not come in as yet. So after a quick change and adding a few more layers Anil and I started walking back down the trail trying to see if we could locate them. Finally after about a 40 min walk into the trail our shouts were returned by Arun & Pam - Man! we were so relived - they made the 31+ mile trek/run in 14.5 hours (6:30 am to 9:00pm) What a day! - Anil, Vineeta and I ran/walked about 30 miles (6:30 am to 6:30pm.)

Arun and Pam had very little food or salt tabs on them as most of the food was with Anil and me - the trail they were on was devoid of tree cover for most part and the valley was simmering at 90F by mid day. Running low on sugar and energy the two willed each other on for 14 hours (13 hours if us remove the hour they spent waiting for us). But in spite of all this they came away saying that the route was really beautiful - the water falls and vistas were fantastic. I doff my hat to these two athletes. I guess I'll have to make another trip there to see this stuff!

We have a lot of learning to do - we were very very lucky this time.

The bad decisions:
1) Not discussing the trail in much detail the prior evening - not carrying a map - not having a back up plan. I did not pay attention when Arun was going over the map.
2) To let the group split up.
3) To continue on the wrong trail for 2.5 hrs (we should have turned around in 45 mins of not seeing the other two!)
4) Not distributing the bars/gels/salt tabs equally - the three of us had the bulk of it - Arun and Pam were lucky enough to meet other campers who parted with a few energy bars)

Good decisions:
1) Heading back to the river for water.
2) Heading back to White Wolf instead of trying to catch the other two.
3) Ensuring we got to camp before sunset.

Other Pix:

(All photographs taken by Arun Sharma.)

Tri OneOOne - Sunday June 10, 2007

2007-06-13T21:50:00.000-07:00

Patel - Me - Vinod - on the way to Clearlake (At the Golden Gate Bridge)

SWIM 1.86 miles/ BIKE 80 miles/ Run 18.6 miles

PRE-RACE:
When we hit the hills driving into Clearlake - about 2 miles into the narrow road came the sign "Caution Narrow Road" - Patel cracked me up with his deadpan comment -"Thank god we are thin". We got into Lakeport and checked in our bikes - headed out for a few beers. As per Vinod the mandatory athletes meeting was at 5:00pm so into the tent we went - The race organizers were being really nice and when Patel asked if coke was going to be served on the course he was told "sure if you want it we will make arrangements". Now...I've raced many triathlons but never have had such an awesome response from the organizers...something was not right. Then Dan Empfield who was covering the race for www.slowtwitch.com said he did not recognize some of the athletes and would like to set up a few one on ones!! Hmmm the bells started ringing in my head (I thought it was from the beer). The next speaker was the USAT official who said that the decision on wetsuits will be made in the morning as the water temp was just below 72F! Patel looked at me in shock and with a few whispered "bleeps bleeps" said "Holy bleeping bleep bleep no wetsuits!" - that's when I realized we were sitting at the professional athletes meeting...Hilarious!! So we slid out of there - and then had a few laughs with Dan Empfield about it...(They did indeed serve coke on the course - and this race has a superb race management team)

Race Morning: Beautiful day.
"Like putting toothpaste back into the tube" Yea! That was what one thought of when Rajeev Patel came to the swim start putting on his wetsuit! When Kelly helped zip him up she said that his shoulder blades almost snapped together :-) He was all set -no sign of open water jitters.

SWIM 1.86 miles
It was an uneventful swim and I crawled out in about an hour. Struggled out of my wetsuit and into the bike gear.

BIKE: 80 miles
The bike was a relatively flat course - bumpy roads - If not for the care I took some of those potholes could clearly have altered my voice...if my wife is reading this (she is out of town) - honey, the boys survived...
It was great to see Rajeev Patel on the bike - which meant he not only survived the swim but also made the cutoff (he was worried about not making the 1:45:00 cutoff - he came in with plenty of time to spare) I saw Vinod & Kelly going great guns and we passed each other on all the three loops. I was doing fine - sticking with my plan to ride relatively conservatively and I did come off the bike feeling pretty strong.

RUN 18.6 miles - HILLY
The 2 loop run was really hilly - the hilliest run I've had to do in a triathlon. I chugged along and met up with Vinod at mile 7 and we ran together for the next 3 miles - mile 10-13 is when I normally start unravelling (it has happened on all my previous races) - strangely I was feeling good at mile 10 so I upped the pace a bit and continued on with some sub 10 min/miles. The total finish time 9:23:49 (9 hrs 23 mins 49 secs).
Swim: 1:01:20
Bike: 5:00:31
Run: 3:14:08

Vinod had a monster 3 weeks leading up to the race which included, three back to back 100 mile rides (Memorial Day weekend) and the Alcatraz triathlon a week before this race. The cumulative fatigue started to slow him down. The fact that I caught him at mile 7 should tell him that he needs rest - else there is no way a guy like me can catch and pass an athlete like him.

