Modern day innovations

Human beings are innovators. We have so many gadgets to make our lives easier. Some simple, some complex. Some complex machines which simply do the job while some simple machines complicate the job. One such machine which torments me everyday is the microwave, especially my office microwave.

I feel my anxiety building up as lunch time approaches. I get increasingly paranoid approaching the microwave. This reminds me of the experience of visiting a friend's place. I have this friend whose place I love to visit. My only worry is his dog. He has a very friendly dog who likes to "welcome" people and I am scared of dogs. Whenever I visit him, I just want to get over with the ordeal of getting past his dog. This dog scares me. All dogs scare me in general, but this one in particular knocks the living daylight out of me with all the jumps and barks. Once inside I enjoy my his company (friend's) and I don't even remember the ordeal with the dog.

This microwave experience is very similar. The one in my office is so complicated that I get scared to use it. I am convinced that with the right combination of keys this microwave could transform itself into a TV, or a telephone or a time machine. The person using the microwave before me would have used it for one of these purposes and I cannot find a way to use it as a microwave again.

This microwave finds the darnest of ways to make me question my 'microwave using skill'. I keep my lunch in this microwave, press a number followed by the start button. Nothing happens. One person behind me says, you did not press the timer button. Ok. I press the timer button. Nothing happens. Another person yells, you did not select at what power you want the microwave to operate. I say..... ummm... ok. He comes over and this is how the conversation goes over.

Him: what do you have in the lunch box?
Me: Rice
Him: Was it in the fridge?
Me: It was not
Him: When did I make it?
.
.
.
.
After discussing the recipe for the dish, how he would have made it, when was the last time he made it and also how his grandma hand ground all the spicies,  he finally suggests I have to use 750 watts of power for 2 minutes to heat my lunch. Now I hit power, select 750, timer followed by 2 and hit start. Nothing happens.

By now a small crowd of people who want to heat their food has gathered around the microwave and are discussing their version of the rice recipe. I know all these people as I work with them. One more person comes over and is eager to help so that I am out of her way and she can probably use the time machine to learn grinding of spices by hand. She presses another couple of buttons and hits start. I finally see the timer tick. The microwave is not heating the food, just the timer ticks. Why do I need a 'timer only' option on the microwave. No one said let me run to the restroom and back while I time myself on this microwave. Usain bolt did not have this feature while he broke the world record

Another colleague comes over and presses another set of buttons, now the timer starts again as well as the light inside the microwave. The group cheers. I too cheer this colleague. But soon we all realize that it is just the timer and the light but the microwave is not heating the lunch inside. Meanwhile I am worried that my luch would travel to 2018 BC.

I start to panic as a the crowd expands. Some people don't even have to heat their food. They have come for the show since mine is a small office and pretty much nothing interesting happens through the day. One guy even started distributing invitations to his house warming ceremony. His audacity at hijack my crowd. MY CROWD. I am fuming a little at the microwave, a little at the guy who invented this but mostly at the person distributing the invitations.

Another colleague decides to take a stab, at the microwave. He comes over presses a lot more buttons and hits start. The microwave does work, finally. But somehow the timer now is only 10 sec. After 10 seconds I collect my lunch and begin to walk out. Some asks me, just 10 secs? why?

Now I just eat out

The year that was

Overall this year was good to me. Not many things happened this past year, however a couple of good things found their way into my plate.
1. Completed a full marathon in Jan and  another one in November. Both were with almost the same finish times. The one in Jan was exciting because I had gone in with a lot of preparation and excitement to see where I would end up. I was in the top 1000 and it felt good. The second marathon was more of a been there done that kind of a thing. I always wanted to run a marathon outside India. It so happened that the Philadelphia marathon did not require a qualifying time to enter. So I completed the Philadelphia marathon in November. I was excited about this marathon because I wanted to experience a reputed marathon outside India.

2. I  moved out to the US for a short term. It so happened that I ended up in the same place I was before. So I did not face any hassles which come with moving.

3. I got a chance to do a road trip after a long time. I drove a total distance of 4000KM in 7 days and enjoyed it.

For the coming year I look forward to a couple of things.
1. Spend more time with my family.
2. I have a couple more reputed marathons lined up for the end of the year. So I have a lot of travel and training to look forward to.

I also plan to more active on this blog

Here's wishing you a happy new year. May a lot of good things bump into you this year.

