We run so they can read...
I will share my two day experience with the team Chai Latte during the Golden Gate Relay - "California's Longest party” http://www.therelay.com/re_welcome.htm
Chai Latte Team:
Van1: Prabha, Nithya, Ramesh, Senthil, Rajeev, Nitin,
Van2: Baban, Muthu, Bala, Krishna, Piyush, Abhijit.
Training:
Senthil's training for the relay started in the month of December. I registered myself for the relay only by end of January so I missed his one month of training. what a waste :(.I was already training for my half marathon by then so I was already running 7-8 miles at easy pace. His training is not about finishing the race but finishing it free of injury. For the first two months, we used to meet Saturday morning around 730AM (you are reading it correct - 7:30 in the Saturday morning) and in the last month we used to meet on Saturdays and Sundays. One day will be track workout and the other day hill running. It turned out that I missed all the hill running with the team which I will worry about later during the relay(Leg 10- first 3 mile will be at an elevation. More than the elevation exposure to late after noon sun).
Senthil made the training session very interesting by not repeating the workouts. I used to treat myself with delicious Pongal and Idli at Madurai Idli Kadai after the run. I could not forget the day we went to Ramesh's place for breakfast. One of those "rare" days, I lost count on the number of Idli's that ate. Hot mysorepak is an added bonus. Special thanks to Abhi and Abhi's amma. I was not very disciplined in attending these training's towards the end but good enough to get most out of the training program. During these two months, I get to meet many new folks. Thanks to ILP for giving me this chance. I will later realize that this is just the start of an wonderful journey ! Half Marathon(29th March 2015):Training for the really helped me with my first half marathon - "Rock n Roll San Francisco". Two weeks leading to my half marathon was very hectic and I was not running very regularly and was short of confidence. Week before the half marathon, I hiked Clouds Rest (20.1 miles: http://gurmeet.net/hiking/hikes/Clouds_Rest_From_Happy_Isles.html). We did it. Views at the top were worth the hike. This definitely boosted my confidence. If I could not run 13.1 miles, I can at least walk to the finish. Here you go, I am up for it... I finished my HM faster than I expected :) Fund raising:
I wanted to start the fund raising much earlier than I did but work kept me busy for few weeks in march. I did not want to share yet another random fund raising page but wanted to add some meaningful information into it. I was able to collect only little information which was good enough to start the fund raising campaign. I was little hesitant to ask for the donation. I wanted everyone to donate by themselves. I am glad to have many of those friends who were generous in their donations and wishes. I did not expect that my fund raising campaign will receive the support that it did. Just a "thank you" will not do justice for their gesture. Respect !
My fundraising page http://www.ilpnet.org/ILPRelayFundRaising/302 I received generous donation tallying to 2560$. As of 26th July, ILP is still waiting for matching donation to publicize the total fund raised. This info will be made public by mid August.
D day:
I was slotted to be in the Van2 which means we had an advantage of starting late on 2nd May. Believe me that is the only time Van2 folks had a real advantage over Van1. Muthu and myself picked the rental van on Friday. It was one of those days when I had to explain my mom what I am upto and what it means to thousands back in India. Muthu and Piyush arrived at my place, We started and on the way picked up Baban, Abhijit and Bala. Bala landed from India just few days before the race. We all packed and now ready for the what would be an amazing two days.
We were making new friends during our short 2 hour drive to Napa valley. I met Piyush, Baban during the trainings and Abhijit wass my colleague. I am meeting Bala for the first time and Muthu for the second time. We are going to spend our next 30 hours together. Revathy (Muthu's wife) made breakfast sandwiches for all of us. We reached Napa church by 11:30AM and expecting our other van teammates to be there by 1PM. During the short break, we prepared the van for the relay with all the mandatory posters and few quotes. Napa church was also offering Spaghetti lunch(Carbo-loading) and variety of cookies(at-least 15 different types) for a very minimal donation of 6$. I finished my lunch there and was getting ready for our legs.
It's 1PM, Van1 arrived the exchange point. Team picture - checked. I am excited and Baban is all set to start the run and in few minutes we we were all waiting in the exchange point for Praba to show up after her leg. And there she is... Baban is one of the fast runners and the day being sunny we just had few minutes to say goodbye and start our next 6 legs. There are no aid/water station to provide aid from the organizers. Each of our van should be the aid/water station. We decided to stop for every mile for water. We were running through grape fields of Napa. It was really hard to capture the beauty with lens of our smartphones. Our first baton exchange - Muthu received the wrist band from Baban and continued followed by Bala. I was next in line for the run. I had couple of bananas and some Groundnut chikki. I am all geared up and warmed up getting ready for my first leg. Excitement at its peak !. It was 4:06PM when I received the wrist band from Bala. Out of excitement, I did run fast for the first mile. Not an ideal weather for the run. Sunny day, running uphill with wind against you. I am almost exhausted after a mile. I trained well but didn't train much for the uphill and that is really haunting me. For a moment, I had this question "What am I doing here? Why should I do this? (out of exhaustion)" and there was my team waiting for me at mile 1 cheering. Baban was super excited in providing the runners with water/Gatorade throughout the relay. Hydrating myself, I started my second mile and is just getting better. I am already sweating and my addition to the gear (head sweatband) is really helping the sweat out of my eyes. Another hydration at around mile 2 and I am still climbing. Though the climb is not steep, temperature and wind made it worse. Too much of water and two bananas is now coming to play, I felt like puking. I then realized not to take more water/Gatorade. After the 3rd mile, it was all flat but it was still hot and I am getting used to that. I could not see any runners after 7th mile and we are getting into Petaluma city. I had to take my cell phone to look for the map and finally reached the exchange point where Piyush was all set for running. I hardly get time to stretch there. Quickly poured some water on my head, washed my face and started to follow Piyush. I was stretching whenever we stopped for Piyush and eating the breakfast sandwich along the way. We were soon at exchange 11. Someone provided free doughnuts and we all tasted few of them. Abhijit was all set to run. Unfortunately that leg turned out to be the toughest and Abhijit with little practice exhausted himself and will not recover for his next two legs.
