R.I.P. Tank

You were always enthu about everything, an awesome photographer. One of my favorite running photographs came via your eyes. Awesome cook, simply used to be a fan of your pepper chicken and all those chilly dishes, was always full of life. Fan of your line "chal karte hain yaar". You have always given me surprises and shocks, your decision to move to Delhi and then today. It is shocking, disturbing.

Somethings would never be the same again......... running is one of them.......

Make a difference - Donate and help fight Cancer

This year Ankita and me are supporting the Sudha Mehta Cancer Foundation, this trust is started by a freind and I have closely seen the kind of work they are doing. The money received from the donation is used to buy Cancer medicines for the poor and needy. A lot of people in our country cannot afford the Cancer treatment, this charity works with them and provides help to them

I am planning to run the following events this year:

1) Kaveri Trail Marathon - 42.2 KM (Marathon):                          

2) Bangalore Ultra 2010 - 50 KM:                                              

3) Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon - 42.2 KM (Marathon):  

4) Auroville Marathon, Pondicherry - 21 KM                               

I have been training hard for all these events and hope to achieve my goal this year.

If you want to support the idea of running for a cause, then I would request you to please pick up any of the above events (one or more) and donate Rs 10 for every Kilometre (or more!) that I run, this would make a huge difference. 

Also if you wish to donate please reply to this mail indicating the event you picked up for donation. So that I am able to track the donations and send you the receipts.

Since it is a new trust, so the payment gateway still needs to be incorporated. However you can initiate a wire transfer or deposit in the bank account or handover the cheque to me

All Donations are tax exempted, I will mail you the reciept for the donation made.

Please mail / call me if you wish to donate, would send a mail with the donation procedure. 

KTM 2010

This weekend was the last long run before the KTM (Kaveri Trail Marathon). With this long run, the first part of our training ends. The training is divided into three parts, KTM, Bangalore Ultra and then the final showdown in Standard Chartered Mumbai marathon 2011. Till now it was a good training, I guess I stuck to the schedule and hence ended up running 867 KM in the entire training schedule which started on 1^st of June 2010. The special part about this marathon is we are treating this as another long run for the preparation for the Bangalore Ultra 2010, where I am attempting a 50KM, this would be my 4^th 50KM at the Bangalore Ultra, but this time I have a time target.

The training so far has been very good, apart from one week where I was down with viral fever, the fever took a lot away from me, it left me weak, still recovering from the cough. But I guess the training in the muscles is still there. I have been concentrating on the nutrition value a lot during my tapering period, and I hope to recover completely by KTM.

Pretty excited about this marathon, first run after I embarked on a journey of endurance training and runs after my 30^th Birthday this July. Lets see how I do. Keeping my finders crossed!

More on KTM after the race!

the training so far......

Independece day and Deshbhakti

Gone are those days when people used to respect the national anthem, the latest version of National Anthem played by MTV on the television is the latest inclusion in the saga.  It can start at any given moment, you might be lazing around in your bed, eating your meals, talking on phone etc… and as soon as you hear it, well I stand in respect of it. I agree that’s my personal opinion but then why give such an opportunity, and to top it all they call themselves “Asli Indian” after doing this act. And lastly, they came out with a bad version in terms of music.

This reminds me of the enthu that we used to have on the morning of Independence / Republic day, when we were back in school. All the nukkads and crossings in the city would be playing patriotic songs from Old Hindi movies. There would be a national flag in the hands of every child going to school for the parade, in his bus / riksha / trolley. The excitement of getting a “laddoo” at the end of a parade, and then come back from school and see the parade / hear the prime minister’s speech on TV. This is all getting lost somewhere….

So inspired from such series of events, here goes the list of my favorite patriotic songs from hindi movies, why has Bollywood stopped coming up with them now? (This is not in order of preference. But a general list)

1)    Kar Chale hum fida – Haqeeqat (1965) (Mohd. Rafi): "zinda rehne ke mausam bahut hain magar, jaan dene ki rut roz aati nahi...."

