RIP Vinod Khanna

Kayi baar yun bhi dekha hai

This is the beautiful poetry that my heartbeat sung this morning on the speed run. Why I am excited about it today? Well, after a long time (to be read as years) I did 1.2K repeats and loved the suffering. To top it I threw up while doing the third interval, you can see the dip in heart rate there.

Thats what a good speed workout is:

- You love the suffering
- You feel like throwing up
- By the end of second interval, your muscles open up
- By the end of second interval, its easier to die than to carry on that heart rate zone!

Heart Rate graph:

Where does the title of the post come from?

This song:

Lousy week

This week has been very lousy, Dad wasnt well so was in the hospital for the first three days of the week. But that doesnt mean that i did not have time to run, I could have gone for runs yesterday and today. I preferred to sleep in. Yeah, have been guilty of doing that.

The best of me is yet to come!

Tempo run

After a very long time I revived the tempo run today. Boy! it was tough, didn't feel good while doing it, but I am optimistic that I will get there. Slight pain in the calf (left) after the run, but I guess that should get better with some stretching and an easy run tomorrow. This takes the number of days I have ran in this week to 4. Now have to run on all the 3 days of the week, with some time to be spent in the gym as well.

Good news! my weight has started going southwards. Now need to lose some more weight before my coach can start training me again!

My training today, not very amazing figures, but I guess we can bookmark this page and compare after a month

Song in car today: Seene main jalan (Gaman 1978)
Average heart rate today during run: 176 bpm
Shoe used for the run: Adidas takumi Sen 

Strive for........

I have been a runner since the last 13 years, I have also run a lot of marathons (20 marathons), and countless half marathons, have also run 3 Ultra marathons. Though I know what are the dos and donts of running, I know what to do in training and what not to do in eating when training. I have never really stuck to this kind of advice. I have always used running as a healthy activity. An activity which would allow me to eat and drink whatever I feel like. Yeah, you know what I am getting at....

Yes, I am getting old and looking for achievements and accomplishments on the track and field / marathon course. I suppose I need to tell you all a little story behind the above statement and where it originated. So, the story goes like this: 4 years back when I was training with D (my coach), we used to go to Kanteerava indoor stadium for speed (interval) workouts, a lot of other runner friends also used to turn up. The reason I was so hooked onto this day, was there is infectious energy floating on the tracks and there is no better feeling than training with state level and national level athletes. So, one of my runner friends, lets call him P, he is 55 years old and an awesomely fast guy. I was talking to him after the workout on what is the mantra how do runners tend to get faster after 35 years of age, his response was very interesting and humorous. He said, when a guy grows old, basically he starts losing respect everywhere, at his home his kids grow up and the kids are embarrassed to go out with him, most of the time he gets it back from his wife on what all work he hasnt done in his life and how much pain he has given her in life. At work, he grows in the chain of things and people, atleast some of the people who report to him start hating him as a boss. So, he looks for respect on track and field. This is the reason that he devotes more time to training and starts tracking the progress more closely.

Well, that was a very humorous and insightful thought, but not fully true. My take:

As said earlier I have been training, and had decent goals as well. Every training has been an amazing journey which I enjoyed more than the destination. But, I cannot ignore the destination for long. I have finished the distances that I wanted to, I have not been addressing the elephant in the room since a very long time. Yes, you guessed it, I havent been addressing the pace at all. I have grown faster, because I grew lighter, and I had become slower, because I gained weight. Basically, I didnt make any efforts to get myself faster. Getting faster is a mix of a lot of things

- Speed training

- Tempo

-  Leaving alcohol

- Eating right

- Sleeping on time

- Weight training

- Stretching

- Strength training

While above things are expected to be done by a long distance runner, but I am guilty, I havent been doing all of those things. So, with the onset of 2017 I was very determined to get things moving on this bit. And I am happy that I have been able to maintain the discipline till now,  goal 1 would be to lose weight, as I dont want to get bummed by getting injured if I overtrain with this additional weight. I have been happily able to nullify alcohol from my life, well, I have felt that is a big factor. I have found the motivation to make time for the gym sessions and the runs.