SCMM 2017

This year's SCMM weather played a spoil sport for many. I was surprisingly unaffected by it. My training this year was not upto the mark. I did not run as many long runs as I wished at the beginning of the season.

Runs:
I started off the season with a 34K on 11-Sep. Then on I built mileage gradually. However my mileage suffered in October. Then I had to change plans and came up with a plan to run 40K every week. This is much lesser than my 100K in the initial plan. I managed to stick to this every week in November and December.

To overcome the laziness in running longer on Sunday, I registered for two half marathons, one in November and one in December. Did one in 2:45 and another one in 2:00. Then came an opportunity to do two long runs pretty late in December. One was a 33k in Kharghar with three weeks left for SCMM. Another one was a 21K which I ran from Vashi to Bandra in the tapering time. These runs helped me to stay fit in the lat weeks of running.

Nutrition:
This time around I did not pay much attention to what I ate during the day. How ever I stuck to eating a balance of carbohydrates and protein with dal and rice. I chose a vegetarian diet this entire year.

My runs were fueled by Fast and Up reload. There effervescent tablets are amazing. Now I feel how I lived without them all these years. On the race day, I started pretty early with a cup of filter coffee and a couple of slices of bread. I had one Unived Gel at the start and one GU Gel each at 10K, 20K and 30K mark.


Race day:
My race day start was not as smooth as I imagined. I had trouble after 4K mark. I felt very hungry and energy drained. May be not finding water at the star location had something to do with this. At the 7K mark I grabbed a slice of lemon with salt. Near 10K someone handed me chilled lime juice with rock salt. This worked well. I felt me energy coming back after this. By now I met Ashwin who ran with me till the end. It helped divert my mind away from the weather, and the tiredness in between.

Post race:
As usual my face was stiff after the run. I have been experiencing this in the past 3 races. I cannot speak and have difficulty concentrating for sometime. Once I lie down with my legs up in the air for 5 minutes normalcy is restored. Maybe this has something to do with all the blood being in my legs. Need to consult someone regarding this.

All in all an improvement of 4 minutes and 20 seconds in my completion time from last year on the same course. A dump of my race day pace, speed, route heart rate etc can be found here: https://mysports.tomtom.com/service/webapi/v2/activity/perm_3H0HerOfO51UAsBUur_7nvMnM-x6ZjQrdRs9RsYqmZaxsETGHYWEc1v4WY0S4RblipbptTsDKx_l0UitGwASBA?format=html

English is a funny language but Hindi is a confusing language. When I look back upon how I ended up understanding Hindi I end up clueless. The foundation most probably lies in bollywood movies. Another factor which helped was that I studied in a school which had a large population Hindi speaking students. My school was built primarily for the the children of the factory workers of the school owner. All the factory workers were from N.India.

Though I understood Hindi fairly well, I never tried speaking it. Needless to say I have a S.Indian accent which shows predominantly when I speak Hindi. All the girls on the other hand are blessed with an accent-less Hindi. I still wonder how many of my girl classmates could speak flawless accent-less Hindi considering all of us had the same kind of exposure. Without an exception everyone has laughed when I spoke/speak Hindi.

There was this one friend who was hell bent on hearing me speaking Hindi. After much reluctance I gave in and spoke my first word in Hindi with her. She laughed so hard and I guess for atleast a couple of days. I believe couple of her roommates were scared for a couple of night looking at her laughing for no reason.She stopped after a couple of days because I stopped trying.

Some words baffle me. You use the same word for tomorrow and yesterday. How could this happen? May be the inventors could not agree upon the usage. When they could think of so many words in the entire language why could they not think of another word for tomorrow or yesterday. It was like the time when my aunt said 'Yesterday we will be going to a movie'. Then there are numbers. Numbers in English and Kannada are easy. You learn from one to twenty. Then you re-use the same numbers. But in Hindi you have to learn 100 different words. I have managed to learn till 20 so far. Someone throws a number at you above twenty and you feel like an arrow was shot in your direction. You change the conversation to something else and feel like you dodged the arrow. Like the time when you asked a vegetable vendor how much the beans cost but could not understand the number he said. So you ask him where he got the tea he is drinking and walk away. The shopkeeper was left wondering why you left because you were drinking tea from the local chai-wala .

