How is it started?
I was not a jogger or runner until 2006. In the Spring of 2006, I used to play with my kids at the Mountain View High School Track. We played soccer and cricket. At the track, there were many people who used to jog. By looking at them, I was enthused enough to do 2 rounds (1/2 mile) of jogging. I started liking it and end up in goal setting that by end of summer 2006, I should be able to do 10 rounds in the school track. So every Sunday, I jogged with my family (yes, my family also started liking it).
At that time, I didn't know any thing about following
- Jogging needs proper running shoes, I used to wear basketball shoes
- Pre and post jogging stretches
- Running injuries
Without knowing all of these, I was able to complete 10 rounds, 2 1/2 miles (my goal) by the end of Summer 2006.
How is it continuing?
In January 2007, I was chatting with one of my friend RV (Ramachandran Varadharajan) and I was intrigued by his running comments and his experience in the running. This kick started my 2nd phase in the jogging.
Based on RV's advice, I went to Runners World Shoe Store to buy running shoes. The store has many experienced runners who will look at your jogging pattern and recommend the right shoe for you. I went to one of the gentlemen and explained my problem and what I need.
Please note that I used to wear custom orthetics to take care of my knee, ankle problem, this was recommended and custom made by Amol Saxena two years back.
I told him about my custom orthetics support. He asked me to wear few shoes and requested me to jog, each time he was noticing my running pattern. Finally, he recommended Saucony shoe and he told me to try the arch support, I felt very comfortable with arch support, so I bought both the shoe and the arch support. Buying the arch support is one of my biggest mistake, I will tell you why in the later blogging.
I started jogging 3 days a week, 2 to 3 miles each time. I didn't have any goal.
How did I get into Asha program?
I saw an email from Veena Bhandarkar in Oracle Indian's mailing list which mentioned Asha's marathon training program kickoff meeting on April 1st, 2007 at Sports Basement. I just went to the meeting without any expectation. I was thrilled with the number of participants. On the same night, I just registered into the program. The registration is just for trail period, not a commitment for running a marathon. Satya is our mentor and Gurpreet, Bharath, Karthik, Kiran, Dinesh and myself are in the Mountain View Running Group. We all started our weekday runs.
At the end of April 2007, I signed up for the Chicago Marathon. I was thinking first run the SFO Half-marathon in July and then run the Chicago Marathon in October.
