Arun Gupta, Miles to go ...
Arun Gupta is a technology enthusiast, a passionate runner, and a community guy who works for Sun Microsystems.
Monday July 30, 2007
Completed San Francisco Marathon 2007
4 hours, 4 mins, 33 secs - yeah, that's what it took me to complete my first San Francisco Full Marathon.
I did First Half Marathon 2 years ago and First Full Marathon last year, but this was the first Full Marathon on the hills of San Francisco. Even though I could not complete within less than 4 hours but I was happy that I took only 3 short walk breaks and maintained my pace as planned. There was San Francisco characteristic-fog all through the course with no Sun shine anywhere at all, and in a way that helped. Here is the complete breakdown from the official results (bib# 1378):
| Distance » | 7.5 miles | Half | 20.7 miles | Finish |
| Time | 1:01:35 | 1:48:49 | 3:03:12 | 4:04:33 |
| Pace | 8:13 | 8:18 | 8:51 | 9:20 |
Some other stats are:
| Place Overall | 1317 out of 4250 |
| Men | 1058 out of 2805 |
| M 30-34 | 178 out of 436 |
| Age Grade | 51.38% |
The fastest male runner clocked 2:25:57 and the fastest female runner was 2:43:41.
The race was very well organized and some of the highlights that I liked are:
- The course was very well marked and the local crowd support was very supportive. This was much better than Silicon Valley Marathon last year where the course was lonely at quite a few spots. Today the course was well guided by cops or event team.
- There were ample water stations and each station was accompanied with a medical aid staff as well. This proved out to be a boon at Mile 23 where they applied Biofreeze to my sore thighs. And there was no stopping after that at all.
- There were music stations all through out the course and the frequency of stations increased during the last miles. This helped me maintain the rhythm closer to the stations. Kudos to all the bands for playing early in the morning.
- National Holistic Institute, College of Massage Therapy were giving a free massage to all the runners after the race. This helped a quick recovery of my sore body parts.
 With my son before Start |
 Start Line |
 Right after the Finish |
 In front of the Bay Bridge |
 2007 Finisher Pose |
 With my wife and son after the Finish |
And lastly, my wife and 4-year old son drove me to the race early morning and cheered for me at the start and the finish line. This was the biggest morale booster!
I read it somewhere "The only thing that does not hurt after a Marathon is your Pride". And I completely felt it today right after the race and the massage turned out to be a big blessing :)
Technorati: running runsfm marathon
Posted by Arun Gupta in Running | Comments[8]
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This is a personal weblog, I do not speak for my employer.
Glen
Posted by Glen Mazza on July 30, 2007 at 08:46 AM PDT #
Posted by nitinpai on July 30, 2007 at 10:28 AM PDT #
Posted by Rocky Aroda on July 30, 2007 at 12:26 PM PDT #
Posted by Arun Gupta on July 30, 2007 at 03:14 PM PDT #
Posted by Rama Pulavarthi on July 31, 2007 at 02:00 PM PDT #
Posted by Dhiraj on July 31, 2007 at 02:41 PM PDT #
Posted by Anoop Trivedi on July 31, 2007 at 04:13 PM PDT #
Way to go we all new you could do it.
Posted by VA Refinance on April 25, 2008 at 07:36 PM PDT #