Rajeev Patel (his race report www.rajeevtherunner.blogspot.com) finished his first official triathlon and it was an ultra distance triathlon to boot. Amazing guy with an amazing attitude, he brought his sense of fun and his energy to the race...triathlon is richer for that.

Great race - very well organized and everyone in the town of Lakeport was so friendly and supportive - lovely place. This race is on my list for 2008.

For the inspirational Lakeport stories of Mellanie Irvine & Ashley and for photographs of the race please read Rajeev Patel's blog.

May update

2007-06-02T17:01:00.000-07:00

A 15 day trip to Bombay in mid April brought all training to a standstill. But fortunately May was a productive month:

Finally got into my wetsuit after almost 8 months and had a nice mile swim at Coyote Point. The bike distance has gone up to 80 miles in May with Page Mill Road to Skyline back in my training route.

I am experimenting with Yasso running & am up to five 800s @ 3:15-3:20 pace (6:30/6:40 mile pace). Good or bad it keep me focused and hopefully gets me closer to an easy paced 3:45:00 marathon.

Total mileage for May:
Bike: 320 miles
Run: ~80 miles
Swim: Not enough!

Chicago Marathon is back on my schedule for October. Since it is three weeks earlier this year it should be warmer and a bit more fun to run.

Next Sunday is TriOneOOne (http://www.trioneoone.com/race.asp?content=clearlake) Rajeev Patel & Vinod Herur will be participating as well.

No sign of summer in the Bay Area yet, temp has been around the 70s. When riding on Skyline it feels more like 50...

12 Weeks to Ironman Canada - that means 12 long rides left!

Happy running
Rajeev

The Beauty of the Bay Area

2007-04-08T18:52:00.000-07:00

Finally a fruitful weekend - after bouts of fits and starts to this years training season I managed two decent rides on Friday & Sunday. Still wary about my strained MCL which had ruled out hill climbing for the past few weeks - I did test it out today with some satisfaction.

Friday - 60 miles followed by a 5 mile run
Saturday - Rest - some light stretching in the evening
Sunday - 66 miles including Old LaHonda in 28:48

I carried my camera with me today to capture the beauty of the route that I have been riding the last 5 years. Not great photographs but decent enough...

April 6-8 Long weekend:
Training Status:
The year started off with a 'sinus' set back which forced me to back out of the San Francisco Half Marathon. But I did manage a nice relaxed run at the Napa Valley Marathon (3:56 - PR) on March 4th. I have been far more regular with my running this year and I hope to continue to push through and make a bid for a 3:45 at Marine Corps Marathon on Oct 28th (there I said it)

17 Sundays to Ironman Canada - that means 17 more rides (best case)...I do have a trip to India coming up which will burn a few weekends...so that leaves me with 15 long rides!! The preassure is on....

Old LaHonda - on the way down

Crystal Springs (Canada Rd)

Crystal Springs

Stanford Dish (Palo Alto)

Looking back, looking forward

2007-01-01T18:22:00.000-08:00

2006 - a look back...with a smile

Coaching TeamAsha for the second year was one of the highlights of 2006. 170 runners finishing what they started! Back in April, many were running their first mile and facing the daunting prospect of running 13.1 or 26.2 miles by the end of the season. It was fascinating...watching their transition from disbelief/skepticism to achieving their goals...in the process enjoying themselves and discovering the joys of fitness and health.

As for myself, I ran four marahons (including 1 during my Ironman). This the most I have ever run in a year - and certainly think I was overdoing it (of course my ultra running friends will scoff at this :-)) - Big Sur in April, Chicago in October, CIM in December and Ironman Canada in August. Apart from that a few of us did the Caliman half Ironman in June, the 2.4 mile Catfish Swim, a century bike ride & the Aquabike (1.2 mile swim/56 mile ride) all in July.