I was looking at the training patterns at movescount.com and found this data. This is the data for all those people who have run a sub 1:50 half marathon. Remember what I said earlier, I have run a lot of distance, but pace and being amazingly fast is something that I have never strived for. Well... it seems now is the time to do that. Have a look at this data, its pretty intense!

Ahem ahem! This gives me multiple new goals, the fastest 5K I have ever run is 22min 48 sec. This is a minute faster than that!!!

Read somewhere: "if your dreams dont scare you, they are not big enough". So, now my dreams in running do scare me!! But I am motivated. Will keep posting my training journey here and the insights I draw out if it.

Restarting some old cheeky stuff that I used to do 9 years back:

Song in the car: Ye Ishq hai (Rangoon, 2017)

Shoe used in last run: New balance 890V3

Average Heart rate for the last run: 175 bpm

Feeling after the run: sore!

Strive

Was watching this Strava video yet again in office. What do you feel after watching it? I feel freedom! "I would rather be running"

I am delighted to tell you all that my training has been going on great. Though the gym and weight training is not going so great, having said that, I have been doing my scheduled runs. Today I graduated to 4 x 1000 mts repeats. Well, it was easier to die than to run those 4 intervals. But like a wise man once said, nobody has regretted a good workout.

In other news, my latest possession is Suunto Ambit 3 Sport GPS watch. Training is so much fun with this gadget, and moreover I absolutely love the Suunto movescount eco system for analysis and logging, its so easy and so intuitive.

First 10 days of commitment

So, this was the first 10 days of commitment to myself on somethings which I decided. Well, it went good I would say.

- Finished all my runs in the last 10 days
- Joined a Gym for weight training and strengthening and been religious with that
- No refined sugar consumed (not even in candies and cakes)
- No alcohol (skipped some social gatherings only to avoid alcohol)

Yeah, the point 2 is correct. I finally joined a Gym, the reason for the same

1. Have nothing better to do apart from work with A and C not being here
2. Have to start working on my upper body strength so that I can carry the pace for a longer duration

Point 1 in the decisions above is also an achievement with the temperatures in this part of the country dropping to 5 degrees at 6 am. I would say that I am doing decently well

Now, the biggest challenge would be staying injury free. Will keep updating here

Oh Yes! All my dear running buddies, have an awesome time running the SCMM this weekend! Go out there and kick some fine dust!!

First interval training for the year

So, yesterday I was supposed to do 5 x 1000mts repeats. The last time I used to do some kick ass 1000 mts repeats, my pace used to hover around 4:50 min /km. I was able to manage each of the intervals yesterday at an average pace of 5:15-5:19 min/km. It is a humbling feeling, how soon you need to start all over again!!!

Woke up late today and hence wasn't able to do the core exercises. I guess it is in the evening now, core exercises and Netflix!

Anyways, my pace today reminded me of this old advertisement starring Paula Radcliffe :)

Hello 2017!

Its been quite sometime since I blogged here. Yeah, I am also aware that lately all my posts get started with the same rant. 2016 was a very eventful year for me, staying away from my family, shuffling between Bangalore and Delhi has made me realize a lot of new things. Some things as trivial as the airports flaws, and some things more deep, but lets not talk about them here

Like always most of my post might hover around running. 2016 has been a pathetic year for running for me. I have started thinking of myself as "Once a runner", this was mostly because of the fact that work took most of my time. Whatever time I got apart from work, I used it as a luxury to spend time with my wife A and the sunlight of my life C (my daughter). Whatever experiments I have been trying with my life lately, wouldn't have been possible without the sacrifices of A and C.

Gained some weight as well in the last one year, to be specific I gained around 2.5 Kgs. This is mostly due to irregular lifestyle, irregular sleeping habits. Food was mostly sane. Having said that, I am all the more determined to change that starting today, its a new beginning.  I need to burn the same fire inside me which was there in 2010, when I trained really hard and ended up running ~2800 KM in training that year. Not that running a lot of distance is any proof of good pace, but at least it is a proof of the commitment and discipline

I am also thankful that I am surrounded by some very good friends here in Gurgaon, who keep my mind busy in a lot of things, that way I miss A and C a bit less on some days. These guys are my family in Gurgaon. Thanks A, D, T, M. Love you guys a lot! However there hasn't been a single day in Gurgaon when I haven't missed A and C

I have signed up with a coach in November and has been trying to get back to serious training. So far things have worked out ok, but I do end up missing 1-2 runs every week. This is the part that needs to get changed now. I have revived the desire to run Comrades, when will I do that, that needs to be decided. There is plenty of time for that. But this is the year that I want to utilize in making a comeback as a runner, as an amateur athlete that I once was.

