The year that was

This post is coming in early this year. My year has been great. I have been able to take a lot of me time. Most of this time was spent on running. Practice runs for the Mumbai Marathon 2016 are also on track. As decided I have not run any paid races this year and also spent just 4k on running gear. Talking about running gear, I got a GPS watch and T-shirt free from two people.  I love both the watch and the tee shirt.

As for habits, I started sleeping way too early. Quality of sleep has also improved. I am able to wake up at 4:30 in the morning without the help of an alarm clock. I read some good books but not as many as I did in the past years. I guess you have to make up some where and lose some where else.

Travelling has been a great source of stress reliever. I have shut down from office while on travel and on most weekends and ignored all official calls. I atleast traveled once every quarter there by visiting Nasik, Goa, Mangalore, Indore and Karkala.

Me time also included cooking. I got to experiment with food and luck was in my favour. Most common theme followed this year was using less spices and cooking tasty food. I tried to make my dishes more predictable by arriving at various proportion of all ingredients thereby eliminating the need to taste/worry.

I got to spend some quality time with my wife and daughter. They continue to brighten my days. I look forward to coming home to these girls.

Here's wishing you all a wonderful year ahead. May you find happiness and things that make you happy.
In the coming year I wish to keep running, find something different which interests me, travel more.

Giving it back to running

There was an idea flouted in my running group. The idea was to organize a relay event where runners can get their families to participate in running a relay. The main reason was to make the families understand the joy of running and mainly to promote running as a fitness activity. About 32 teams came participated and had fun bonding with runners and their families.

I had the chance of helping organize this run. We used to meet once a week to decide what has to be done and throw around some ideas to make the event good. With limited resources and just five of us we could give the crowd a memorable event. We even surprised every one with running bibs, and also providing them breakfast after the run along with the usual water, energy drink and fruits.
The point of this post is with a minimal fee (100/-) if we could do all these, I do not see why such exorbitant amounts are collected at events. I agree that you have to plan for emergencies during the race, but registrations costs are escalating.

Also, my running group has helped me develop as a runner and it felt good in helping organizing an event for the group. It felt like giving it back to the society.

Run free

My running has run into a halt due to a variety of reasons. Thankfully injury is not one of them. With race fees running out of reach, I decided that I will not be running any paid events in this calendar year.

Practice has also stopped due to not participating in any events. I still put an effort to run atleast every Sunday. Coming to free events, they are rare but there. Some running groups celebrate an anniversary and create an event with voluntary contribution. I have run 5-6 such runs this year contributing 100/- like a cheap ass.

With the new people I meet, I get introduced to new groups and their runs. These runs happen in very beautiful surroundings. One such run lead me to an all expenses paid stay and run at Atul, Gujarat. I never thought I would travel to another state for a 10K. Turns out I would, if it is free with accommodation. It was my fastest 10K till date. I went there with a target to achieve a sub 60 10k timing. The route was all flat and all green. I finished in 53 minutes.

One of my friends qualified for the Boston Marathon. He wanted to run the hills in the last 3 months of his training. This lead me to Kharghar hills. The hills are beautiful and tough. It is 5.5 KM uphill and then back. I did about 3 half marathons in three months.

Then a friend organised a 6Hr midnight marathon, where you run a 5 KM loop for 6 hours starting at 12 in the night to 6 in the morning. I survived is all I can say about the run. Being out of touch, running distances above 25K was tough. I realised I have lost the core strength in this run. However with boiled potatoes being fed every 3K I completed about 40K in those 6 hours.

Now being monsoon, Matheran road via Nere is really green, wet and empty. This is not the main road to Matheran and hence we runners are exploiting the road. We will be running here for 3 months on every Sunday. I hope to get about 100KM per month upto September.

Running has been free, this year, so far

Your's truly is in the front for a change. The laugh is not a laugh. I am in too much pain and sleep deprived. I am not sure about anything anymore. I am not sure how I traveled back home for an hour in local train. 

These are from the beautiful Nere-Matheran road. 

Hiding behind. The camera scares me.

The camera is alright. Not that scary after all