2006 was a year when a lot of my friends achieved personal sporting highs:

Rajeev Patel - Ran his first (of many) 100 milers - and showed up on the cover of the Ultra running magazine!
Vinod Herur - Jumped into world of triathlon with Alcatraz Tri, SJIT, CALIMAN half ironman dist & Ironman Canada!!
Rajesh Agrawal - Probably the most diversified sportsperson I know, finished Ironman Canada
Anu Singh - Like Vinod plunged into Triathlons with SJIT and the MiamiMan half Ironman distance race (next step Ironman!)
Manisha Ghosh - Finished her first half ironman distance race -Big Kahuna, CA.
Mark "Irondog" Williams - finished his 10th Ironman Canada!!
Alan Geraldi - Took a break from Ironman races and ran his first 50 miler (and is training for a 100 miler)
Padma, Kiran & Pradeep Das - Finished the Triple Tahoe Marathon (3 marathons in 3 days)

None of us can ever get to these achievements without the support from our family and friends....Renuka was once again the backbone of my events. Mom was with us as well for Ironman Canada. I cannot thank them enough.

2007 here we come!

Rajeev

Chicago Marathon

2006-10-23T10:19:00.000-07:00

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!

Swimming - What a feeling!

2006-10-15T19:27:00.000-07:00

Anu, Vinod and I swam for about 25 minutes at Coyote Point today - Man was it cold! Grey skies and calm cold waters...it was a lovely feeling. Anu (who is tapering for her first half Ironman) and I went for a short run after the swim.

Chicago Marathon is a week away - it is expected to be 51F! 70+ runners from Team Asha are going to be running Chicago - for most of us running in 50 degree weather will be a new experience - to say the least :-)

1998 -2000 - I remember running during the Chicago winters - seems like a lifetime ago! Ice on the streets, flurries, wind, temp in the 20-40F range! Now I find 51F cold!! That is what California does to you...

Ironman Canada Race report

2006-08-27T19:48:00.000-07:00

We drove to Penticton , B.C .
All 1100 miles of beautiful scenery
Vinod the lone ranger drove alone
Speeding ahead already in "the zone"

Penticton is a lovely little sleepy town
Where many a lake and beaches abound
A short run we managed on Thursday dusk
A nice short swim on Friday dawn

Registration was done by Friday Morn
All met for lunch, Pasta and some corn
Mom, Sarita, Renuka our cheering gang
Vinod, Rajesh, Me, to our health we sang

Saturday was an easy day – slept late
Bike checked in – we await our fate
Dinner we cooked in our hotel room
Nervous...as if I were a bridegroom!

4:30 AM Renuka brought oats & coffee
Amazing woman was up before me
We walked to the start at 5:30
Lines were already long at the Porta Potty!

Wetsuit clad I danced on the beach
The music was loud & had a great beat
"Oh! Canada" we sang and the cannon went boom
2300+ swimmers & off we went - Zoom!

I was out in 1:23, faster than a year ago!
Jumped on to the Iron Horse, 112 to go
Had a feeling that I was dealt good cards
So started cranking out and biking hard

Dreaded Richter Pass, I attacked with a fury
Looking back I wonder, What was the hurry?
The swooping down hills were smooth & fast
Was feeling great and I was having a blast!

Somewhere along the way I stopped eating
No idea why, but the good feeling was fleeting!
Saw Vinod at mile 78 we whooped & cried for each others sake!
Knowing that a final climb awaited at Yellow Lake!

The cramps came quick and fast on the hill
Quads bunched up, where is the darn salt pill?
I biked with one leg, massaging the other
Until both cramped and could go no further!

Ah! the hills are gone the ride is done
Now just survive the freakin' run
Miles upon miles I walked on by
Chatting and meeting others flying by

Saw Rajesh at mile 16 jogging up hill
We were all heading for a finish, what a thrill!
Main street was full of cheering and lights
I had nothing to give, this was the last of my fight!

Hammered and wasted I crawled to the last mile
Sarita, Renuka & Mom...they did bring out a smile!
I jogged to the tape and the finish was Divine
We are all winners - you won't hear me whine!

I love the sport, the physical challenge
We have signed up again for 2007
Hopefully I'll train and practice what I preach!
A new personal best is what I intend to reach.

Thanks to Renuka, Mom, Sarita, Rajesh & Vinod for making it a great experience. Training with Rajesh and Vinod this year was a great learning experience for me, thank you very much guys. And we all thank the Asha family and our friends for all the support and best wishes! We are blessed indeed...

Rajeev

Ironman Lake Placid - July 24, 2005 - Race Report

2005-07-24T14:52:00.000-07:00

“Sport is about adapting to the unexpected and being able to modify plans at the last minute” – Roger Bannister

Thursday - July 21st - Arrived Lake Placid, 88F Humid, went for a 40 min run. Felt good.

