Arun Gupta, Miles to go ...

Marathon Training, here I come!

Last pre-training week with a total of 26 miles.

Mon: 7 miles
Tue: Rest
Wed: 7 miles
Thu: 5 miles
Fri: None
Sat: 7 miles
Sun: Rest

So marathon training, here I come tomorrow. Check out some good articles in the meanwhile:

• The Runners Six Pack - How to get ready for a peak running performance
• Get Strong Legs - How to get a strong lower body
• Run Through The Cold - Training through the cold winter months

Miles to go ...

_{Technorati: running training fitness runninglog runsfm}

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Marathon running is gaining momentum

Marathon running is gaining momentum as there is a 5.9% growth in the number of marathon finishers over 2004, as reported in USA Marathoning: 2005 overview. The page also shows how the gender divide is reducing in the past few years. Silicon Valley Marathon does not have enough participants to qualify for this report. But San Francisco Marathon (running later this year) is ranked 18th with a growth of 82.9% over year 2004. The average time to finish the marathon in my age range is 4:25:28 so I'm above average comparing my finish time (4:06:57) from last year. The month of October (same month for Silicon Valley) accounted for more than one-quarter of all marathon finishes.

A prelim report on 2006 at marathonguide.com also shows a similar trend in terms of growth: approximately 397,000 marathon finishes, 3.7% increase over 2005. A more detailed report is expected later this month and I'll post a link when it's available.

I ran my first marathon last year and so eagerly waiting for complete 2006 statistics.

_{Technorati: Marathon Running 2005 2006 Overview}

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Goodbye 2006, Welcome 2007

Last day of 2006 and a lot got accomplished, either directly or indirectly, during the year:

• Web Services Interoperability Technology (WSIT) is making interoperability between Java- and .NET 3.0-based Web services a reality. A stable version of WSIT is available via GlassFish and a nightly version can be downloaded here. Two milestones were released with an astounding success at different plug-fests.
• Java API for XML Web Services 2.1 (JSR 224) was approved by the JCP. The WS-Addressing, initially supported through JSR 261, was then subsumed within JSR 224.
• jMaki beta 2, an Ajax framework that provides a light weight framework for creating JavaScript centric Ajax-enabled web applications using Java, PHP and Phobos, was released recently.
• NetBeans went through a year of multiple releases and awards (NetBeans 5.0, 5.5 Beta, 6.0 Milestone 5, JDJ Editors Choice Award and many other achievements).
• Java SE 6 was released earlier this month. Easy to use Web services APIs and Scripting support in Java applications are my two most favorite features. Check Danny's blog for top 10 new features in JavaSE 6 to upgrade.
• GlassFish v2 Milestone 3 was released earlier this month and well on it's way to become the most feature rich, easy to use and highly performant open source App server, ever.

On a personal front ...

• I made my first JavaOne keynote appearance showing WSIT and Windows Communication Foundation interoperability. 
• I ran almost 850 miles in the year, completed my first marathon and looking forward to next one.
• I bought a new Nikon D80 and plan to improve my photographic skills.
• And last but not the least, "I" won the Time person of the year award - 2006. Wikipedia, MySpace, YouTube and many others belongs to a breed of "social experiment" technologies that is changing the way people are interacting with each other. Here is a small table that shows the number of blog entries I posted during the past two years on my two blogs:
  

  	2005	2006
  blogs.sun.com/arungupta	24	95 (including this)
  weblogs.java.net/blog/arungupta	46	61 (including this)
  Total	70	156

  The number of entries I posted doubled over the past year, the strength of GlassFish, WSIT, JAX-WS and NetBeans community increased tremendously, helped one another for nothing, and building open source software is that's what this "social experiment" is all about. This is what is "founding and framing the digital democracy".

This is by no means an exhaustive list of accomplishments either by Sun Microsystems or any other group within Sun. This is only an attempt to capture how and where I spent my time last year. There are still miles to go and a lot to be done. Today is the last day of 2006 and I'm ready for 2007.

Welcome 2007 and a very happy new year!!!

_{Technorati: HappyNewYear 2006 2007 WSIT GlassFish Marathon Ajax JAX-WS NetBeans}

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Running San Francisco Marathon 2007

As if one marathon was not enough, I registered for San Francisco Marathon scheduled for Jul 29, 2007. I was thinking of delaying the the registration a few days but Tier 1 is already sold out and I don't want to miss out the option of running on Golden Gate Bridge, yet again. After all, San Francisco is #1 running city.

15,000 runners are expected . The first half is always the fun part and there are cheer stations and music stations planned almost each mile during the second half. I plan to start practice next month and I'll definitely need to practice lots of hill runs. From my previous half marathon experience, miles 10-12 were really steep. The course description gives you an idea of all the beautiful landmarks (Fishermans's Wharf, San Francisco Bay, Marina, Presidio, Golden Gate Park and many others) crossed during the run, well it's 26.2 miles so gotta cover good part of the city

And I found a buddy at work who has done multiple Boston Marathon and a PR of 2:28. This is going to be fun!