Then comes the time. Telling time in Hindi is crazy. I was to meet a friend at for a movie and the meeting time was adhai. I knew numbers from 1-20 but had never heard of adhai. Again had to cajole her into saying the time in English. Then there is something like paune/pawne. Someone says pawne something like, pawne dus for example. I always thought this meant 10:45, turns out it is 9:45. Where is 9 in pawne dus? I had once gone to buy chillies and asked for 'sawa kilo' of chillies. The shopkeeper  was happy. I was wondering why. He had never sold that huge quantity. When he handed over the bag of chillies I was dumbstuck. I had to do a lot of explanation to do once back home.

Kids these days

Did you hear about the time a kid went and challenged another kid for a fight. The other kid being timid went and complained to her dad. The dad thought fighting the first kids dad was a befitting reply to the challenge.

Do you know how the fight went? Neither do I. I remember waking up an hour later with a black-eye and just a broken rib. Aren't kids adorable?

Something New

Going into my uncharted territory.

For those of you who know me, would know me as an introvert. If I had to classify myself, I would classify as an introvert. There were occasions where I could not even imagine speaking in front of a crowd. I mean, not speaking in front of a crowd, but imagining myself speaking in front of a crowd would scare the living daylights out of me. I would go crazy, restless and my heartbeat would increase rapidly.

This year, for no reason, I thought of doing things I had never done before to see what is the worst that could happen. To begin with, I signed up manage a get-together followed by dinner for  50 strangers. This included setting up the event, deciding the venue, talking to the chef to decide the menu, asking people to register, reminding them to pay, inviting speakers to speak at the event and finally as if these were not scary enough I decided to compere the entire meet.

All these stages were equally frightening. Every call I had to make stared with how to I start, followed by a panic attack and the actual call. One thing I learnt is how much ever you rehearse won't help. Of-course it might give you some confidence due to the preparation, but things can change on the fly and you need to think on your feet. Until I did that, I never realised I it.

This was followed by me signing up to organise a run and talk to corporate sponsors. We usually had individual sponsors who would step up and sponsor small things like say bananas for a day or so. This meant talking to corporates and asking them to sponsor us for a year. Like one brand agreed to get us tee shirts, and another one agreed to be our hydration partner. These were not my deals, but I learnt how to make a deal. This did help me in talking to a timing partner and asking them to part with some cash every month for advertising space. Later we decided to scarp this as we did not want to get into taking cash and answering to higher-ups scenario each month.

All this made me realise some things. Working for a large corporate, I deal with customers every day. I am not scared of that. I was scared of talking to new people. I do not get a chance to deal with new customers, for new deals. Never having done that, I always thought I had stage fright. Now that I am able to do comfortably, I realised it was something else. Now to do it for some more time and get used to it before I find my 'something new' again.

Concluding the running season 2015

As the running season draws to an end with the annual pilgrimage that is the Mumbai Marathon (SCMM), it is a good time to look back at the training that went into finishing the run. This blog post will also serve as reference to me for any future training. What follows is a boring long post about running. It includes a lot of numbers because I now understand that what cannot be measured cannot be improved.
To start with, my last full marathon race was in Bangalore with a timing of 4:37. This was on 18-Oct-2014. I had not trained for any race after this. However I wanted to better this timing in SCMM 2016. When I started training at the end of September 2015 I had my eyes set on clocking 4:30. My training included not so many regular runs as I wished to. If you refer to any of the popular running programs available online, they all suggest atleast 5 runs a week making it atleast 20 runs in a month. But I am happy with the fact that I could manage as many runs as I did.

To start with, I started sleeping fairly early. This required a lot of support from my family. We all decided to sleep by 9:30PM every night. No matter what, lights g off at 9:30PM. This helped me wake up at 4:45AM. By the end of a month I could wake up without the alarm. I used to do a 10K run between 55-65 minutes depending on the mood. Weekly training included atleast one 10K run, 1 hill run for an hour and one long run during the weekend. I did not miss these three runs. Any other runs were just an added bonus.

We started eating healthy at home. We do not have much of a choice outside (lunch is usually in the office canteen). But at home we avoided sugar, used less oil and included fruits after each meal. Infact I haven't bought sugar in about one year. All this helped me in being fitter for the run.

The long runs were with a fellow runner from my area who ran at a faster pace. My runs ended up being a little bit faster than I would have usually run. I incorporated a lot of stretches before and after the run. This helped in being injury free.