Also, would keep this page more live with updates from my end. Be it running or non running

Bike to work and beating the Monday morning blues

Ever since I have resumed biking to work, I feel more excited in the mornings and look forward to my ride. There is always something exciting happening on the roads, even if the exciting thing is the wind in the hair.

So my work place is 30 km one way, to start, I am biking 2 days a week. Which makes it 120 km week on the saddle. The first couple of weeks were kind of tough with the bums ending up sore in the evenings. But now, it seems that the body has gotten used to biking pretty well again. No sore muscles at all.

The only side effect of biking is, the day I am biking to work, I feel hungry all the day. So I have to watch carefully what I am stuffing in my mouth, basically stay away from junk and eat more clean food.

For Bangalore, the other big problem is the rain. Well atleast I love riding in the rain, but the problem is the laptop. So one has to figure out a way to save these electronic gadgets from rain and water. For me, I leave my laptop at work the day I am biking

Most important piece of advice: NEVER use an earphone while riding a bike. Your ears are your rear view mirrors, DO NOT block them

To many more stories here! Stay safe, bike hard!

Get a bike, Break free!

Musings of a Lucknowi food lover

- Biryani = Gosht Biryani
- There is no Biryani called the Veg Biryani, it is called a Pulav
- Chicken Biryani doesn't qualify for a Biryani

Humanity is dead

132 Children died yesterday. Humanity died yesterday. I am still shocked and sick, a place to impart education has been turned into a graveyard.

May god give strength to all the Peshavar families. As a parent, as a father I can understand what all those 132 families are going through. Life will move on, but some part of us dies there yesterday.

To all those people claiming that Pakistan shelters terrorists and hence this happened, TRAGEDY IS NOT A COMPETITION. Something which is wrong, is wrong in any part of the world.

May the little souls rest in peace

कल कुछ बस्ते घर से निकले पर वापिस कभी न पहुंचे
आज ऊपर वाला हंस  रहा होगा, इंसान इस कदर खून का प्यास हो गया की अपनी ही औलाद का खून कर रहा है 

The legend of Dandi

The year was 2010, Prateek, Meher and me were already in the middle of our toughest training schedule which we ever followed untill that year. I got married 2 years back and since then the time on the weekends was always a premium. We would always find it tough to squeeze in a long run in our weekend schedule along with all the socializing and chores that new life brought in. It was only now I realized why Pankaj has always been so busy on the weekends :-)

It was the Ananada Yana run organized by Santhosh Padmanabha, and as usual the koramangala/HSR gang went to the venue in the Red Dragon, those who are part of BHUKMP know what a red dragon is. Just before the run started, we saw Anjana came running to the venue, I asked her the reason, and she told me that she has serious time crunch these days on the weekend, driving her daughter to different places and classes, visiting relatives and finishing office work, so she thought why waste time driving to the venue, but instead start a little early, run to the venue, do 5K run there and then run back. This seemed like an amazing idea to me and Prateek!

We thought of implementing this idea next weekend, as we thought that driving to cubbon is an utter waste of time, additionally you go there and finding a parking was a nightmare. Our mileage was already peaking, and we were required to do 32K+ runs on Saturdays, this would also mean atleast 7 loops of cubbon, and we would be dead with boredom at the end of it!

So we floated the idea of running to cubbon and then taking a bus back. The initial idea was, we will run to cubbon from ET via Hosur road, which would be close to 8K and then run in cubbon. We discussed this idea on the next run (where we obviously ran to cubbon) with Rishi and Amrita. Rishi immediately proposed , why run in cubbon? we (the cubbon gang) can do a reverse run on hosur road, meet somewhere midway and then run towards ulsoor and then around ulsoor and back to cubbon! Hence the first dandi route was devised!