2)  Mera Rang de basanti chola - Shaheed (1965) (Mukesh, Mahendra Kapoor, Rajendra Mehta):  “Jis chole ko pehen shivaji khele apni jaan pe, jise pehen jhaansi ki raani mit gayi apni aan pe”

3) Taqat watan ki humse hai – Prem Pujari (Manna Dey):  “dekar apna khoon, seechte desh ki hum phulwari, bansi se bandook bana dein hum wo prem pujari”

4) Ae mere pyare watan – Kabuliwala (Manna Dey): “ maa ka dil ban ke kabhi seene se lag jaata hai tu, aur kabhi nanhi si beti ban ke yaad aata hai tu”

5) Hoton pe sachai rehti hai - Jis desh main ganga behti hai (Mukesh)  "mehmaan jo humara hota hai wo jaan se pyaara hota hai"

6) Ye Desh hai veer jawano ka - Naya Daur (1957): dont miss the dashing Ajit in the video

7) Chhodo kal ki batein - Hum Hindustani (Mukesh) : "Aao mehnat ko apna imaan banaaye, Apne haathon ko apna bhagwaan banaaye"

JAI HIND!

Update

Its been a long time since I have blabbered on this blog.  So as you all might have guessed the blabbering starts with my training plan.

Training

The training for the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon 2011 is coming along well, as updated in the previous post, my mileage for the week is already hovering around 75-80 km. When I jumped into this kind of high mileage training plan, I was almost sure that my body is going to give up in the middle of it. But I am pleasantly surprised that it’s reacting well or much more than well. I am loving the training, in a matter of 1.5 months I have already lost 2.5 KGs of weight, this is in parallel hogging on to the food….The only side effect of this training is that my shoes are going to wear out much earlier. I am clocking close to 300 Km a month, going by that rate I think the shoes would only be good for some three months. So if any of you guys are travelling back from US, please let me know.

In the meanwhile I am really proud of Ankita for taking up running so positively and with dedication, she has been running very strong and already her 16 – 18 km long runs have started. Though she doesn’t trust me, but I can see a definite improvement in her running. I think after this training schedule she can be on her own!

Movies:

Watched Inception, it’s a good movie, though I didn’t find it “great” I liked the concept and the innovation part of it! Apart from this, the movies to watch out for:

Paan Singh Tomar: I loved the poster of this movie, and also the story, looking forward to it

Sad news: Ravi Baswani died of a massive heart attack. He was a legendary actor.

Read a tribute to him here, nice post

Mumbai here we come!!!!

Ankita and me registered for Standard Chartered Mumbai marathon 2011 today.

The training is going pretty well and my body is accepting it well also, my mileage for the week is already hovery around 74-80 KM

Mumbai here we come!

Shin Splints, my take

So this is my own analysis on what, how and why of Shin Splints

Shin Splints:

As Wikipedia describes it: Shin splints is a general medical term denoting medial tibial stress syndrome, a painful condition in the shins, often caused by the stresses of running, jumping, dancing, and sprinting, and usually heals slowly.

Runners World: Shin splints, the catch-all term for lower leg pain that occurs below the knee either on the front outside part of the leg (anterior shin splints) or the inside of the leg (medial shin splints), are the bane of many athletes, runners, tennis players, even dancers. They often plague beginning runners who do not build their mileage gradually enough or seasoned runners who abruptly change their workout regimen, suddenly adding too much mileage, for example, or switching from running on flat surfaces to hills.

Reason:

1)     The biggest reason for shin splints is the sudden increase in mileage

2)      Also you might be wearing wrong shoes, most probably worn out shoes

3)      Too much running on road / hard surfaces

4)      Landing on the HEEL while running

The above facts can be found everywhere over the internet and the runners magazine. Now here’s my take on this.

