Marathon 2008 : Running for Education
. While, I was trying to find the motivation to run for the marathon this year, I came across a handout describing team Asha in one of the 8Ks I ran this year.
I have heard of the Asha foundation before and wanted to be some part of their noble mission. The Asha foundation, provides education for the underprivileged children in India. They have multiple projects all around India to support this mission. I personally believe, education is the greatest gift one can give to another human being. Yes, donating money to feed a hungry person or for rebuilding a earthquake hit village are great causes, but providing education to a person ensures that he/she doesn’t have to go hungry or is able to learn, how to escape from that earthquake. I personally believe that there is a lot of outpouring and attention for calamities (rightfully so) but long term challenges like educating the needy go unsupported.
So this year, I have decided to “Run to Educate“. As part of the challenge, I have pledged to raise $1,800 towards supporting 4 projects that Asha is running in India. Please help me full fill my pledge by clicking on the button below and donating via the Asha website.
If you don’t feel comfortable, donating via credit card, please send me an e-mail at vinay@kudithipudi.org with your mailing address and I will mail you a pre-stamped envelope to mail the check.
I am going to publish frequent updates to this page about my training and any other related information to Asha.
I realized that I am not superman!!
Last modified on 2008-10-14 02:47:37 GMT. 4 comments. Top.
I successfull completed the 2008 Chicago Marathon in 6 hours and 57 seconds. My worst time so far (2004 was 04:46:01 and 2005 was 05:14:41), but boy am I so glad to finish it. It was hot (lower 80s) and humid, two things that I cannot stand. Despite my lack of consistant training, I thought I could finish the marathon in < 5 hours. By the time, I got to the 14th mile, I realized that I wasn’t superman and had to start walking . It was all downhill from there.. my walks got longer and my runs got shorter. By the time, I got to mile 22, I was ready to give up.. but then I remembered why I was running the marathon and picked myself up. Not to mention, my personal cheering squad (my sis, brother-in-law, Sri, Hafsa, Ravi, Deepthi, Achi, Madhavi, Sujana, Byna and Joy) were there to keep me going.
Thanks to everyone that supported my cause and provided moral support. You guys are the BEST!!!
Although I might have come 28472 out of 45000 people that ran the marathon, I was the ONLY guy (as far as I could tell) who ran with the Indian flag .
I have to thank the wonderful folks at Team Asha, for putting together a great program for a worthy cause.
Finally, thanks to the folks at CARA for running a great training program. I was confused througout the program on what my pace group was, I kept jumping from 12 to 11:30 to 11:00 to 12 to 11:30 .. but that was my issue .
This is how a grown man cries in pain after running 26.2 miles!!
Week 16 training and my first outdoor camping trip
Last modified on 2008-09-30 06:07:44 GMT. 2 comments. Top.
After the rough 20 miler last weekend, I was not able to run any of the mid week runs this week. But I did manage to run the 12 miler weekend in the hilly (compared to flat arse Illinois) roads of Wisconsin. Looking back at it, I don’t know, if it was prudent to run on a county highway at night without any visual alerts (reflective dressing, LED etc) on me. It was a tough run, but I took it one hill at a time and I have two proud bleeding nipples to show for it!! .
I was in Wisconsin (Wisconsin Dells to be precise) over the weekend on a camping trip with the good folks from Team Asha. It was great to see all the runners at one place and it was my first outdoor camping trip. I did stay in log cabins before, but this was the first time I had to pitch a tent. And for those that haven’t done it before.. it is NOT so difficult . You just have to spend a hour of so, figuring out what the hell you are doing, or take a few minutes and read the instructions .
Much fun was had with food, liquor and music!!
[The Gang]
[How many runners does it take to pitch a tent??]
[Cool new Asha Running Shirts]
[Important Stuff]
[Rohit showing off his volleyball skills]
[Sri getting ready to make killer omlettes]
[Is that fun or what??]
More pictures here..[http://flickr.com/photos/kudithipudi/sets/72157607569023137/]
A couple thousand more reasons to run the marathon
Last modified on 2008-09-23 05:11:23 GMT. 1 comment. Top.
I was watching a recent episore of “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” (sports show on HBO), which had a story about the plight of “debt” children from India. These children (in the cities of Meerut and Jalandhar) are forced into child labor due a debt their family got into. The terms of the debt so bad that the family never gets to pay it off. The children are then forced to work for nickels to stitch footballs. While the poverty of the family plays a role in this situation, an educated parent wouldn’t have allowed this to happen. If these folks had access to programs run by organizations like ASHA, they would have probably have gotten better paying jobs and their children wouldn’t have to be in this situation.