Another thought that occurred to me was training does not start or stop during the morning run. I incorporated training into my daily chores as well. I avoided the inter office shuttle and started walking between offices in the mornings and evenings. I stopped taking the auto rickshaw home. These two activities added upto about 3KM everyday. The secret recipe was stair climbing. My office is on the eighth floor. I climber these 8 floors twice in the day. Once after lunch and once after the evening tea break. This helped in strengthening my hamstrings and glutes. I did not have to take out time for strengthening due to this.

October saw me starting the long runs at a slower pace. I could manage about 20KM in a long run. This gradually moved on to 30KM by November. In December I was comfortable running 35KM+ without any problems. This built come confidence that I could achieve the magical 4:30 figure.

On the race day, I started out a little faster than I was supposed to. Luckily this did not come to bite me in the legs later on. The energy of the crowd got me going at a faster pace for about 10KM. I finished the first 30KM at a speed of 10Km per hour. Now I was sure I could manage lesser than 4:30. The next 9KM took an hour because of some elevation gain on the way. Also in the last 5KM sun is blaring at you with all the heat. So the last 5Km are the toughest.

All in all I am happy to have finished the run in 4:16:15. However the best is yet to come.

Race day Nutrition:
Oats at 2:30AM.
1 YogaBar at 5:30 just before race start
1 YogaBar spread across Km 10 - 20.
Salted Oranges whenever I was hungry. Might have totaled to about one full orange from 4 locations.
1.5L of water in 200ml bottles. Carrying the bottle along the way for a sip when required.
I dairy milk chocolate at KM35.

Per KM split (time taken per KM)
Splits:
6:33 5:13 5:32 5:18 5:16 5:25 5:23 5:24 5:46 5:46
5:35 5:41 5:50 5:35 5:47 5:43 5:56 6:03 5:46 5:52
6:26 5:38 5:43 5:50 5:45 5:56 6:01 6:03 6:05 6:07
6:07 6:20 6:26 6:26 6:58 6:56 6:38 6:44 6:38 6:43
6:38 6:32 4:16(shorter distance of 670m)

Training runs:

Some pictures from the run which I cannot afford to buy:

Official timing from the race timing mats:

http://www.timingindia.com/beta/my-result-details/MjcyODp0aW1pbmdfcjE2MDFfc2NtbV9tYXJhdGhvbl9lbGl0ZQ==#head

Timing from my GPS watch:

https://mysports.tomtom.com/app/activity/36145093/ 

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

Udaipur: A trip report

We decided to visit Udaipur this time around. It had been some time we took a time off from Mumbai to not visit family. After informing some folks who were surprised by our choice, my desire to visit the place grew stronger.

On landing in Udaipur my first surprise was the temperature. I had lander at a 13 degree Celsius place from a 31 degree Celsius place. It felt amazing to experience this type of chill after a long time. After settling down at the hotel we decided to start off with a local eatery for breakfast. The food is very good at most of the places. The local cuisine stands out. I wont get into the details of what I ate and where. But most of the websites on the net give you pretty good reviews and places to eat. All food is served with love. Spare a second to let them know how you enjoyed the food and look at them beam with pride.

The next thing that impressed me was the amount of foreign tourists that visit this place. On my return flight 60% passengers were not of Indian origin. The locals have adapted well to the influx of tourists. The taxi driver I spoke to informed me that during the tourist season, he is a taxi driver while the rest of the year he is a farmer. The local businesses speak fluent English with an American accent (very well faked) and broken German and French. Many cafes can be found in the heart of the old city. These cafes serve good burgers, coffee and tea. There are places that fit into all the budgets.

You would not miss the palaces and lakes in the city. The place is well planed with man made lakes. By lakes I mean water bodies which are 700 Ha in size. All these lakes are interconnected. There are around five major lakes in Udaipur. Stay around lake Pichola if you want to be close to the happening places. You will save a bucket load of money on rickshaws.

Last but not the least, travel to Udaipur with an empty bag. You have lots to shop for. clothes, handicrafts, leather goods and memorabilia. The shopkeepers are good. I had one instance where I bought some hand made leather shoes and went my way. As they are hand made you don't find sizes imprinted on them. I was on my way to other stores looking for stuff to buy. After a while and about 500m down the road in a different shop, the guy whom I bought shoes from comes in and shows me another pair of shoes and says that they fit me better. He made me try those shoes and of course they did fit better. After exchanging the shoes he was on his way. That was an experience at customer delight which will stay with me for a long time. Do not miss out buying local clothes,bed sheets,shoes, belts and woollen clothes.