During the same time, we had a new guy (newly shifted back from the US) running with us, his name was Vishy, initially we knew him as the guy who was mostly quiet on the runs but had a big online presence, we all became a fan of his blog right away! He used to live in Raheja Residency those days, and he liked the idea of a Saturday run to cubbon, we all started running regularly to cubbon, and then sometime in July 2010, Vishy proposed the name for this run as Dandi! Why Dandi? because we meet other runners en route, and we all run towards our target. Everybody loved the name and this was the point of birth of the Dandi runs in BHUKMP!!

As we came near the marathon date (KTM was the first marathon of that season) our mileages started increasing, I remember Praveen was doing 75K at the Ultra and hence he needed a longish run or 4-5 hours on foot kind of training every Saturday. So to increase the mileage, we all decided lets start going to cubbon via the Sony World-inner ring road-Domlur-Trinity Circle-MG Road stretch. The blessing in disguise was, Bhasker and Rajaram can also join us at Domlur! This was the point of birth of the actual route of Dandi

The Dandi runs were formed and we all were pretty excited about them, all of us started following them religiously, at certain point just before the Bangalore Ultra, Nari suggested that instead of going on the MG road from Trinity circle, lets go to Brunton road, the benefits: it is about a KM longer, and there is decent incline on the Primrose road, which is good for training. The idea was discussed in the security council meeting on the same day and was immediately approved!!! Rishi then suggested that before he started running with us, he used to run along the BGC and its an amazing place to run in the mornings, hence we started going from cubbon to Sankey and back, when Siddesha suggested that why not include the serene IISC also in the loop!

The last approval was the final approval for the run, which the entire Bangalore knows today as the Dandi run!

The concept was started by Anjana, name given by Vishy, route formulated by, Pankaj, Prateek, me, Praveen, Rishi, Nari and Siddesha this is democracy in true sense! :-)

Thanks to Dandi runs, that year my training mileage went on to 2,200 KM! And the show goes on!

SCMM Training starts

On Tuesday I started the training for Mumbai marathon. Got a new plan from my coach, and the paces look challenging. The speed and long runs are not my concern, i think I can still manage them

The runs that I absolutely hate are the tempo runs, it just doesn't end, and moreover my weak point has always been tempo. My legs hold on, I start getting breathless. I also plan to do most of these runs now with the heart rate monitor. This will give me a good insight on the breathlessness part.

Every year is a new learning. This is the 10th year of my long distance running, and still I have a lot to learn.

All the best to everyone running and training towards their goals!

Shut up and Run!

The above Golden words are printed on a lot of T-shirts, but my coach is the one who made me follow it. I have been running with Dharam since the last 8 years or so, 3 years back he embarked on a journey to pursue his Boston Marathon quest. For those who don't know, Boston Marathon is a prestigious race to qualify for and amongst a lot of running circles, it is considered as the Mecca of long distance running.

Dharam left his full time job and moved to the US in 2011 for about 6 months to qualify for the Boston marathon. When he came back to India, he became a full time running coach and continued to train for a Boston qualifier. Over the last 3 years he went through a lot of pain (physical and mental) in his quest for the Boston. Irrespective of what kept happening around him, he was focused towards his goal! This morning he got qualified for the Boston Marathon 2015.

He is very good coach and a good friend. He continues to inspire me and other runners with his determination and enthusiasm for running.

Wishing you all the best for Boston 2015 and all your future endeavors!

Eating right and weight management in non running season

As soon as Mumbai marathon was out of the way, a new beast started troubling me, the beast of weight management during non training season. The weekly mileages are low, and throw in some vacations, a couple of festivals and some parties, there goes fitness out of the window. My coach and I worked really hard in the last season to get me to this fitness level, however I am still not at my ideal racing weight, but still my Heart Rate and the speed is pretty decent right now, I don’t want to lose all this hardwork in the coming 6 months.

The first thing I did, was started maintaining a food log, yeah I jot down whatever I am putting in my mouth, right from ice cream to beer to candies. To help on this task I have installed My Fitness Pal on my Android phone, this app has a long list of Indian foods so it is much easier to keep a track of what you are eating. This pretty much used to tell me at the end of the day of what I should have been eating and what I shouldn’t have.

