Silicon Valley Half-Marathon

I made myself a list of 5 things that i wanna do/achieve in time here in Berkeley at the beginning of the semester..and one of it is running a full marathon...but at the time i really doubt i would have the self-discipline to really train and prepare for it...fortunately I received an email from hong how, one of the singaporean undergrad in berkeley a while ago about forming a team to join the silicon valley marathon event..it turned out to be a wonderful chance for me to make some great friends, explore some great berkeley sceneries (since we run to different destinations such as the Indian Rock which has a perfect helicopter view of the bay area) and the 'discipline' to get my butt out of my bed during my afternoon naps to train with my new-found running buddies...most of us (except yong he) decided to go with a half-marathon and use it as a stepping stone to the actual marathon which we hope to do sometime next March..

So after a rather manageable training routine (we do about 2 runs per week), we went to San Jose the past weekend where the run was held. In fact, we went to San Jose for 2 consecutive days since the run's registration takes place the day before the actual run. We received some tracking device which we're supposed to tie to our ankles during the run and it would apparently track our time. There were also a number of interesting stores set up at the registration room with booths showcasing some GPS-enabled tracking device (definitely for the pros) and plenty of free goodies. We also managed to do a mini health check-up which in my opinion doesn't really tell much except that I have a pretty high ratio of air burst volume and lung capacity ...whatever that means...there was also this guy who was trying to sell his book about his running career...and he certainly takes it freaking seriously...we're talking about a "oh i just did 350 miles non-stop last weekend" guy here! i wonder if that's a Guiness record...but it took him 3 days 3 nights...i think that's just absolutely nuts...


so this is the starting point of our race...the run starts at 7am so we didn't get much sleep the previous night...though the daylight saving hour thing definitely helps since we gain an extra hour over night...


this is the pic taken right before our run..when everybody still looks normal and feeling excited..soon we'd find ourselves limping away, cursing, swearing and wondering why did i pay $45 to do this?


I think the organizer's official photographer took this near the finishing point...actually i only realized half-way through the run that i'm not sure exaactly how long is a half-marathon in miles...well, so like any good engineer i did some mental calculation and convert 21 km to miles and got 15 miles...and of course i got it wrong and so was incredibly surprised when someone shouted 'half mile more!' near the 13 mile mark..that explains why i could still sprint in this pic since i was reserving my last ounce of energy for the last 2 miles which never came...


So i finally came in after 1 hr 51 min of running...I didn't have any prior expectation so i felt pretty good after the run...at least i wasn't feeling a state of total physical destruction after my last half-marathon 3 yrs ago...

so it felt great to achieve this half-way mark and i'm really looking forward to more runs with my new running buddies...for the first time after 3 yrs of junk food and american-style pizzas i'm actually beginning to feel healthy again..hee!