To be continued...

First Bangalore Marathon - "Trip report"

Bangalore is labelled the runners capital for a reason. It had all sorts of tough races like the midnight marathon, ultra marathon and weekend trail races. However there was no official road race. You can guess the excitement it generated when the race was announced back in June-2014. I too was pretty excited about the race and registered for it the moment it was open. My reasons for registration were many. Firstly I call myself a proud Bangalorean even though I don't live there any more. Secondly that was where I started running. Last but not the least, since the race was in October,I thought what better place to try for a personal best (PB) timing when I know the weather was meant to co-operate. I have run in many races at different places like Mysore, Mumbai,Mangalore among others. So I thought about participating. With family supporting my decision to travel to/run in Bangalore there were no second thoughts. I had decided that I would run only 2 paid marathons in a year. For now they are Bangalore and Mumbai.

The race by itself was fantastic. Even before the race was to be held the organisers announced a multiple set of promotional runs. I have heard these were nothing short of the best organised races in India. Even with a nominal fee of Rs 800/- they organised free promotional runs with free T-shirts for runners and free breakfast.
Now coming to the actual race day. I reached the venue pretty early. Even though I was teh first runner to arrive the place was bustling with activities. The baggage counter was in place and so were teh volunteers who collect the bags. In contrast too Mumbai Marathon last year, I was the first runner to arrive only too be welcomed to a desolate scene. No one was present to take my bag or even to check me. Once In the venue I met hordes of runners from Bangalore. Met my runner friends for a warm up and off we started at 5:00AM.

True to the hype associated with the weather it was as if sun forgot to come up that day. With the cool weather supporting my run I could maintain the pace I had in mind. I went in with a target of 4:45:00 to finish. Starting from Shree Kanteerava stadium we raced through Cubbon going on to MG road, Ulsoor lake and over Domlur flyover and on to Army area, Indiranagar, Inner ring road, Koramangala to Adugodi and back. The highlight of the run was t the inner ring road. About 500+ army men stood on the road along 3 kms clapping and cheering for us. Even their claps were in sync. It was humbling experience. These fit men who could complete the marathon in almost half of our time stood there cheering for us. There were many jawans reading my name from my bib and cheering me up. I again met they from KM 30-33 (approx). This is where I generally give up running and resort to walking. Then a jawan cheerfuly shouted to me 'Khheecho Sir' (Buck up). Made my day and also my race. I did not stop due this and continued running.
For me there were some hiccups. I sprained my lower back a week before the race while picking up my little one who makes us run a marathon by herself every day. Also my little toe discovered the edge of a wall the same day. I was pretty doubtful of the run. This is again where my better half put some sense in me saying just go there and atleast walk the race. By about 25K my back pain returned on the race day but disappeared with the some spray and ice. The little toe still hurt after a month.
This being the first road race of such scale there were minor hiccups. Traffic could not be blocked for such a long duration (Mumbai does well in this count). There was even a major altercation at Trinity Circle. On the return leg we had to run with traffic near the MG road area and also wait for traffic to clear up. There were runners who cribbed about no crowd support in the early morning. Mumbai has too many people cheering you all along the 42.2 KM, but in Bangalore the crowds came in later. One group of runners were saying 'look this is the spirit of Bangalore, we need to knock on their doors and drag them out' I was in half minds to tell them that we like our spirits in the evening, preferably chilled. In the end good sense prevailed and I moved on.
I finished with a 4:36:40 timing,my PB by about 25mins. I met some more friends after I completed, some after 3 years.

Inspite of all this, the marathon was organised by runners for runners and they had taken care of all the cribs I have after the race. They even treated us to sumptuous breakfast and hot filter coffee. All said and done I wiil return here next year.

Technical details of my run:
1. Timing India - Results page
2. Garmin Link

Customary PS: Another long blog coming about my preparations for this race.

I feel like writing a blog, but am not sure what to write about. So ironically, I write about not writing. With the Mumbai Marathon looming just around the corner and me facing the risk of a DNF*, my mind is gone blank. Or is filled with too many things.