The second important thing I did was keeping the weekly running mileage to 35-40 km. The other secret in this is, don’t stop doing the speed runs and tempo runs, maybe reduce the intensity a bit, but still keep doing it, the biggest secret of my weight loss were the tempo and speed runs, where the intensity is relatively higher than the easy runs, hence that fastens the metabolism a lot.

After 5 weeks of maintaining a food log and good mileage my weight started showing a downward trend. Additionally I have been eating ONLY home cooked food, with alcohol / beer only on the weekends. The home cooked food part has made a lot of difference in my fitness level.

After 3 years of togetherness my Garmin Forerunner 305 finally dies 3 weeks back, I decided not to get another Garmin for the time being and run on the feel and cadence. I have been doing that since some weeks and I find it much more peaceful and a lot of less stress in my head. Occasionally I have found myself running faster than usual on the tempo runs as well, maybe because now I can’t keep looking at the pace every 30 seconds and hence there is no stress and I have started running purely on the feel. I am not sure if I am going to pick up another Garmin or not, maybe during the training season I might pick up a basic model which just gives me the distance and the Heart Rate.

And don’t forget the most important part of all : Lots of sleep!

The race that wasn't

Short race report:

I DNFed. I pulled out at 36th KM mark due to low Blood Pressure.

Read this poetry by Wajid Ali Shah, after a long long time, rightly describes my state of mind right now.

Dar-o-deewar pe hasrat se nazar karte hain
Khush raho ahle watan, hum to safar karte hain

And the training again begins this Saturday, after the log run in Mumbai.

A detailed race report is on its way.....

Make a difference - Donate and help fight Cancer

Like all years, I am supporting the Sudha Mehta Cancer Foundation (SMCF) this year as well. The trust is started by a friend and I have closely seen the kind of work they are doing. The money received from the donation is used to buy Cancer medicines and the treatment 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 running the Standard Chartered Mumbai marathon 2014 on Sunday, 19th January 2014                            

I have been training hard for this event 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 donate for this cause, this would make a huge difference.

Also if you wish to donate please reply to this or mail me at evilshantanu[at]gmail[dot]com 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. 

Marathon training and coping with cold, cough and fever

It is really frustrating to be down with cold, cough and fever right in the middle of the marathon training season. Or worse, like me when the race is just 7 weeks far. The mileage has already started peaking, and your long runs have started touching 20 miles / 30+ km.

So there are some dos and don'ts, here they go:

 Immediately after you long run, your immunity is at your lowest mark, take very good care of yourself after the long run. Immediately change into a clean and dry t-shirt after your run. Eat something within 30 minutes of finishing your long run.

After you reach home, try and take a good nap, so to recover from the fatigue. Eat and hydrate well during the day, but do not eat junk. Well what should one do if you find out that you are down with bad cold before starting the long run (as was the case with me). So there are different opinions about it, experts say that anything which is above the neck, you can go and run with it, above the neck: cold etc. Below the neck: congestion in the lungs, fever, bodyache.

Now here is the practical part, I ran a 30K run with a running nose, I felt nothing doing the run, and felt wonderful doing the run, but by the end of the day I was own with fever. So you can run with cold, do the run well, but since your immunity is already low, there is a high chance that you might end up with some temperature at the end of the day. Which might disappear in a couple of days of recovery, if it doesn't translate to a viral infection.

Long long time back, when I ran my first Ultra marathon, a senior runner and somebody whom we all looked up to, Madhu who was also the race director sent out an email to all the people in RFL. I am not sure how many people have preserved that email, sharing it here for everybody.

Sorry Madhu, sharing your email here, but the gyan in that email is golden!