I jumped into a tough marathon and Ultra marathon training in the beginning of June 2010, I did a ramp up of my mileage, increasing it by 10% every week, but I still ended up having shin splints, which were pretty painful. This has always been my problem, I start getting shin splints once the weekly mileage starts hovering around 65+ KM . so here is the analysis of what was wrong with me. Have a look at these, maybe a lot of you guys are also doing it….

1)     My running shoes were worn out.

2)     The shoes that I wear to work were in a terrible shape, imagine this, you are in your running shoes only for about 1-2 hours on an average weekday. But you spend a lot more time in your work shoes. Do give it a thought, don’t get carried away by fashion. Just answer this question, what is more important to you, looking hep in office or the race that’s 5 months down the line. A friend of mine used to wear heels to work, she ended up injuring her ankle and learnt the lesson the hard way

3)     If you are driving to work, and spending hours doing that, please take off your shoes and then drive. This helped me a lot, apparently pressing that clutch in stop and go traffic (specially applicable for Bangalore), and in an uncomfortable leather shoes might do the damage as well

4)     Stop keeping the wallet in your rear pocket. I have been doing this since a long time and then realized that you a lot prone to ITB pain if you do that, start keeping it in the front pocket or in the laptop bag. Because if you are keeping it in the back pocket and then sitting on a chair for the entire day, you are actually sitting in a wrong posture…..

5)     Now the biggest problem, that I discovered: when you are running don’t try and land on your heels, try and land on the midfoot. This was the biggest problem with me and its been some time now that I have started avoiding landing on the heel and this is showing up in my training. The shin pain has disappeared. See this video , how an elite marathoner lands:

6)     For the above point what Dr Rajat advised me was, wear the Bata PT shoe (keds) in your shorter runs, since it has bare minimum cushioning, landing on the heel would be a little painful and hence you would automatically land on the midfoot, and then this would become a habit. But if you could manage this with your cool running shoes, then its more convenient. Actually the best would be to try barefoot running for some days….

When I had shin splints this time. I just wasn’t in a mood to drop my weekly mileage and let this pain screw up my training plan. So here’s what I did:

1)     Ice it 6-7 times a day

2)     When you are sitting in office / in the bus / stuck in traffic, stretch it

-         Sit tall in a chair with knees bent 90 degrees, feet flat on the ground. Keeping your right heel on the ground, gently raise your right forefoot up and back toward your shin until you reach a point of slight discomfort. Return it to the ground. Repeat 10 times with each foot.

-         From the same position, lift your right forefoot up, and trace the letter "J" in the air with your foot. Return it back to the ground. Repeat 10 times with each foot

-         Sit tall in a chair with your right leg extended and an ankle weight on your foot. Slowly draw your toes back until you reach a point of slight discomfort. Then extend your toes forward until you feel tension. Repeat 10 times with each foot

Doing this actually gave me relief from the shin pain in ONE DAY, and my weekly mileage was intact! Try it!

Happy running

What's on your desktop

Yeah Runners, we are different

My training schedule as my desktop wallpaper....

Mile Markers-III

Phooh phooh oooph, yeah this is just the warmup, the road ahead will be better. On a weekday, 14K is a long distance, that’s why I woke up at 5:00 am and…. Oh wait I am running at 5:55 pace already, so Shantanu you see it is not that bad!

Hmmm boyfriends seeing off their girlfriends at the bus stop, Dads / Moms holding their child’s hand and seeing them off at the bus stop, and here I go my hands clinched, strides significantly improved in the last three weeks, but the road ahead is long very long till Mumbai Marathon. I look into my Garmin and fall in love with the gadget yet again! I have reason this time. The Garmin shows 10K @ 5:43 pace. Wow Shantanu, if the music keeps playing this way the Goal for this year looks achievable!!!!!

Breathing check: Normal, Shin pain ? mmmmmm no I don’t think so, hamstrings and calves ? feels good! Heart ….. LOVES IT!!!!!!!! Wait wasn’t this supposed to be a progression run? Yeah it was, let me try carrying this pace for about 4 more Kilometres.  I can’t wait to message it to my buddies!!!! So I have to reach home earlier than before, I want to tell this to all… lets carry on!