*DNF - Did Not Finish

The year that was

Another year rolled by, another year to look forward to. This brings me to the junction where I look back upon the year that was (for me).
This year passed by real quick, I can say in a blink. It all started with me completing the Mumbai Marathon. The high from this completion stayed on for almost a month. I learnt to swim and became a good swimmer. Good because I could not float on water and now I can swim a kilometer. It was always a dream.
 I trained hard and reached a stage where I could call myself fit. There were times I was inspired to run more, swim more on the same day. Another dream.
 I started working in Mumbai, living the usual Mumbai "fast life". Waking up timed by the locals, leaving work to catch a particular local, scheduling things this way. This left me no time to run nor swim and I came back square one (fat from fit). Well, another dream.
God was kind enough and blessed me with a baby girl. After giving us some tense days she is playful and back to her normal ways. Now all that is left is to set good examples all through life and make her a good human being. Another dream.

It is said that, do not make resolutions you cannot keep. It is also said that, make resolutions and push ahead to chieve it.
I am making some ones which are fun for me to achieve. To clock atleast 1500 kilometers by 31-12-2014. To participate in a triathlon (preferbly Olympic distance as that is the easiest).

This has been a real good year with all of my wishes coming true. May the one looking from above continue to be kind.
Happy new year folks. Live your dream

Of the joys of running and of the joys of minting money

I guess I am qualified to call myself a runner now having run at 4:00 AM,just to show off. Now that we have established me as expert in this area, let the rant begin.

I always make it a point to run the KTM and Bangalore Ultra (atleast one). It is always a good practice run an build up for the Mumbai Marathon. Both these races can be undoubtedly classified under the tough races category. 

People run for fun. Very few run to prove a point to others while mostly prove a point to themselves. I do not know where to begin with on the topic of joys of running. 

Making money is also fun. If you are the best at that job you sure can demand a premium. But when the same job is done by others in a equally good (if not better) way for less,you would look for the cheaper one. Now comes my point. I feel running is getting expensive. Already with the costly shoes, GPS', family time lost etc etc, you shouldn't be charging too much for facilitating a run. I am not taking away anything from the organisers here. I love them, I love their races, I loveir punctuality, organisation, shirts and what not. I always knew their races were expensive. But this time they have crossed a line.

Yours truly,
a runner paying through his nose

We now operate from a new location

The same quality of service but at a our new location ;)
For  along time I have been thinking on moving this blog to wordpress. I like the way wordpress renders blogs. O also like the multiple options provided by wordpress.

Why?
Because I like it, that's why.

Where?
Here


Will this blog stay?
Yes. I will update both for sometime. I will decide on what to dump at a later point.

Comments?
Always welcome

What would you tell a 20 year old you

I would tell this to a 20 year old me.

1. Be adventurous

2. Don't be afraid to try out new things

3. You might fail,so what.

4. Become mentally strong. You are gonna need it for all the heart breaks that come in.

5. Become physically strong. It will be needed for one particular nasty incident in 2007.

What would you tell yourself today

1. Don't care what comes out of your mouth

2. Be persistent, don't quit too early. 

3. Love the ones who you really care for. What? You do it already? Well, express it.

4. Don't be afraid to try out new things

5. Stand by the people who do anything for you

These are on top of my mind now. Will add as I remember.

Will i revisit this in another 10 years. Let's see.

A hill workout

A long time wish of mine came true this weekend when I ran the Kharghar hills as part of a group run.I had heard about this hill a long time ago and also was tempted to run it. It however helps to approach this run with humility. The initial elevation is enough to dampen the spirit. However if you persist, the rest of the run is "smooth"considering the initial ascent. The hill goes upto 4.5K and then almost flattens. If you go all the way to the top and return you would cover 10.5K in one loop.

On the way back you feel as if your legs are charged up with some new found energy. This is a bit risky if you are not careful. There are cases where runners have fallen due to the uneven surface. I also saw 2 runners lose their balance but luckily did not fall. Going back for a second round takes a lot of mental strength than physical.

I ran up the hill slowly,gradually increasing my speed. After about 3k I was at my usual speed. I complete d about 7 K and decided to walk and accompany my wife who is new to running. I ran along side her for about 3K and then she picked up speed from there. I would not be exaggerating if I say I was very impressed with her when she complete the 10K. I returned for a second round and complete it comfortably.

You would be surprised about the amount of open space we have in this area. Luckily it is untouched so far. check out some pics to see for yourself. I will write about another green space I discovered through a running group some time soon.

