Arun Gupta, Miles to go ...

Running at Rails Conf, Las Vegas 2009

Six of us from @railsConfRunner ran together around Las Vegas Hilton this morning.



6.4 miles, 57:04 minutes.

Interested in running together ?

Join us at 6:15am in the Hilton lobby tomorrow morning! Here is a picture of the running group from this morning:



Thanks to Jed (2nd from right) for organizing the run, and of course all the running buddies to make it a fun run :)

Technorati: conf railsconf lasvegas hilton running

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Small Steps Foundation Walk 2009 - Help Under Privileged Children by Walking

Did you know walking can help underprivileged children ? Read on ...

Small Steps Foundation is a 501c3 non-profit organization that helps under privileged children by raising funds in the US.  They are organizing a 5K/10K walk on May 17th, 10am at Coyote Hills Regional Park.




I'm walking 10K along with my family and so are bunch of my family members and friends. There are multiple ways you can participate in this cause:

• Register now for a 5K/10K walk
• Donate, any amount, even $5 is good. Help us reach our goal of $500.
• Forward this to your friends who live in the neighborhood and interested in participating

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Running Streak in Q1 2009

Here is a summary of my running streak in Q1 (Jan 1 - Mar 31) 2009:

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Completed Kaiser Permanente San Francisco 1/2 Marathon - PR

I completed Kaiser Permanente 1/2 marathon earlier today and the statistics are:

• Pace groups were very poorly planned. Even though there were markers for 5, 6 ad 7 min pace at start line but there certainly were some 10 minuters over there. It easily took a mile to filter through them. I like the way waves are planned in runsfm.com.
• No race medal :( I don't mind getting charged a few extra dollars but give me a race medal, c'mon please!

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Running Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Half Marathon

I'll be running Kaiser Permanente San Francisco 1/2 marathon tomorrow. This is my first time on this course:



Click on the above map to explore!

The course seems slightly confusing because it crosses itself couple of times. But hopefully it's managed nicely to help the runners. The bib and the chip came in via postal mail which saves an additional trip to San Francisco for material pickup, that is nice!

The starting time of 8am, predicted low of 46^o F, 30 days of running this month, and running right next to the ocean - will find out if it's an exciting adventure tomorrow ;)

Anybody else running ?

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Running by the Singapore River

Had a great 44 minutes run by the Singapore River in downtown Singapore.



There were underpasses for all the streets so that made it really comfortable. The hotel desk even had a running band with 2K, 6K, and 10K routes - really neat! I anyway deviated and ran along the river which was fun.

21 days of running so far this year - 100% in 2009 :)

Check out pictures of the Singapore trip so far:



Technorati: conf singapore river running

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Silicon Valley Half Marathon 2008 Completed - best time so far

I completed Silicon Valley Half Marathon yesterday. Although I missed my target of 8 min/mile by 4 seconds but still improved my personal best by 3 min and 8 secs. Here are my official results:
 


A summary of half-marathoners:



And the top 5 finishers:



And then the complete results.

Even though the number of 1/2 marathoners were much smaller (957 instead of 6679) than my previous marathon but I still enjoyed the run. Going through familiar streets and neighborhood was the best part :)

Here is a short video at the start:




And another one at the finish line in Los Gatos High School:




No marathon can ever be completed without family support. All the practice takes a significant amount of time away from family. And it's certainly exciting when they accompany you, early in the morning, for the actual race. Many thanks to my family for helping in my marathons all through out these years :) Here are couple of pictures:

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Tempo, Interval, Aerobic, Easy, Long runs etc ...

Still confused by the difference between tempo and interval running ?

How easy is an easy run ?

How long a long run should be ?

Here is a great article defining different types of runs/pace, advantages and how to do them properly.

Technorati: running tempo interval

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42k195.com - An exhaustive marathon directory

42k195.com provides an exhaustive directory of marathons across continents. The marathons can be selected by countries, month or by a keyword. The search feature is especially nice because it shows all the details about the race - marathon route, registration page, nearest marathons, community rating, and even hotel booking amongst many other features.

