Arun Gupta, Miles to go ...

Arun Gupta is a technology enthusiast, a passionate runner, and a community guy who works for Sun Microsystems.

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Wednesday October 25, 2006

21 weeks of training
Approx 640 miles of practice runs
Average pace of 8:35

After all this, I'm in the last week of taper down and now ready for my first marathon on the coming weekend (10/29 to be precise). Reading this article (Marathon Smarts on Runners World) has an all together different meaning now. This article gives race day tips from experienced marathoners. Most of the tips would seem natural but it's definitely worth reading again during the last days of training.

For family and friends, and anybody else interested in running along last miles:

The race course and the viewing map is here. The map gives the complete route and lookout areas.

The race starts at 7am PT. This is also the day when daylight saving ends, so the clocks move back by an hour. Going by the experience of my long practice runs, and if I don't hit a wall, I plan to cross mile 20 around 10am and hopefully the finish the marathon in less than 4 hours (9:10 pace). My longest practice run has been 22 miles with a 9:25 pace but I've done slightly shorter runs with better pace. So this seems like a stretch goal but I hope to meet this goal with your wishes.

If you plan to run last miles with me, as some of you have told, you are most welcome. I may offload my sweat shirt to you if I'm feeling hot or may ask for an additional sip of water, so be prepared The weekend weather looks reasonable and I hope it's an overcast for the first few miles.