Wait who is this? He is trying to lap me! Not today dude, today is my day….. run Forrest run!!!!!

Phhhhhhhh I guess after an awesome run, when the Garmin shows you 14K @ 5:44 pace you need to cool down, and stretch… let me do that……

This run made my day, the best part was I wasn’t even feeling that I was cruising at 5:44 pace. How easy it is for a runner to start a happy day!!!!!!!!

Mile markers - II

For the first part of this series read here

Oh God! Please don’t stop this music, I am loving it. Another good week for me, ran a total of 66 KM and that too at a decent pace. As my weekday mileage increases so are the techniques to prevent injuries, now I find myself doing a lot of stretches and drills before and after the run. I never saw the importance of doing it, or maybe I was just too lazy to do it. But I guess whenever you are doing great mileages or speed runs or the hill training a good stretch, especially after the run becomes very important. I realized this the hard way, after being down with so many injuries last year, I am not going to make the same foolish mistakes this year.

The coming weekend I will be 30 years old. So I am running a 30 KM on that day to celebrate my birthday, also just saw the training plan and realized that at the end of July I would end up running 300 KM, and happily included that in the celebration plan as well. So the fight still continues, staying injury free is the key part in this training, if I can do that my goal for this year looks achievable.

Like a lot of long distance runners I have stopped enjoying the music during my long runs now, it suddenly has become pretty irritating, instead the long run this weekend (27 KM at 6min 31 sec a kilometer pace) was done without the music, in the first leg we discussed some case studies with Pankaj, and in the last leg of the run a general chit chat with Anjana.

Apart from this I have included a 32 KM run on 24^th July to pace with Anjana on her 32^nd birthday, yes all July babies!!!

Definitely marathon training is more fun than running the actual marathon!

Mile markers - I

The title of this series is shamelessly copied from Kirsten Armstrong’s blog name.

I have been doing some good training over the last 3-4 weeks. Thanks to Meher, she has taken the pains of putting a torturous plan in place, which concentrates on hill workouts and loooots of mileage for our muscles. The key during this training is getting fast in the marathons, the first test would be in Kaveri Trail marathon which will be on 19^th Sept 2010 in Srirangapatnam. Well I would agree that this is not one of the ideal places to test, as it is very hot during that time and since we would be running alongside a canal it gets pretty humid as well. But I guess that would be stress testing

So coming back to the runs, I have been covering an average distance of 40K on the weekend and some 15K on the weekdays, now that is some serious running, I am quite happy with my performance till now, and still keeping my fingers crossed because this torturous plan takes up to a whooping 96Km week. I think the key here would be to stay in good shape and not do anything stupid and get injured. So as an action plan I am not cycling to work these days, but still controlling my carbon footprint with the use of Public Transport (Volvo City buses).

Also while running all these Kilometres I again did a dissection of the Mumbai disaster this year and found out and made some more corrections:

1)     Never forget a cap in Mumbai marathon

2)     If possible wear sunglasses as well

The above two points are very very important, specially having a good cap, I underestimated both of them and then the bright sun hit me at the 27^th KM, which further made the things worse

3)     Always carry your own fuel bottles

4)     Carry common salt

Apart from all these things I am not going to carry my iPod during the marathon this year, it get a little irritating after some time. Will try to listen to Mumbai this year!

Lo Chala main!

कल तो बस इन्तहा ही हो गयी, में एक जगह कोरमंगला में चालीस मिनट तक खड़ा रहा जी हाँ में कार से था  , इतना जादा में कभी नहीं झल्लाया. कार में बैठे बैठे मैंने सोचा की इस से अच्छा तो में साइकिल पर रहता हूँ, हस्ता खेलता जल्दी घर तो पहुँच जाता हूँ, और व्यायाम भी हो जाता है , तो आज सुबह उसी योजना के तहत  मैंने बीवी को कार ले जाने को बोला, मुझे लगता है की अगर बंगलोर में कहीं कार ले जाने का फायदा है तो वो इलेक्ट्रोनिक सिटी है क्यूंकि पिछले ४ साल से उसकी बंद बजी पड़ी थी, पर हाँ अब उच्च राज्य-पथ के  आ जाने के बाद कोई भी शख्स मात्र २० मिनट में वहां पहुँच सकता है !

