Ved Gund

Ved is one of those “mythical runners”. The ones who run everywhere you do, live in your area, and every one asks if you know…yet we’ve only run together a handful of times! He has since moved to Oregon to follow his brain training [college] but continues to keep in touch, which makes me smile.

Ved and I connected over our appreciation of the Saucony Kinvara, and a love of vegetarian foods. He was more curry and I was more pancakes…but when someone loves to cook and can actually appreciate the perfect texture of a lentil, I know I found a person to keep around.

Not only is he extremely intelligent both about running and his profession, he is also SUPER SPEEDY! This guy ran a PR of 2:47 at the California International Marathon (kicks my butt by a few minutes!!) and he did not have the perfect training schedule. I think at one point his toe looked like it had been under a lawn mower…I’ll leave that to your imagination.

Ved was so kind and gave me a bit more information about him, so without further ado…

Name: Ved Gund

Age: 29

Current shoe: Saucony Kinvara/Nike Pegasus Turbos - I switch between them as trainers. I just recently switched to the Kinvara 9s having used the Kinvara 5s for 3 years with > 15 pairs of the shoe!

How long have you been running: Almost 4 years of serious running at this point. I started running 2-3 days a week in 2013 but only got serious in 2015. I ran a bit of cross-country in middle school in India but that was similar to mountain running here and the races were quite short.

Favorite distance: Half marathon!  

Favorite post-run meal: I don't have a specific one but since I do most runs in the morning, its my usual breakfast - Smoothie made of bananas, berries, hemp protein powder, peanut butter and chocolate milk, and a bagel and cream cheese.

I'm a creature of habit in terms of training, shoes and food. I usually have the same breakfast, don't try out too many shoes and don't change my training too drastically at any given point. This story is about my pre-race meals. In the spring training cycle of 2016, my goal race was the Rochester Flower City Half Marathon. This was only my second half marathon after starting serious training. The day before the race, I drove up to Rochester with my friends Julie and Alex. When we went to get dinner, I wasn't sure what I wanted to have so Alex and Julie suggested trying potato gnocchi for my pre-race carbo loading. I had never had gnocchi up until that point but I trusted their suggestion and went ahead with the gnocchi with tomato basil sauce. Not only did I really like the pasta and raved about it all evening, I slept really well and executed my race much better than I was expecting to ending up with a 6 minute PR. Ever since, my pre-race dinner every single time has been gnocchi :)