{"60006":{"#nid":"60006","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Hayriye Ayhan remembers her first Atlanta Marathon","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\/people\/profile.php?id=1409\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EHayriye Ayhan\u003C\/a\u003E remembers her first Atlanta Marathon. She got so tantalizingly close. But at the 19-mile mark, she suffered severe leg cramps and did not finish. Undaunted, and with the knowledge she could do a marathon, she ran in Jacksonville. She finished, but the downside is that the Jacksonville race was only three weeks after the Atlanta race, held on Thanksgiving each year. It was very upsetting not to finish the Atlanta Marathon, said the 33 year-old industrial engineering professor at Georgia Tech. \u0022So I ran in Jacksonville three weeks later. That,\u0022 she laughs, \u0022was not a very good idea.\u0022 \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EFour years later, Ayhan has learned as she continues running and preparing for the Atlanta Marathon on Thanksgiving. It will be her fourth. This is the 41st running of the Atlanta Marathon and about 1,000 racers are expected for the 7:30am start. An additional 7,300 people will run the Atlanta Half Marathon, which begins at 7a.m. Marathoners will follow the 1996 Olympic course from Turner Field to Chamblee, which is also the half marathon start. Then they\u0027ll head back to the stadium along Peachtree. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe final five miles are hilly. \u0022It is not the most challenging marathon by any means,\u0022 said race director Julia Emmons, \u0022but the thing to remember about Atlanta is that it\u0027s in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains and you can\u0027t do a thing about that if you\u0027re running 26.2 miles.\u0022 Ayhan and her husband, Anand Srinivasa, began running about nine years ago. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022The first time I ever ran, I could only run for five minutes,\u0022 she said. Her job and her research pretty much confine her to a sedentary workday. She wasn\u0027t getting any exercise. \u0022Running is part of my life now. The marathons, they are entertaining and engaging, but now I do just one a year,\u0022 she said. She says she tries to run between 30 and 40 miles per week. Her husband used to be a running partner but injuries have kept him out of distance events. They still run together when she is not training for a distance event. She enjoys running in the mornings but has to work her running around her teaching schedule. The weather is never a factor. \u0022If it is real bad outside, I just run on a treadmill,\u0022 she said. She also does a little weight training twice a week for upper body strength. She says she has modest goals in terms of competing in distance races. \u0022I have hopes to be under four hours and if I can, then that will be very good for me,\u0022 she said.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp class=\u0022smalltext\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003EAs seen in Dekalb at Play from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27279","created_gmt":"2002-11-16 01:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:07:08","author":"Barbara Christopher","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2002-11-16T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2002-11-16T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EBarbara Christopher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIndustrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=bt3\u0022\u003EContact Barbara Christopher\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404.385.3102\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["bchristopher@isye.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}