Check out the holiday survival guide to watch those extra pounds and squeezing your runs to survive this merry season.

Posted by Arun Gupta in Running  |  Comments[4]

Silicon Valley Marathon 2006 Training Calendar

I'm recovering well after the marathon. My complete training calendar is below. I'll be happy to take any advise on altering my schedule to accommodate a faster pace for the next race.

Technorati: Running Training Marathon svmarathon

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Marathon and GlassFish Community

As I mentioned earlier, running a marathon is all about community. So I decided to show my support for GlassFish community by hand painting my running shirt on the day before marathon. My dad helped me trace it and then I painted it. Learn more about GlassFish and it's community. Get Started, Get Involved and participate in the Roadmap discussion. Read about community awards given for participation in GlassFish community. And you can read about some great testimonials, again from the community, here. Oracle, BEA, JBoss, SAP and Tmax Soft are partners fostering the community spirit. Also read about how GlassFish works with a host of application frameworks, applications, tools etc. available in the community. Check the complete flickr slideshow of me wearing this tee-shirt.

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Completed my first marathon

4 hours, 6 minutes, 57 seconds and a pace of 9:25/mile.

This is what it took me finish the Metro Silicon Valley marathon, my first one. Almost 7 minutes behind my targeted goal but a PR. A hamstring pull on mile 18 & 23 completely slowed me down.  The complete results are available here. I read somewhere "After running a marathon, the only thing that does not hurt is your pride" and I fully realized that yesterday. The fastest male was 2:42:40 and the female was 3:07:25.

This was not possible without all the wishes from family and friends. Especially Sanjay, Satish, Dhiru and kids Ankit, Shubhankar, Vaibhav, Varun and Prateek who all ran along the last mile with me and those who could not support me as front runners. And of course the faithful and constant support of my wife and son for the 5 months of practice. I'm here because of this support system and now it's time to payback morning time to family (which I've not been able to do recently because of early morning runs),  for at least next few weeks until I begin my training again for the next marathon.

Watch a 23 second video clip of run with them here. The kids were really enthusiastic and enjoyed running along. Check out the flickr slideshow.

Although there were volunteers scattered through out the trail but the race manifested into normal trail running at several places. At quite a few places there were more bikers and dogs and no spectators making you feel lonely on the track. I was also disappointed that there was no coverage in print edition San Jose Mercury News this morning but here is an online version.

I learnt the following lessons from the race:

• Practice more hill runs as the hillocks towards the end were hitting hard
• More cross-training to develop over-all body strength
• Not sure, but loose some more weight to keep chugging along towards the end

Over all, I'm happy with my performance and learned lessons to improve upon next time.

Posted by Arun Gupta in Running  |  Comments[2]

Marathon and Community

I got the first feel of fellow runners marathon this morning when I was at Stanford University School of Medicine Hospital helping Dr. Suzanne Miller in a study on "The Effect of Endurance Exercise on the Cardiac Function of Recreational versus Professional Athletes". Read more about the study here. In approx an hour at the hospital, the following tests were conducted:

• Spoonful blood sample
• Height/Weigth/BMI
• Electrocardiogram
• Heart rate variability
• Heart Echocardiogram

The results of the study will be published in a medical journal and the results of personal heart tests (claimed to be worth thousand of dollars) will be made available.

"It's all about Community" said the Director of marathon on the radio yesterday. 3500 registered runners from all over the country, 800 marathoners, The Health Trust, Hilton, NBC 11, ASHA, KLIV and a multitude of sponsors and charities shows community involvement. 

My next blog will be after the run and will talk more about community.

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Running first marathon this weekend

• 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.

You can read about my marathon practice and running related blogs here.

Posted by Arun Gupta in Running  |  Comments[8]

Tapering down before the marathon

With a slow pace of 9:25 for 22 miles the weekend before, and a better pace of 8:51 for 21 miles last weekend, my final push for marathon training is over. Now I'm tapering down and waiting for the days to pass. I might do few tempo runs and uphill but other than that I can afford to be lazy in the mornings

Here are some good articles on why and how to taper.

• Tapering for Marathon
• Why should you taper for a marathon ?
• What is Tapering ?

Technorati: Running Marathon Fitness SiliconValleyMarathon

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20 miler over the weekend

4 loops of 5 miles gave me my second long run over the weekend of the total planned 4. All the training (both physical and mental) is now getting used. Here are the statistics for the run:

2 hr and 56 minutes
8:50/mile pace
2779 calories

With non-stop running for 3 hours, there is a lot of time to think about setting the marathon goal. Here is my refined goal:

1. Finish within less than 4 hours
2. No walk breaks (I've not taken any so far)

I plan to finish the first 20 miles in less than 3 hours and keep the last hour for remaining 6.2 miles. Here is my training calendar so far:

Technorati: Running Marathon Training

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Final push for marathon training

With an 18.5 miles run yesterday morning, this is the start of long runs for the upcoming marathon. It took 2hr and 43 minutes, burning 2460 calories, giving a 8:49/mile pace. Now on to longer runs for the weekends to come ... 20, 22 and hopefully 24.

