Advertising and Running?

The Perfect Distance - Ovett and Coe: The Record Breaking Rivalry by Pat Butcher
Then We Set His Hair On Fire (about Phil Dusenberry's advertising career)

joined my collection today, thanks to the Landmark coupon won last week.

Started reading the first and it seems immensely enjoyable. For those of you who love advertising, the second one would be a must read.

More when I finish the books.

The Perfect Distance

The only aim I had when I began running about 6 years ago was the 4 minute mile!
There now – that feels much better.

I realized much later, that it was perhaps an impossible target given a whole lot of physical criteria. I then lowered it to a 5 minute mile in the background of the fact that even today, there aren’t too many runners under the 4 minute barrier.

Anyways, my attention shifted to the marathon almost by accident since I ran the Mumbai half marathon on a whim in 2004 (I had never run more than 8 km at a stretch before that day).
And once I had completed the half, I just had to run the full marathon.

Now the dream is to run a marathon under 3 hours.

Recently I have been wondering what I would do after my first 3 hour marathon whenever it happens. I had been telling myself that I should go for a faster half marathon than I can manage currently since I burn out after that distance. Maybe even a 10K. There are other lifetime targets including learning to play the guitar as well as pace bowling which shall follow the 3 hour marathon, but I can’t really stop running, can I?

This brings me to a story I want to tell. Long ago, I saw the movie Chariots of Fire and the movie left a lasting impact on a fairly impressionable mind, about being focused on one’s aims in life, in general (from Harold Abraham’s story) and being committed to one’s beliefs, while striving towards achievement (from Eric Liddell’s story). This has been a source of inspiration under various circumstances. Today I bought “The Perfect Distance Ovett and Coe: The Record Breaking Rivalry” by Pat Butcher. Reading the first few pages aroused the same kind of excitement I had when I first saw Chariots of Fire. Reading about lap splits for a 800 m and a mile race has left me far too excited to sleep at my usual hour.

I guess I now have an aim for atleast the next decade.

Sentences in the verdict on Manju's case

This page should have the details soon, but the summary is that capital punishment has been announced for Monu Mittal and life imprisonment for the others found guilty

To cut a long story short

Amongst our daily diet of newspaper sections is the literary section of the Guardian.
This is why it is such a pleasure on most days.

Maybe I should start a meme like this.

Update: And some friend wrote in about this So what if it has all been done before?

Judgement in Manju's Case

Read this
All 8 accused have been found guilty.
The sentence will be announced on 26th Mar.

This brings to fruition a lot of hardwork put in by the Trust and others. We bow to their humble, sustained and selfless efforts

BEQ 2007

A colleague and Yours Truly managed to come 3rd in the quiz in Chennai this time.
Not bad considering we didn't expect to qualify.

Of course, we are enriched with vouchers including a Landmark coupon :)

Yee haw!

Pterrified

We have our first Terry Pratchett book - Going Postal, part of the Discworld series. Thanks in part to a coupon we won at a quiz, a little while ago.

So while most of Bangalore and its citizens are Eddified, we shall read and sleep in peace. After all, running a half marathon for practice in the morning requires you to feel lighter. And what better than humour, especially of the TP variety...

Mahapallipuram - ECR Run

After a gap of nearly a year, I ran with the Chennai Runners today. The plan was to do about 25 km (which was what someone estimated!) - the distance between the Toll Booth in Uthandi/Kannathur to Mahabalipuram along East Coast Road. Turns out that the distance is actually about 28 km.

I covered about 14 miles in 2 hrs. And then I decided to rest my legs as another 6-8 km run was planned in the evening with the Hash in Chennai. But the latter didn't happen. After about a km's walk after 2 hrs, I decided to walk for about a mile or so and then took a rick.

The experience was great, made immensely pleasurable by the company of an American couple - the woman being the fastest in the group and the guy doing his first ever distance over 8 miles or so and he ran more than a half! Also, there was Kiruba, who also ran his first race in almost a year with the group! And then there was Shahid, who runs his own business and has this lovely CR-V, which ferried us to and fro from the city to the starting points for the run.

Considering I woke up at an uneartly 3:45 am to make it in time for the 4 am pickup, slept in the afternoon after a long time to make up for some lost sleep.

The title of this post is shamelessly poached from Ram's entry on flicker. He even took cool pics of the group, including this one.

Keep Running

While walking around Mycroft's Garden...

Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss
The Ancient Olympics by Nigel Spivey

crept into my bag after an exchange of few hundred rupees at the counter

Spurt in dog menace in the country?

Last week in Bangalore, 2 kids were tragically killed in attacks by stray dogs. And now, residents in Madras are voicing concern over the growing canine menace.
And what does the administration do? The Karnataka CM announced that 1000 dogs would be culled every day starting soon (They rounded up some 100+ dogs on the 1st day).

As some sane woman commented on TV, if the government had the infrastructure to cull 1000 dogs a day, what was it doing till date? Does it make more sense to investigate what happened to all the funds ‘spent’ towards handling this issue?

There is no denying that the two incidents mentioned above were tragic and unfortunate. The dogs in those particular cases have demonstrated a dangerous trait which needs to be met with immediately. But do other dogs in the city deserve the same fate? Since the govt. clearly does not have the infrastructure to handle this scale of culling, this will result in wanton acts of cruelty. And if have a bandicoot problem in the future, (There are enough to cause havoc in the country) will the govt. order a mass killing of bandicoots!?

I know this sounds far fetched – But how many ministers or public servants have we culled when there have been public deaths arising directly due their actions!? Just because dogs don’t have a voice, does not mean we just eliminate all the ones which have no caretakers. Besides, one man’s pet can be another man’s killer as well. While the short term solution could address the guilty dogs in the two cases above, the rest of them need to be handled with a little more thought and compassion.

This post is born out of some concern for our poor canine friends who have, for the most part, in my experience, kept to themselves.

Manjunath Shanmugam case verdict on 23 March, Friday

Mail from Anjali starts here ->
This is it. The trial is over, with closing arguments concluding on
2nd March, less than 9 months after trail started on 5 June 2006.
The Judgement will be delivered on Friday, 23rd March, at Lakhimpur
Khiri Sessions Court, 3 hours from Lucknow.

Those of you who had planned to attend the'next hearing' - there
won't be any more. Please plan to attend this one.Logistics
arrangements - pick up from airport, stay at IIML, transport to/from
Khiri - can be arranged.

Your attendance is critical as our prime support group, IIML PGP2s
will have finished convo and returned home by then. PGP 1s will have
exams. The Manjunath Shanmugam Integrity Award ceremony is on 24
March at Bangalore . Hence attendance from core Trust group will be
divided.

Email me at amullatti@gmail.com, and I will put you in touch with
people travelling from Delhi. Work the phone and attend with friends
and colleagues.Please post on your batch/work egroups as well.

Regards,
Anjali Mullatti
IIML '93
Trustee, The Manjunath Shanmugam Trust.

<- Mail from Anjali ends here