Its not everyday that Lance Armstrong comes to your doorstep!

I was walking back home in the evening when I noticed a huge crowd queued outside my apartment. Turns out Lance was coming to the cycle shop below my apartment in an hour for a book signing. And in order to meet him, you needed to buy his book. Nice marketing strategy eh!

My neighbor and I decided to join the line coz lets face it, people had driven from out of town to come and meet him right outside my place!! After an hour's wait, we finally got to meet him. Not much of a meeting considering he wasn't really talking to people. Just signing the book. This was the only pic I could take of him. There were atleast a 1000 people in line so nobody was allowed to pose with him or even get chatty.

In control!

You know you've had a good marathon when

- you feel like you just started half way through the race
- you are talking to people known and unknown at different sections
- the whole thing seems like a blur as it went by so quickly
- you are elated as you cross the finish line but you don't want to stop running
- your last mile is your fastest (ofcourse, the downhill finish helped)
- you run the entire race at an almost even pace(maybe I should have been a pacegroup leader)
- people on the sidelines are yelling "You look smooth" and "you've got this" at you
- it almost feels like a sunday morning run
- the person giving you a massage after the race says your legs don't seem that tight at all

Such a contrast to my first one back in February. The way my body fell apart during that race, I just did not want to go through that again. Which is why I ran this race a little slower than I probably could've. But its well worth running within yourself and enjoying the experience. I'll have other chances to go all out. Ofcourse, the group of people that I run and train with had a large part in the whole experience being so memorable. It also helped that I've run different sections of the course so many times and knew exactly what to expect. I did have a time goal in mind. And even though you can never be sure how your body will respond toward the latter stages of a marathon, I never had any doubt that I'd achieve the time.

Things that I really liked about the race

- the fluid stations were placed perfectly at even intervals and with gu brew!
- there were people on the sidelines cheering the runners throughout the course.
- so many familiar faces running alongside
- perfect weather
- volunteers who actually knew what they were doing. often times in marathons, people giving out fluids dont do it right, nor do they call out what fluid they are holding out.

After the race, I was walking around the finisher's area, when someone called out to me. I turned and looked at him. He had his feet up on a desk under the comfort of a tent wearing shades. I'll call him ABCD boy:
ABCD: Hey, u there, are you from India?
me: yeah
ABCD: so did you watch the race or did you actually run it?
me: i ran it
ABCD: and u finished it? how did u do?
me: yeah i finished. it went pretty well
ABCD: so is that what that necklace is for?

Now before I could respond to him, another guy who had just finished the race interjected
"That's not a necklace, its a finisher's medal. Learn the lingo before you show up at a running race!!"

Runners are a tight lot. Gotta love 'em!

So that was the inaugural Santa Barbara marathon from my perspective. Now I'm off to gorge on all the ice-cream I've stayed away from these past two months!!!

That belated birthday post!

I've been a tad pre-occupied with the events of today morning which explains the delay in this post. More on that in a following post. But in many ways 2009 was very similar to 2008. Did many of the same things (visited a new continent, india trip, lots of running). Kept up all the resolutions I had made a year ago.

And yet 2010 promises to be full of changes. Its both exciting and unnerving. But I can't help but feel optimistic.