• San Francisco 1/2 2008
• San Francisco Full 2007
• Silicon Valley Full 2006
• San Francisco 1/2 2005

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Running on Praia da Costa, Espirito Santo in Brazil

Praia da Costa is a beautiful tropical beach located in the city of Vila Velha, state of Espirito Santo in Brazil. I had a great 55 minues run this afternoon on the beach:



It felt really nice running on the beautiful sand. On a Saturday afternoon, the beach was loaded with volleyball and futebol players. And I even saw American football too :)

Check out a video of some locals playing futebol:



Here are some pictures:

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Running by Spree in Berlin

Had a great 45 minutes run by Spree Westward in downtown Berlin. Thanks Thomas for the recommendation!



It's very clean with underpasses for most of the streets. And even the 2 streets I had to cross were narrow with little traffic @ 7am :)

Technorati: conf railsconf running spree berlin

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Road Running Routes

Here are my typical road running routes:

• 2.5 miles
• 2.75 miles
• 3.47 miles
• 3.56 miles
• 4.46 miles
• 5.02 miles
• 10.13 miles
• 13.25 miles
• 13.5 miles

• Dean Karnazes on how to improve your marathon timing - mile repeats & tempo runs are the essence here
• 9 week Half-Marathon Training Plan - a plan for first-timers, elite & everybody in between

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Pictures from San Franciso Marathon 2008

Some more pictures (taken by marathonfoto) from my recently concluded San Francisco 1/2 Marathon ...

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San Francisco Half Marathon 2008 Completed

Even though it took me 4 minutes extra from 2005 Half Marathon but I'm happy with the results knowing the amount of practice put in. The complete results are available here.

It was really exciting to be running with 19,000+ runners. The spectators, volunteers, staff, cops and everybody else were excellent. It is definitely fun to run this course with the amount of energy and planning, most likely will run again next year as well. Here is a video shot of marathon start:



Even though I ran a half-marathon but my 5-year old and wife did their own by waking up 3am in the morning, driving me around and then picking me from the finish line. Check out some pictures at:

• San Francisco Full Marathon 2007
• Silicon Valley Full Marathon 2006
• San Francisco Half Marathon 2005

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Running Strong with Billy Mills

July 2008 issue (page 96) of Hemisphere Magazine has an interview with Billy Mills - the only American to ever win a Gold medal in the 10,000 meter run at Olympics. He did that in 1964 Olympics @ Tokyo. It is quite an inspiring interview and I read it a few times during my travel this week. I could connect with it more closely now that my upcoming 1/2 marathon is a week away.

I'd like to share some inspirational quotes from there:

"I tried all different sports. Running - even though I wasn't fast in the beginning - brought me tranquility. It was almost spiritual."

His dad was his inspiration who said:

"Look down deeper, where the dreams lie. Find your dream, son. Pursure your dream. It's the pursuit of a dream that heals you."

And another one ..

"It's important to pursue a dream that heals you. With dreams come desire.. With desire comes self-motivation. With self-motivation comes work. With work comes success."

Check out one of the biggest upsets in Olympics:



A movie was created based upon Mills's story in 1983 - Running Brave and it's way at the top in my Netflix queue now! Here is an excerpt from the movie:


Quite an inspiration! Team Hoyt and Dean Karnazes are my other inspirations for running. What motivates you ?

I could not verify the "only American" claim @ Olympics official website because the searchable database allows to search for all sports except "Running". Weird, isn't it ? But check for your self:



Wikipedia comes to help and prooves that Billy Mills has indeed been the only American to ever win a Gold medal in 10,000 meters. Billy has taken running to a different extent now where he is traveling 300 days in a year as motivational speaker and supports non profit group Running Strong.

Technorati: running motivation billymills olympics

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