तो बीवी गयी कार से और में आज हस्ता खेलता आया साइकिल से, बड़ी ही आनंदमय सवारी रही और में कार से जल्दी भी पहुँच गया. मुझे तो लगता है की आजकल पूरा बंगलोर ही खुदा पड़ा है, पर यह नगर निगम वाले भी मुझे हर बार अचंभित कर देते हैं, यह पूरे शहर में एकसाथ इतने सारे निर्माण कार्य कैसे शुरू कर सकते हैं..... खैर मुझे क्या करना में तो चला अपनी साइकिल पर!!!!

Running Log

The first week of training for the Mumbai marathon 2011 and the Bangalore Ultra 2010 has been good. I managed 55 km of running and apart from this biked to work and managed around 42 km on the saddle. Ran 20K with Vishy, Prateek and Bhasker on saturday. It was an awesome effortless run, I loved it. Also Vishy made his awesome comeback, the longest he ran after February and, did a 20K at 6:38 pace! wow !!! I think you are already in great shape! Congrats Vishy.

Did a fun run with Rohit on Sunday, followed by a breakfast at egg factory though missed the BHUKMP gang on both the days

I am pretty excited about the training this time. Meher is burning the midnight oil in putting the right plan in place.... I think we will freeze it by the end of the week and hit the trail!

In India, Hitching Hopes on a Subway

Article worth reading, via Pheonix

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/14/world/asia/14delhi.html

Moving on

So the sunfeast 10K 2010 is over now. And hence starts my training for the Ultra 2010 and Mumbai marathon 2011 again!

Ran Sunfeast 10K with Ankita, where she got her PB. Very happy for her, and it was a very good idea to run with her, I gave her the much needed push after 8^th KM

Congrats BIWI!

Congrats Priyanka, Meghana (who is running stronger than ever) & Anjana for your PBs

Congrats Rajaram for a good timing!

Bangalore Ultra 2010

Yes I am attempting a 75 KM at the Bangalore Ultra 2010

Capital punishment

So finally the entire nation is overjoyed and rejoicing, the reason, well Kasab has been given a capital punishment. Well to be very frank I don’t think that this is anything great, it really doesn’t matter, you have granted him whatever he was praying to god all this while. Moreover he came to India to die, his bosses just don’t care whether he lives or he dies.

He is a very minute particle in this dust of terrorism, I think we should have kept him alive and tried extracting more secrets / type of trainings he has undergone etc. Even if he is of no use in all those terms, we should have kept him alive and let him die on his own, in a dark cell….. alone……. I think spending on Kasab makes more sense rather than a clown like Raja (the telecom minister) eating all the tax payer’s money

Ideal running weight

This post is inspired from Bhasker’s post

I have been trying to reduce my weight since a long time, have been trying a lot of hard training different type of Diets etc but for some reason it is more or less constant on 75KG, might be ideal for me, but its definitely not ideal for the runner in me.

The main reason for that I guess is after a long run I tend to eat a lot, then as Bhasker says I often succumb to temptation, but since a last few days with cycling to work and running both being in place my weight decreased, for the first time in 2 years I saw the needle go below 74KG, but then the ITB surfaced up and its back to 75 (Damn!!!). But I have got the mantra now, since I didn’t experience any ITB pain after the run this weekend, so I have again started biking to work, and hope to shed a couple of pounds before the sunfeast 10K

Interesting articles on Ideal weight for running:

1) Whats your ideal weight

2) An article on weight an performance

Running / Cycling and more....