 You go all the way to the top

 Your's truly

The killing ascent

All photos are courtesy of Ashok Someshwar

Among other things..

This 20th I reached one of my long time dreams of crossing the finish line at the Mumbai Marathon. Crossing the finish line meant so much to me for many reasons. One of them being scary.  This race has a deadline of six hours. What it means is you need to complete the run by 11:40AM. All support is taken off and traffic starts on these roads. I was scared that I would have to run between the vehicles and also not knowing the roads in Mumbai did not help ease the fear.

Luckily for me, this did not happen. I finished with an healthy hour to spare. I started off the run at 5:40 AM. I had aimed to finish in 5:30Hrs considering I took 6:15Hrs at KTM. My plan was to run 8 Kms every one hour. I clocked about 9.8 Km in the first hour. Every extra kilometer I cover now would come in handy at the end when I would not be able to walk. So I did not slow down and continued at the same pace. By the end of 2 hours I had 18.3km. I did the half marathon in 2:17. a bit slower than my last half marathon, but i was not dis heartened as I knew that I run the last KM faster. At the end of 3Hrs I had 27.1km and 34.6 at the end on 4Hrs. This is when I secretly started hoping to finish in 5Hrs.

Still at a pace of 8.75 to 9 KM per hour I had the luxury to watch around south Bombay where we were running. More than any thing else it was the spirit of the supporters who poured onto the streets of Mumbai which was heart warming. Kids had taken over the water booths from the appointed volunteers. Some residents had bought 5-stars and Cadbury bars for the runners. I was well nourished all through the runs. I distinctly remember a lady handing out almonds, cashew nuts among other things. An old lady was offering bananas. Some people were also handing out GU Gels. These gels are very expensive in India and very scarcely available. All these things reminded me what makes a great city. Having run some city marathons earlier, Mumbai marathon easily tops the list.

Every thing was well organised. Water and energy drink booths at regular intervals, well stocked aid stations, young girls and boys enthusiastically applying ice bags to bruised muscles of runners, those huge fans and air coolers in those 'cool zones' made the run enjoyable. Every thing was in place and I cannot think of any thing that was amiss. Crowd control was at its best. Kudos to the Mumbai Police and Traffic police. There was security to runners as well.

Coming to the show offs. I was awestruck by a lot of things all along the way. The show rooms of Rolls-Royce, BMW, Audi, Porsche, Ducati among others stood out. Houses along Peddar road, the elder Ambani's house, a couple of houses of bussiness families, the sealink, running along Nariman point, race course and Worli sea-face were also high points.

Having said all this, I could not have finished the race on 5:00:41 if not for the people cheering above their voices, volunteers and organizers. All in all a run  you should do atleast once.

Stats pasted below: Photos coming up shortly.

Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon 2013 - Marathon 5:40 Start            Back
Bib Number	2518
Name	MANJUNATH BHAT
Gender	MALE
Category	OPEN
Overall Rank	1091
Category Rank	773
Gender Rank	1013
Split@3 Km	00:18:24 at an Avg Speed of 9.78 Kmph
Split@15 Km	01:36:35 at an Avg Speed of 9.32 Kmph
Split@20 Km	02:13:39 at an Avg Speed of 8.98 Kmph
Split@27 Km	03:01:56 at an Avg Speed of 8.9 Kmph
Split@28 Km	03:10:45 at an Avg Speed of 8.81 Kmph
Split@29.25 Km	03:20:10 at an Avg Speed of 8.77 Kmph
Net Time	05:00:41 at an Avg Speed of 8.42 Kmph
Gross Time	05:06:33

Average performance of the race
10 8 5 3 @3 @15 @20 @27 @28 @29.25 @21K  Speed   9.78     9.32     8.98     8.9     8.81     8.77     8.42

Overall Runners Statistics
1,000 750 500 250 3 3 - 4 4 - 5 5 - 6 >6 Total  Runners   6     216     858     928     108     2,116

Overall MALE Runners Statistics
1,000 750 500 250 <3 3 - 4 4 - 5 5 - 6 >6 Total  Runners   6     207     791     857     99     1,960

Overall OPEN Runners Statistics
800 600 400 200 <3 3 - 4 4 - 5 5 - 6 >6 Total  Runners   5     164     648     699     86     1,602