At exchange 11, Van1 folks took over from us and we were headed to the Golden Gate Bridge. This time to take a nap in the parking lot. I never imagined I will be in the golden gate parking lot with my sleeping bag. On the way, we bought some dinner from Chipotle. I enjoyed my dinner in the parking lot with the view of Alcatraz island, SF downtown and few cruised on the bay. Time to get some rest now. Our next leg (leg 19) would start around 1230 AM. We hardly have 3 hours of time to rest and used it to the maximum. My legs were still tired after the tough leg last afternoon. My second leg is just 4 mile but even that was hard in the hilly SF area. Our second legs were in total darkness. It was mandated by organizer to wear reflective jacket and headlamp. Van1 folks passed on the baton to Baban near Golden Gate bridge and we were all set for the run again. Many of us did not need water supply as it was cold and we were not sweating out. We just wanted to make sure that runners are not off track in the darkness and van will wait for the runner to pass by for every 1-2 mile. Due to construction, few miles of the course was closed and we had to drop off Piyush crossing Hwy 280N. Despite his swollen foot, Abhijit was eager to do his second leg. He would give up after a mile and Piyush was able to finish that leg for Abhijit. Piyush was also suffering from back pain and he wanted to slow his pace to avoid increasing the severity of his back pain. (Back pain was not due to the run). Inspite of all these, we had a such a wonderful atmosphere in the van. Bala's presence would make it so lively. Forgetting that I barely understand Hindi, Bala would converse in Hindi for my nodding head until he relaize that I am not getting anything :P. Probably I would pick up some Hindi vocabulary before May 2016. We finished our second leg faster that our van1 folks expected which made them to hurry to the exchange point. We were happy with our second leg finish time except for Abhijit's injury. After our exchange, we headed to Canada college for our short rest. It was already 6AM but still we needed some shower and sleep. Hard earned rest. Hot shower after a tiring day is a gift and a nap after that. I hate someone waking me up in the middle of a deep sleep. It was one of those days, I had to accept that and the culprit was Muthu (our captain). He will later treat us with Upma, Dosa and coffee at his home for breakfast :). Thanks again to Revathy. After our breakfast, we dropped Abhijit and headed to our third and final exchange point. In the mean time, Piyush's kids were baking a cake to support Chai Latte. We did not do justice to them. Unfortunately, due to time crunch, we had to head to our exchange point.
Due to Rajeev Patel's unavailability for the second day, Van1 folks need to shuffle their turns which means Senthi and Ramesh had to take 2 legs at a stretch which was not easy as said. Ramesh chose to run the legs 29 and 30 climbing santa cruz mountains heading to interseciton of HWY 35 and HWY 9. We took a team picture before Van1 folks head home. So far we were running for just for the case without considering too much about the time except for logistics reason. Towards the end, we get to compete with other teams and fellow ILP teams as well. It was a real fun. We now had a real chance to finish first amongst the ILP teams. Never mind, we did not accomplish that but still it was worth the try. Relay results are here http://www.therelay.com/app/team/results/year/2015.
With finish time playing in our mind, we decided to shuffle our schedule. Bala being a slow but steady runner and considering myself slow climbing uphill. We decided that Bala will run 2 miles of my uphill and I will take over from him for the remaining of my 6 miles and do first two miles of Bala's slot which was flat and Bala will then finish it off. This turned out well. I finished 8.6 miles with avg pace of 8:28 minute per mile. Course and weather supported this task. Except that I lost about a minute and half in the traffic signal. This might sound silly but when you are cruising at that pace this is definitely a setback. A month later, Ranga (one of the ILP's fastest runner - a veteran runner) came to me with compliments for my running form during that 8.6 mile run. Thank you Ranga !. In Van2, we were debating who to run the last leg on behalf of Abhjit. Just finishing my leg, I badly wanted to run that leg. Its all downhill and it should be a cake walk. Muthu slated to run that leg had to drop off due to lactic acid build up and we decided that myself and Baban will share the last leg. In that leg, I ran 2.3 miles in 16 minutes. Downhill here you go... I want to run to the finish but per team's decision, Baban will take over from me and run to the finish. We took some pictures in the finish line, collected our medals and left Santa Cruz. It was an amazing weekend. While we made friendships, experience for life, kids back in India gained something that can not be explained. P.S: This is my first attempt blogging. Comments are welcome :)