Friday -22nd – Overcast conditions – cooler

Finished with the check in & weigh-in at Ironman – drove the bike course. The start had a 6 mile down hill & the last 15 miles of the 56 mile loop was a relentless series of gentle climbs. The entire route was gorgeous – I felt good there were no serious hills except for a 3 mile stretch in between which would need some low gears. Decided to ride 12-15 miles mostly the down hill section. It had been 13 days since I rode my bike!! Legs felt sluggish – Renuka was to pick me up 15 miles down the road – as she drove by me she saw the pain on my face (there was a climb before the down hill portion) she parked 5 miles ahead just incase…:-) I hit the down hills averaging 33-35mph – high clocked at 44mph. It was pouring rain so I slowed down as the roads were slick & I could not see very far. Another biker zooms past me!!! Crazy bugger!! Note to self: stay on the right on race day let these “type As” go by. – Most important night: got to bed early & slept well.

Saturday -23rd – Warm day – high 80s, humid.

Checked in the bike at the transition (Bikes are checked in a day early). Walked across the road to Mirror Lake (that is where the swim was) and went in for a 15 min swim without my wetsuit, the water was warm (65-68F) & I had a relaxed swim – My friend had driven in from Boston, we all had an early dinner & tried to get to bed early but could not sleep – the body, mind (and stomachJ) were already in race mode…

Sunday 24th –RACE DAY – Up at 3:30 a.m. cool day (low 50s) (thank god!) – bit of mist – Had my Coffee, Oats & Banana – I was feeling good
5:00 a.m. Renuka dropped me off at the transition area. Went in checked my bike (good idea for all future triathletes as the heat on Saturday had caused a lot to flat tires) my bike was fine, I put in the Cytomax bottles & checked in my “special needs bags” for the half way point of the bike & run. Walked to the lake…
6:30 a.m. the place was crowded, thousands of spectators. As the lake was warmer than the ambient temp there was steam rising off the water – it was a surreal scene.
6:55 a.m. looked around could not see Renuka or Shiraz the crowd was going wild as all of us were jumping into the water 1900+ swimmers (the Pro Women were on their 2nd loop of the swim as they had started at 6:30 a.m.)
7:00 a.m. “The Start” the craziest scene in sports – almost 8000 limbs churning the water into froth – it was madness, I hung back, protecting myself from blows. I start and in seconds I am in the middle of this feeding frenzy as no one is moving – people pushing, kicking, pulling at your feet, it was NUTS!! – I feel my timing chip coming off (someone pulls at it) I stop to secure it – still looking around to make sure there are no limbs coming at me…10-12 mins later I get into a slow rhythm still being bumped around & in turn bumping people. The second loop was better & had time to wave at the SCUBA diver below us and the helicopter hovering a few feet above us…Amazing! I was loving every moment…
8:30a.m the swim is done – a volunteer pushes me to the floor, & strips off my wetsuit…hands it to me & I am off to the changing tent for the grueling 112 miles on the iron horse. I see Renuka, Shiraz & further down Mike & Lisa friends I have not met in years…I was feeling good.

BIKE: The start was nice, weather was still cool – since I was way back in the swim I had missed the crowds on the bike start – The down hill was great, high 45 mph – at the 40 mile mark I was at average 18.5mph (too fast I tell myself – slow down, calm down) – then the up hills start – I was still feeling good, there was good music all around people on guitars, boom-boxes, drums, it was all good – Nutrition on the first loop - GU gel every 45 mins with Cytomax & water & 2 bananas. I stop at mile 56 switch my empty bottles for fresh Cytomax (I had forgotten to put bananas in the pack – First mistake of the day). I see Renuka & Shiraz cheering – huge crowd cheering, so much for calming down! I take off. Mile 85 it is getting hot – the water stops have run out of bananas – I try a raw green one handed to me – yuk! That’s it no more eating. The climbs start I feel like I am riding in sand…my chain pops off (bad gear changing) I get off & in my hurry I drop my bike!! Finally the ride is over…someone grabs my bike & I am off to the changing tent.

