First Blog

Recently, I have picked up a new hobby (thanks for my friend Santosh A.) in USA and I don't believe that I am already addicted to it. This hobby is running (slow jog ofcourse). I had never ran more than 1 mile before, but once my in-laws went back from US to India, we (me n wife) decided to hit the Gym. I used to do weights during college days, but I couldn't continue later (all silly excuses) and as a result I have always gained weight every month/year. So, this time I decided to focus more on running. I didn't had the patience to mix run and walk, somehow I find walking a lot boring. I decided to run as much as possible on treadmill in YMCA. I always kept pushing and somehow reached a magical 3 miles as my stamina. This was the time I asked Santosh on how come he ran a Marathon when I am unable to run more than 3 miles. He explained methods and suggested ways to increase my mileage and things started to take U turn.
In about 3 months, I increased my mileage from 1 miles to 9 miles and together Santosh and I decided to participate in Full Marathon together (yeah, full on first go). We couldn't run together due to we staying in central and eastern timezones. We also couldn't run together on our first marathon too.
Preparations started in full swing and the max miles I covered was 17.5 miles (once) and 15 and 16 miles before that. With a huge shortfall in my target, I still planned to go for Full Marathon. I took a whopping 5 hours and 40 mins to complete the marathon and I was most of the time walking (even though I hate it a lot) during the second half. I learned a lot of lessons from this preparation and have decided not to stop running for long time so that the stamina and consistency remains. Hence, I registered for Hyderabad HM (22 Nov 09) and Mumbai FM (17 Jan 2010). Preparations are going on very good right now. This blog is about my experiences during this and future preparations.