My introduction to the Marine Corps Marathon 2009

A couple of interesting events happened during September of 2008. Siraj and I were towards the end of our walk at the W& OD trail near Reston when 4 Indian men in their 20-30 briskly walked past us huffing and puffing and then stopped. It was as if their target was just to overtake us! This irked me, and I ran and overtook them! And walked back to join Siraj.

I am generally wary of the way Indian men behave towards Indian women, and being in the IT industry I have seen it all! and when this happened I told myself 'Hey guys! you know I am marathon material.. I am just extremely lazy!'

The same afternoon I stumbled upon an email address that was associated to the town I grew up. As we communicated, we realized that we have been neighbors for about 10 years, attended the same elementary school, have common friends... Best of it.. Shekar my new friend was training to run the 2008 Marine Corps and I was fascinated and he becaome my hero.. Though he dismisses my admiration of him quite modestly.. He has since then completed the 2008 MCM and National Marathon 2009 in DC as well. And is now training for the Marine Corps 2009!

Though I am a retired Athlete, and wanted to run for India when younger.... it has been 20 years since I actually trained consistently and was very nervous to commit, but deep within I wanted to get back to running.

The worst of it all I know how easy it is to quit silently.
How easy it is to be admit failure when bullied.

So when an opportunity came by in the form of an email from a local Tamil
Association, I couldn't avoid it. It was an invitation to train for the Marine Corps Marathon 2009. I was so nervous to even attend the initial seminar. I was a total wreck there, babbled constantly, and chirped like a trapped bird to my own amusement. I still am in a state of excitement and filled with nervous energy that scares me and am afraid that I would end up doing all the wrong things.

But here I am 4 weeks into the training. Still taking baby runs (I mean 2-3 miles is a baby run for a marathoner isn't it?)

And here I am waiting for Oct 25th. My target date to check off one childhood dream!
And here I am waiting to run. Waiting to re-connect to the joy of running.



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Fun fact # 1:
From a co-runner:
- When the coaches say 'you need to eat plenty of carbs as the runs get longer'
- He just says 'ha! I just eat Idlis'
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