After almost 5 months of training, the goal is to finish the complete marathon in less than 4 hours.

Technorati: Running Marathon Training

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Marathon training: More mental than physical

Practicing for a marathon, to me, is a more mental exercise than physical. I think physically most of us are capable of completing a marathon but training requires motivation, discipline and perseverance. All of these come are mental rather than physical aspects of human psychology. And of these motivation is the MOST important since others follow.

I love running and have been self motivated so far. I found a running buddy few weeks ago but that's only 2-3 days a week. Mostly it's me running alone on rest of the days and all my long runs, for instance, are alone only. I have approx 8 more weeks of intense training and then the taper down starts. Having run slightly over 400 miles in past 11 weeks, I'm hoping to stay motivated all through out.

This article (Getting the MOST Out of Training) accurately summarizes the importance of mental training for a race. Here is a great quote from the article:

"Far too often runners look at mental and physical training separately and this disconnect is usually most evident during training."

 Here are some other articles on staying motivated through the training:

1. Marathon Motivation (poem)
2. 25 reasons to run
3. Running motivation tips and techniques - Great quote from the article "Seek motivation first and the desire to run, and run successfully, will surely follow."
4. 10 Guaranteed Ways To Burst With Motivation
5. Psychology - 4Cs (Concentration, Confidence, Control and Commitment)

George W Bush is the only president to have run a marathon. He completed 1993 Houston Marathon in 3:44:52 for a pace of about 8:36/mile. Now that's another source of inspiration for some

Technorati: Marathon Training Running Motivation

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Breathing and Running

I've made a new friend on my running trail couple of weeks ago and we were talking about breathing styles. After 9 weeks of marathon training, I realized I've not read much on breathing so here is my learning over the past few days. There are a few terms associated with breathing:

• Inhale/Exhale method - Breath can be inhaled through mouth only, through nose only, through mouth and nose. Combine that with an exhale and there is a 3 X 3 matrix.
• Breath Control - Either chest or belly may be used to inhale/exhale. Belly breathing allows you to inhale more Oxygen and exhale more Carbon dioxide.
• Breathing Rhythm - When running you could inhale during 2 steps and then exhale during next 2 steps. Each of this could differ depending upon the length and pace of the run.

All these terms are nicely explained here.

For the first couple of miles, I tend to breath through nose only but then I switch to mouth and nose inhale/exhale pattern. I need to practice on belly breathing since I realize I'm a chest breather and runs out of breath when I run faster than my regular pace for few miles. I've not tried calculating my rhythm but I think it's mostly 2/1 during fast runs and 2/2 during normal pace.

Here are a few articles that I found helpful:

• Are you a noser ? - Open up your breathing.
• Nose Breathing - Forum discussion on nose and mouth breathing.
• Cadence Breathing - Explains Breathing rhythm.
• Breathing @ RunnersWorld - "Breathe through your mouth. Breathe through your nose. Suck the air in through your ears, if you can."
• Breathe Right And Win - Breathing techniques for different sports.
• Running Economy - talks about stride length and rate and correlate with breathing rhythm.
• Running Tips - Scroll to the bottom of the page for a good read on Belly breathing.

And here are my lessons on breathing:

• Just breathing through nose can cause hyperventilation, so breathing through both nose and mouth is better.
• Mouth should be open slightly and jaw completely rested. This is also called as "dead fish" position because that's what it looks like.
• Belly breathing is better than chest breathing since you are breathing in more Oxygen and exhaling more Carbon dioxide. I need to practice this.
• Don't try to achieve 2/2 or 2/1 or 3/1. Do what feels right, is comfortable to you, and go with the rhythm of your body. 

Technorati: Breathing Finess Running Marathon

Posted by Arun Gupta in Running  | 

Marathon Pace Band

Found Marathon Pace Band to help maintain my pace and also achieve marathon goal time.

Click on "Pace Band" link in the window and it will launch a pop-up window. Make sure pop-ups are enabled in your browser or at least selectively enable them for this website. Enter marathon goal time (hours, minutes and seconds) in the left side and click on "Create Pace Band". This fills up an HTML table on the right with 27 rows (1 row each for 26 miles and last row for 0.2 mile) . The left column indicates the number of miles covered (static) and the right column indicates the time that should have elapsed to achieve your goal (populated based upon your goal). This table can be cut along the border, water proofed and wrapped around the wrist during the marathon.

I expect it to be a handy tool as it will provide feedback on whether I'm running ahead or behind the goal.

Technorati: Running Marathon Training

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