THE REALIZATION RUN (15 miles)

Today, I went for an outdoor run and ran the farthest I have *ever* run on our planet Earth, 15 it-was-so-hot-outside miles. But I felt good at the end of the run. Like not-destroyed but actually good (and more on that in a couple of paragraphs below)
So, I've decided, this year, on July 29th, I'll be running/moon-walking/whatever-it-takes-to-finish the San Francisco Full Marathon.
​

Story Time:
In 2007, I ran my first "official" run in La Crosse, the Maple Leaf run, 5 miles of total destruction for someone who never really ran unless for some good Indian food.
But over the next decade, I kinda got over the trauma of running, 'winged' a few half-marathon's without much training and as expected, they were not the most fun runs, reminding me that running is an evil activity.


Why now?: 
A couple of months ago, I came across an opportunity to train for a marathon with a non-profit org Asha For Education - Silicon Valley Chapter with the mission of helping support change in India through education of underprivileged children.


In turn I will be helping them raise funds for the children's education projects they support in India.


It's a completely volunteer-run organization and literally they are all tech/few non-tech workers (I mean it is Silicon Valley after all) with full-time jobs who go the extra mile for the mission. The whole funding process is completely transparent with all records on the website and anyone can be a part of the bi-weekly chapter meetings and have their say regarding supporting various projects like Rescue Junction (http://ashanet.org/project/?pid=985) / Basera-E-Tabassum (http://ashanet.org/project/?pid=628) and many more.


Having a structured training program just makes you more accountable and ofcourse you pick up from other's experience too. This was an easy win-win opportunity and I most definitely was not going to attempt 'winging' a full marathon


For now, I need some ice packs. Let's do this.


tl;dr - I am now training for and running a full marathon in July this year and helping raise funds for underprivileged kids.