Hi guys,

Just a little over a week to go for the big day! Wow I am tremendously excited. I am also quite a bit nervous. I didn't run all of this week as I was out on a business trip which I think is probably a huge mistake. All the people I met everywhere were hacking horribly most of the time in my face, everywhere I went! Hope I don't get sick now. Definitely Harakiri if I do. 
When I first sent out, almost 9 months ago, an email to a few running friends to seek help for organizing an ultra, this event,  I didn't ever imagine it would end up like this. If all goes well you should see an event that can hold it's head up proudly and stand up to any other such event in the US in terms of quality. 
Plan to taper carefully. 
Don't injure yourself now. 
Be careful of nutrition. It is easy to put on weight these last 10 days so be careful in terms of useless fats, sugars, and carbs except for last 2 days when you can binge on complex low glycemic carbs. 
Take a multi-vitamin pill every day. 
Avoid crowds. 
Wash hands frequently whenever you shake hands or touch door knobs especially when you come out of rest room. I have observed that many people (men, in India, based on observations at Maxim  India) don't wash hands with soap when they come out of restrooms so be certain to not touch door knobs without aid of paper. (he he..sorry). I woudn't even think it funny if you wore a bacterial mask at work (maybe a bit far huh? this bit?) 
On Saturday prior to run make sure to put your feet up most of day to rest them well and stay well hydrated.

Runners for 52K and above. Concentrate on an even pace / km with a Run / walk combination of your suitability right from the beginning. Do walk hills even at the beginning. Run flats, downhills and in shade. Walk up hills and in open hot stretches. Ensure that your rest at aid stations is controlled and even. You can end up with lots of time unnecessarily wasted at aid stations. Joke with the volunteers. 
Stretch lightly periodically. Don't forget to stretch your arms to-don't keep them locked at the elbow. They will get stiff.
Ensure lubricant all over and sun block. Most important is sun block for lips (UV block chap sticks available). Do ensure that you wear a  appropriate hat to block the sun from your face. 

Don't try anything new at the Ultra especially gear and foods. If you are in a bit of trouble don't panic. Remember you have trained for this so you should be all right. Make appropriate adjustments in diet / fluids / speed. Get more gear than you need and keep it handy at the main aid station. 

It will be a struggle. If it weren't there is no point attempting it. That's the raison d'etre of the effort. Don't forget that- the journey is the thing. Don't forget to enjoy it. Be a great part of it. 

I wish you all the very best.

Madhu (Le monsieur Race Director's unofficial message)

Marathon training and staying injury free

This marathon training season has been wonderful so far, but only so far. I was grounded because of an injury / fatigue for 2 weeks. There was excruciating pain in my calves, even after a mile of running. So i did what most of the runners would do, drop the mileage or stop running, keep icing and massaging the area and then again do a litmus test after some days. I took about a week's break and tried doing an easy run again, the pain came back at 800 mts.

I was terribly depressed, became grumpy and irritable, thinking that my SCMM dream is over for this season as well. Thought of visiting Dr Gladson for an expert opinion, after 2 weeks of rest, still the pain did not going away then I guess it was time to meet the doctor. Dr. Gladson is a sports and exercise medicine doctor in Bangalore, he is also a barefoot marathoner and also runs a marathon training program under the name "Raramuri Runners". In short he is the guy who can relate to your running related problems the best!

I met him on a Saturday after missing my long run for that week as well, was very depressed, but all for no reason, he checked my calves, and came to the conclusion that there is nothing wrong with my calves. Infact calves pain is just a symptom, the main culprit is the thigh muscles. since they are terribly fatigued, the calves are working more in order to support the dynamics of running. He made me do some stretches and asked me to run, I was feeling much better. 2 more days of stretching and I was back on track doing my speed runs! Yay!

Moral of the story

- DO NOT delay taking an expert advice if the pain continues for more than 2 runs. I wasted 2 weeks of training on something which could have been cured in 2 days of stretching.

- Try and workout the warmup pattern for your body, for some people 1K works, for some 1 mile. I do 2K of warmup and cool down

- There is no alternative to a good warmup, cooldown and stretches before and after the run. They might not matter during the run, but definitely helps you in staying injury free

- The pain because of any fatigue can be dealt with stretching. Stretch religiously, because you would not even realize when a fatigue gets translated to an injury

- The most important part in any marathon training is the sleep. Try and take atleast 7 hours of good sleep every night. On the weekend try and grab a couple of naps after the long run as well

- Always have light breakfast before the long run, helps in taking you a long way ahead, literally

- Nutrition is very very important. Try and get a good protein snack after any run that you do. I stick to egg whites. You would see a faster recovery once you start following it

Some stretches that might help in this kind of pain and fatigue