Chicago Marathon 2009 - October 11

I have registered to run the Chicago Marathon on October 11, 2009... I will be using this blog instead of my other blog to chronicle my preparation

10km in 50min on Dec 31 race in Reykjavik

Finally! achieved a goal in running. It was quite a thrill to be able to beat your own demons... I have tried to break into the 50 minutes for 10km race since I started running in 2006 and finally did it almost 3 years later!

Copenhagen Marathon: 4:08:00!

Completed the copenhagen marathon in 4 hours and 8 minutes. It was a disappointing result! Lesson learnt, there is not substitute for hard work... I was travelling in India for 3 weeks before the marathon and skipped couple of long runs and it came back to bite me in the race. I also did not do enough milage during the training. But net net I was happy that I was able to finish with a respectable time without much training.

I am not sure what my next goal is, if I am still in Iceland in August I plan to run half a marathon in 1:40:00.

Copenhagen Marathon 2008

I decided a couple of days ago to run the Copenhagen Marathon 2008. Here is the training schedule so far, I have to admit have not been running as regularly as I wanted to and that is one of the reason that I am signing up to run the Marathon. It forces me to work on a goal. Anyway, will be posting my training update on a regular basis. The weather in Iceland has been quite cold, it has been snowing more than ever.

Here is the training worksheet so far... I have had more practice runs than this but I did not capture it as it was on a treadmill.

10KM in 53:09 & Chicken Pox

The weather was horrible with 10 to 15 m/sec wind, but I ran the race and finished in 53 minutes and 9 seconds. Here is the official result, I was planning to run another 10KM race the following week but as my luck would have it I got Chicken Pox, I can assure you that this was the MOST HORRIBLE experience of my life. I felt like I was trapped in a twilight zone and my worst nightmare together.

I had breakouts through out my body, my face, my head... you name it and I had a break out. The fever ran almost all the way upto 42 degrees centigrade. Doctor came to my house as it was a contagious disease and they had to give me a combination of painkillers and fever reducers to prevent my fever from getting to dangerous levels.

I have been in bed from January 10 to January 17. I am glad it is over. The best part of this is disease is that I have lost about 3 kgs, now I just need to maintain my weight and get back to running. I tried running but I was too weak, I will get back on the running trail again... wish me luck!

Gamlárshlaup ÍR a.k.a Old Year Run 2007

Registered to run the December 31st run, last year I did this run in 51 min 59 sec and was not very happy with the result. I am going to try to break the 50 minutes barrier again this year, however it looks like the weather Gods are not going to cooperate, according to the Icelandic weather forecasting the wind is going to blow at 10 m/s which is not that much compared to what it has been yesterday, it was close to 25 m/s and it has been raining. I think this is probably the worst condition that I have ever seen in Iceland.

Anyway, I am going to run and hopefully do it in a respectable time. Wish me luck :)

Berlin Marathon 4:04:20!

It was incredible & unforgettable! running the last km and seeing the Brendenburg Gate and more than 10,000 people cheering... I was very happy and delighted to have completed the berlin marathon and acheive my personal best.

To put things in perspective I have run 5 marathons in the last 13 months and I don´t recommend doing this! It has been one heck of an experience to learn about myself and my limits. I have promised my wife that I will concentrate on doing maybe one or two marathons a year from now on!

I accomplished one of the goals of beating my personal best, here is the official result. I was impressed with the result certificate. Here is the split up of my time and average pace:

I was quite impressed with the organization and the event management. There were 40000+ runners and everything went very smoothly atleast for me and our team from Iceland.

Haile Gebrselassie broke the world record at 2:04:26, what an incredible acheivement!!! I can tell from running 5 marathons, every second improvement is an accomplishments and he shattered the world record by more than 29 seconds.

Everyone from my running group did very well, Villi and Joi my buddies did great! Villi completed the marathon in 3:24:24 and Joi in 3:37:40. I am very proud to have been running with them and to see them accomplish their goals. It was Joi´s personal best.