The Kanakpura Road trail / Track never lets me down. I remember this was the place where I did my comeback run after the injury / ghar / grahasti / travelling etc . Since the last three weeks ITB was troubling me a lot, was infact grounded for full 2 weeks because of the irritating ITB pain, now the bad part about these type of pains is that, it doesn't surface up in 5-7 KM, you would start experiencing it only after 10-12 KM. So even if I would have done my weekday short runs I wouldn't have known that the ITB is still there or gone, but in that process I would have made it worse by still exerting and stressing out. Took a lot of advices, and finally decided to stay indoors / grounded and continue with the stretching and icing.

So the scene was this sunday biwi was running at the Kanakpura Road location, and she was doing a 10+ KM run and that too at 8 am in the morning, in order to be ready of the killing heat that is going to hit you in the Sunfeast 10K. Me and Prateek decided to support them and run with them, the previous day I did a 20Km long run in cubbon and there was a little discomfort in the hips and hamstring. I was very tensed , I have seen how ITB damages the tempo of good runners, but to my surprise and happiness I did a smooth 12K at Kanakpura road on Sunday, now I must tell you that this is one of the toughest tracks in Bangalore, and that too in the heat. After the run I took a cold water bath, but I guess the mistake I did was I drank less water, I can see the after effects of the run the entire day.

*************************

More Updates

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Changed my Company, but the work loaction is still the same, i.e. Manyata Tech Park, so I still have a lot of scope for serious cross training.

Meanwhile I am missing my Italian lady, whith the regular hectic office schedules and the Bangalore rains I wasn't commuting to work on my bike, but I guess I am starting it from tomorrow, probably I will keep a polyethene bag for the laptop, baaki sab oopar waale par hai!

I also bought this awesome Hockey T-Shirt designed by Topi, please check it out here:

http://www.toubebas.com/content/1936-berlin-magicians

Also concentrating on some core strenghtening now.

Biwi is running very strong and is targetting her personal best in Sunfest 10K! keeping my fingers crossed, already planned a gift for her after she finishes the Sunfest 10K

The 65K week

After a loooooong time I crossed the 65K weekly mileage. YAY!!!!!

Thanks to the Ugadi holiday, I did around 15K that day which really helped in the high mileage week. The best part was my fitness level. I am pretty impressed with myself, no painful shins, no irritating back!

Would like to carry on with this kind of mileage in the coming weeks, since I am running the Great tibetan marathon this year, and this would help me in mission Mumbai!!!

running update

This weekend it is 30+ according to my plan.

I have been more or less following the weekend run plans, need to be more regular with the weekday runs......

contemplating about doing a 75 KM at the Bangalore Ultra...... lets see, still thinking about it

Strides of Hope

I have always been a believer that if we need to change the society we need to educate the children. Asha is one such organization which has done a lot in this direction and is still fighting illiteracy. Santhosh Padmanabhan is doing something really great in this direction. He is running for 48 hours non stop !!!!! Please support his run in whatever way you can.

The donations will be of great help, I would be running with him for 3 hrs.

more information can be found on www.stridesofhope.com

The retrospective week

Spent the entire week looking back on 17th January, what happened, room for improvements. Took a lot of advices from Rajaram, Roxtar, Vishy, Meher, Meghana, Manoj, Prateek.

And finally I have a training plan in place. I have tried to accommodate the holidays and weekend getaway plans as well in this plan. This one is a lot fierce and goes a long way, until August, and then it starts again.....

Yeah it still hurts, you know what ....... and will probably hurt the entire year. But for now I will be happy, "Yeah I am a finisher!'




And the plan for the rest of the year:



A detailed report would follow, now that I have a plan in place.

and life moves on......

Recovered after the Standard Chartered Mumbai marathon, both physically and emotinally.

and the running starts next week.

14th Feb Auroville marathon

Marathon update

Missed my target timing :(

Training ends

So today is the final day of training for Mumbai marathon. A fight that started way back in August 2009, tried to revive it after the holidays, caught in the grihasti several times, came back with a bang after doing a 25 KM run in Pune from the Pune University campus to the airport and back. I specially remember the Pune run, I was a little depressed after my poor performance in the long runs during my vacations in Allahabad, but this 25K was a breath of fresh air which revived my hopes for the Bangalore Ultra 2009 (where I completed a strong 50 KM).

