Three Books...

Last week I got a copy of the Economist's Style Guide due to some offer from the Economist, which I subscribe to.

And yesterday, I got 2 books by Tom Robbins as gifts. While the question of the identity of the generous person who sent the books was, is being settled by my pal and his fair maiden (both deny they sent it and each points to the other!), here are the books

Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates
Even Cowgirls Get The Blues

The titles are amusing to say the least. Hope the books are too. I have never read any Tom Robbins till date.

And of course, didn't pay a paisa for any of the above :)

My baby is here

Here is the latest love of my life.
Actual pics soon.

It has been a long time since I made 7 km in 20 min and that too without a horn to clear the way or an IC engine to back me up. I was so excited taking my bike home that until someone honked violently behind me, I forgot that I was going faster than average traffic and not everyone liked it.

For those who know me from school and college, it is easier to explain my excitement on a bike. I was a biker long before I started running. So I am all excited to be riding my own cycle again

So from today, we have a new label on the blog "Cycling."

Still Remembering Manju

Today is the 2nd death anniversary of Manjunath.
Spare a thought for him while you go about your day.

Read the other posts and associated links for who Manju was and what he did. Use the label "Manju" below.

Special thanks to the Manjunath Shanmugam Trust for their tireless work.

Manju, we do remember you.

Cauvery Trail Marathon

Ran my first marathon in a little over 6 months yesterday.

Finished in 4 hours 5 mins 29 secs. Was targeting a sub 4 finish.

Made the mistake of being ambitious and trying to run at less than 9 min/mile. Paid the price about 6 kms from finish when a niggle in my left knee turned out to be a full blown pain in the leg and eventually a pulled hamstring.

To add misery to my humiliation of walking, I ended up puking all that I ingested during the race, a little after I finished.

Had trained for over 3 months now for the ultra in Dec, for which this was my longest run. Obviously I am not pulling this stunt again.

And like I have said before on this blog, I am alive and that matters.

Day began quite well with my driving upto Ranganthittu, the famous bird sanctuary from Bangalore. Made it in 90 mins from home since there was no traffic. After the race and a nice lunch, made it back in 120 mins. Also attended a quiz to add to the merriment of the day. My team qualified for the finals as well, much to my surprise.

So not a bad day’s work. Huge thanks to all folks at RFL for a fantastic day's work

Update: Now have the actual time

Happy Diwali

Here's wishing all the readers of this blog a very happy Diwali. Stay healthy. Stay happy.

My dad's home after 3 days in hospital. And it had been 4 days since I have run, partly due to the same reason, as I have been busy logging miles between home and hospital.
But then there's always some reason to be happy - won some discount at a retailer after having shopped on yet another prize voucher.

Celebrated Diwali by buying my 1st book in sometime - The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend.

Ran 6 miles this morning. Plan to cover another 20+ miles between tomorrow and the day after.
Plan to run with my club along the Cauvery next week in a trail marathon. Should be good fun.
This would be the 1st time I am running marathon distance in an event other than Bombay & NJ.

Average - Above or Below?

What my week was like?

As I have said before on this blog, I plan to be running the 52 km event as part of the 1^st ever Bangalore Ultra Marathon.

I have been training as regularly as possible for the same event. This week was supposed to be my landmark week as I had planned to hit 70+ km as part of my cumulative mileage for the week. However some irregular sleep combined with stomach cramps due to the lack of a toilet break before I started the race, washed away my plans for the week. So what started out as a 20 mile race for me, ended up being a 15.5 mile with me walking the last mile so as to not disturb my fragile stomach. The frustrating part of the entire race was that I had reached the starting lineup 6 mins late, run 3 miles at 7 minutes a mile pace, each and caught up with the leading group and abandoned on the 3^rd of 4 planned laps. And I was feeling only marginally tired even on the 3^rd lap with my legs staying as fresh as one can be after 10 miles+.

Still, I ran about 44 (43.91 to be precise!) miles this week. This is the highest I have run in a week in recent times although I have run 70 km in a week before. This is also the first time in over a year when I have run on five consecutive days. From the beginning of the training plan I am using, I have run on four or five days a week, with rest days on Mon and Fri. However the arrival of a dear friend from the US pushed me to more running in the week and the holiday on Thu also helped.

This week I ran 5, 10, 5, 8 and 15.5 (and some decimals) miles from Wed to Sun.

So the net takeaway is that in addition to wearing good shoes during the race, make sure you take a toilet break before you leave for a long distance race. It also helps to wake up in time!

In other news, my dad had been unwell for the past two days creating some anxiety about whether to hospitalize him or not. We finally had a doctor at home, let him rest and he is better now. That also ensured that I took two holidays from work, trying to sort things out at home. It has been a crowded week.

It has been some time since I posted anything on the blog, mostly due to my doing mundane stuff at work, not getting any reading done and running taking away most of my time.

Also saw Loins of Punjab, which is a must watch for Bollywood buffs and offbeat enough to skip a lot of regular Bollywood. Go see this really colorful movie for an entertaining evening.

But then, everything passes.

In two weeks, I shall attempt to break the 45 miles a week barrier when my club runs along the banks of the Cauvery on Nov 18^th.