Running a marathon is a hard task, but nothing compared to the plight these children go through. I am proud to be helping eradicate such things from happening in the future. Help me raise money for ASHA, by clicking on this link (http://ashanet.org/chicago/teamashawiki/index.php/Runners/VinayKudithipudi) and donating whatever amount you feel is appropriate.
I have found my inspiration.. have you?
Confessions and Week 12 training..
Last modified on 2008-09-03 04:23:40 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
As most of you saw, I only ran 10 miles in week 11. I was supposed to run 16 miles that Saturday. I ran for 10 miles and did the one thing that any runner would dread to do.. I stopped, gave up and took a cab back to the starting point. I was exhausted from running in the sun and thought that I would have a sun stroke.. Everyone, I spoke with said that I did the right thing by listening to my body..But long distance running is as much (or more of) a mental challenge as it is a physical one. I felt crappy the whole day when I remembered that I gave up..
That night I was going through my e-mails and read all the encouraging and supportive e-mails, I received from friends and familly when I told them that I was running the marathon this year, to raise money for uneducated and unprivileged kids in India.. I felt that I had a mission to accomplish and that I couldn’t give up on these kids. And did I kick butt this week .. I woke up at 4 in the morning on Saturday and ran the 16 miles I missed last week. And not only that.. I also increased my speed to an average of 10 min/mile.. Thx guys..
Week 9, 10 & 11
Last modified on 2008-08-26 05:55:58 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
I was out of country for the first two weeks of August and could not keep up with my running schedule. And boy, has it been taking a toll on me on the long runs. If there is one thing, I would advise to folks that want to run a marathon, it is to keep up with the training schedule.
Week 8 training..
Last modified on 2008-08-03 11:30:08 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
I am in India, on a business trip and haven’t been able to catch up on my mid week runs. Had to settle for a 7 mile run for the long run too. For those that have travelled to India, I am sure you will understand, when I say that India is not the most frendliest place for runners .. This is in spite of the media attention on the 3 year kid that completed a marathon ..
Week 7 training..
Last modified on 2008-07-29 04:36:16 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Chart of my week7 training for the marathon. I did better with mid week runs and also improved on my speed. I ran with the 11 min/mile pace group and was feeling really good after the weekend 12 mile run. Think, it is time to move up to 10:30 ..
$1550 more to go!!
Last modified on 2008-07-24 05:53:45 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
I raised $250 out of the $1800 I pledged for Asha, without sending a single e-mail or making a single phone call!! By just adding a signature in my e-mail with the link to my 2008 marathon training.
Thx Sis, Hafsa and Sudheer anna.. Thx for supporting the cause of educating poor kids guys.
Tracking my runs using Google charts
Last modified on 2008-07-11 04:50:00 GMT. 3 comments. Top.
I wrote a brief blurb, when Google came out with their Google Charts API. The API essentially allows you to represent your data visually by just generating a URL.. I have been wanting to use this in real life for quite some time now and think I finally found a need . I am going to be tracking my weekly runs with using this API moving forward.
Here’s a graphical representation of my runs for Week 5 of my traning for the Chicago marathon
As you can see, I have been slacking off on my mid-week runs.
I used the following parameters to generate the graph
Type = cht (vertical bars)
Legend = chtt (Week 5 training)
Axis Values = chxl (Mon, Tue, Wed, Thur, Fri, Sat, Sun)
The URL I used to generate the image is http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chtt=Week+5+Training&chts=FF0000,20&chdl=Miles&cht=bvs&chxt=x,y&chxl=0:|Mon|Tue|Wed|Thu|Fri|Sat|Sun|&chs=300×150&chd=t:0,0,3,0,0,0,10&chco=4d89f9,c6d9fd&chbh=20
I still need to figure out, how to show the values in the image and play with the ratio of the axis.
You can get all the information you need about this API by visiting this link http://code.google.com/apis/chart/
Literacy in India : Some stats
Last modified on 2008-06-15 18:42:25 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
The official meaning of a literate person per UNESCO is
A literate person is one who can with understanding both read and write a short simple statement relevant to his everyday life.
Such a simple sentence, but think what it means to be an illiterate person and how much impact an illiterate person has on the progress (or lack of progress) of a country and the world in general.
Here are some stats about the literacy rates in India
- Only 61.3% percent of the adult population are literate. That means more than 296 million people!!! are illiterate. For comparison, China has a literacy rate of 90.9%.
- India is the 12th largest economy in the world and growing at a blistering pace of 9% a year (for the last few years). Imagine what would have happened if there were more literate people in the country?
- The largest number of illiterates in the world are in India
As you know, I am running this years Chicago Marathon with a mission. I am raising money for the Asha Foundation, a non-profit helping to educate the underprivileged in India. Please take a moment to donate some money to the cause by clicking on the button below.