After October 2009, inspired from Anjana we started running from HSR Layout to cubbon park, in order to save time and get some carbon credits. Vishy named it the "DANDI" run and that proved to be very beneficial in the training, as it was 11 KM stretch from HSR to cubbon, and I guess this was the period when my body started getting used to running more than 10 km at a stretch. The biggest disadvantage with the cubbon park 5 KM loop was that our body started demanding a break of 2 minutes after every 5 KM. Thanks to Prateek and Chandra who pointed out this problem and we encountered it pretty well.

Come mid Nov 2009 and I got my eyes on the Italian Lady (my Binachi) and I bought it, one of the best decisions of my life, though it was a little expensive but I don't regret it at all. Since a long time my shins were giving me a lot of problems, after every long run I needed to ice them, to get rid of that silly pain, ever since I have started biking to work, surprisingly that problem just vanished. and I love the Italian lady for this. Thanks Bianchi!

Biwi has been a pillar of support for me, whether it was coping with my irritable mood after a bad weekday run or helping me ice my back and calves, or cooking rice at odd hours on Friday after the late night movie for the carb loading or about being the support girl for our Dandi runs, she always understood the point, the cause and the passion behind it. Couldnt have completed this training schedule without you. Love you! Proud of you for taking up running (she is running a half at Mumbai marathon this year)

The BHUKMP runners were a great support to me: Pankaj, Prateek, Meher, Vishy, Siraj, Rishi, Amrita, Chandra, Praveen, Prasad Sir, Dharam, Rajaram, Khadke, Roxtar, Kaushal, Vasu, Nari, Strang, Rakhi, Manoj, Meghana, Anajana and the entire Gang at Cubbon for kicking my butt every time I was slack, for motivating me at different points in time, thank you for raising the roof, so I can run faster , better and stronger. I love you all!!! Specially Pankaj, Prateek and Anjana, for shifting your long run plans for me so many times. Meghana for motivating me every time, be it the 50 at Ultra or the 30+ runs....I hate that thief who broke my car glass in cubbon, he just didn't break the glass but also broke our one of the best long runs, Prateek and Anjana didn't run after that incident on that day.....

Sometimes I wonder, whether its the long runs that take me to cubbon, or the loud and fun filled breakfast after that ... well this is a tough question to answer

This weekend is my last easy run / walk before the marathon. I had an awesome training, could have been better, but I would leave the better part for 2010, will see it in 2011 Mumbai. I think I am satisfied. Lets see how I do in Mumbai, I am confident. I have a target in my mind, I just hope that I am able to meet that.......

Wishing all the Mumbai marathon runners Good Luck!

Resolution Time

New Year, new hopes new resolutions. The very first resolution is to make practical resolutions. So here goes the list

- Recover the cost of the cycle: The new Italian Lady in my life was pretty costly, it all started with cross training, and now since I am biking to work, I thought of recovering the cost of my bike. With some basic mathematics, I need to cycle to work for 20 weeks to recover that cost, now that doesn't look tough.... Now consider that there are 52 weeks in a year, so this means I need to bike to work for approximately six months.

- Do the TFN: Since I would be cycling to work for 6 months to recover the cost of the Italian Lady, there would be a decent amount of training going into the muscles, apart from using this training in running I plan to do the Tour Of Nigiris.

- Register for Great Tibetan Marathon: I have been planning of doing this race since the last 2 years, and because of some reason it is getting postponed every year. So this year in April I am going to register for the race, to ensure that I train for it and do it.... GTM Website

- Istanbul: this one is more of a wish than a resolution, have always been in love with Turkey, and recently came to know about the fact that there is a marathon that happens in Istanbul. Would see if I can attend it..... Istanbul Marathon Website