RUN: I start off the first mile at 9.44 pace…”too fast, slow down” I tell my self. The plan was to walk/run a 4:40 marathon…mile 6 I am chugging along at a 10:15 pace feeling good – still the same routine GU gel every 40 mins with Cytomax/Gatorade…mile 8,9,10 are uphill the pace slows. Mile 13.1 I dig into my “special needs” re-fill cytomax – and take off the crowds are cheering, Mike & Lisa are at the turnaround it was great to see familiar faces, a mile down Renuka is out there, my pace picks up (2nd mistake) Mile 15 the first inkling of trouble...a bit of strange fatigue comes over me…Oh! Oh! I have been here before & it’s not a nice place to be…I slow down. Mile 16 I look at the watch it’s been 3 hours – I start calculating my “what ifs” but instead of calculating for 10 miles I calculate for 8 miles!!! Mile 17 & I am wondering why I still have 9 miles left when I should have 7!! – well the mind is playing tricks…”Slow down Rajeev” says a voice inside me "walk 15 min/miles & you can finish." Mile 18-19 fatigue gets worse – I look for company (I wish Rajeev P was around) I find another person walking & I step along and we start a conversation…another person joins us on the up hill, It is bad but finally I get some cola at mile 22…Phew!! Sugar is goooood!!! We get into Lake Placid, the town is still out ringing bells, screaming & cheering and handing out glow sticks as it is getting dark...mile 25 I turn in for the final mile & I almost fall (No sudden turns buddy!!)…Mike & Lisa cheer me on - I start jogging again…I can hear the names of the finishers being announced “John XX from Tempe Arizona – YOU are an Ironman” – Rush of energy, I pick up the pace – I enter the stadium, the crowds are cheering…I run in to finish…14:50:52…just under the European cut-off of 15 hours…an hour slower than my previous Ironman - but I am happy…It was a great day! I fought the beast and just about beat it….!

As John Milton said “The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make a heaven of hell, and a hell of heaven” – so true…so very true…

Thank you Renuka, Shiraz, Renuka, Mike, Renuka, Lisa, Renuka….Thank god for Renuka...she is a true champion...

2002 - Ironman Utah and Ironman Vineman

2002-07-24T17:09:00.000-07:00

2002 was my first jump into Ironman distance races. Until then I was content with short triathlons and Olympic distance races. All that was before I met Alan Geraldi - in 2001 Alan, Tandy, Ray and a bunch of us used to swim together at Coyote Point Park in San Mateo, CA. During one of these afternoon swim sessions - Alan mentioned that I should sign up for an Ironman event and just do it...on a whim I signed up for the inaugural Ironman Utah, to be held in Provo.

So from August 2001 I started putting in miles on my $15.00 road bike that I bought at a garage sale in Chicago. The progress was slow, averaging 13.5 to 14.5 miles per hour I was pretty sure I was not going to make the bike cutoff. This was my first ever road bike (I never had a road bike in India or in Muscat - My first triathlon in 1990 was done on an Atlas bike with no gears) so getting used to the 50/60/70 mile rides was tough. But after several months of riding - climbing hills (Kings Mountain) I was close to 15mph at the 112 mile rides!!

With several training tips from Alan I pushed through the season and finally thought I was ready for Utah. We drove from San Jose to Provo (about 1000 miles). We were an big group - Mom, Shridhar, Madhu, Navneeta, Renuka, Rajeev Patel, Raj & Priya drove in from Denver and Nandini flew in from Chicago and we had a great time in Provo.

Race day morning started pretty calm, then at around 6:30 am we had a sudden swarm of insects that came flying in...as quickly as they came they vanished leaving thousands of shed wings all over the shore! At 6:45 I jumped into lake Provo and started warming up. There was a slight breeze. At 6:55am the cannon went off for the start of the professionals race. But it was total chaos...everyone started swimming and suddenly the wind picked up...by 7:15 we were in the midst of a raging storm. I was swimming around with no idea which direction to head in. Several swimmers said the swim is cancelled - I just did not believe it...Cancelled!? not in an Ironman race...so I kept going - I was more worried about not making the swim cut off!! After about an hour and 20 minutes we were told to swim towards the shore. Several of us were about a mile off course. We were loaded into a pickup truck and driven back to the transition. I saw the relief on the faces of all those waiting for me (Mom was really worried Renuka and the rest were worried too but were pretty confident that I would make it out of the water)

After a long wait, they decided to make it into a 60 mile ride (it was closer to 70) and 13.1 mile run. The rest of the race was pretty uneventful. Ironman gave us the option of signing up for another race - I chose Vineman in Santa Rosa. After another month of training - I finally finished my first Ironman race in July 2002. It took me 13 hours 53 minutes. I remember John and Judy being there at the finish with Renuka and I also remember saying "never again"!!!!
Yeah right!