Night-Out Run

I am singing in the rain...(Not the Malcolm McDowell one, the Fred Astaire one)

After what seems like a long time, I did a pure night out - no sleep yet since y'day. Of course, it was for work.

Will sleep soon.

13 km in 1:06 or so, all of it in the rain. In fact the return stretch on Worli Sea-face (WSF) offered tail-wind for the first time in my entire running in Bombay. I always get head-wind but usually get cheated when I run back. But then today is my day. And I ran my pants off. Surely I ran a negative split for my return leg mostly because I had this guy in my sights. And I ran about 300-400 m up WSF and back.

Exorcised one major regular humiliation by this guy who usually races me up Pedder Road faster than I can get down. Today is my day. No one beats me today. I ran down 2 pairs of guys, most of whom are usually faster than I am down Worli Sea-face and raced home in order to have my breakfast and go to sleep.

Feel like a million bucks. Actually I am forcing myself to sleep now. Zzz...

Today is my day. Sunday bloody Sunday.

As the quote goes, Today is the beginning of the rest of my life.

Welcome to our world, little kid

R delivered a baby girl earlier today. Both H & R are happy.

R's kid promises much since she has been listening to her mom listening to me and kicking in response occasionally.

Welcome to our world, little kid. God bless you.

Will see them all in 2 weeks.

Saturday Run

I am not as waterproof as I want to be.

Ran 12 km at around noon with 5 dry laps and 5 wet laps and unlike Schumi, my wet laps weren't as impressive.

Took 61 min and 14/100ths of a second to complete this after a 1st lap in 5:58 ( too fast). Had done 8 laps in 49:10.

Looks like the monsoon took offence to my previous blog posts and washed out most of the day.

Twitter Serendipity

While I was trawling thru more than a week's worth of Twitter updates, found this beauty (HT to Nilanjana) by David Mitchell

INTERVIEWER The epigraph to Number9Dream is from Don DeLillo: “It is so much simpler to bury reality than it is to dispose of dreams.”

MITCHELL The best line in the book and it’s not even mine.

Could have been so easily about Inception!

Running Balance

Ran 9.6 km in 49:01

1st lap of 1.2 in 6:56
2nd lap of 1.2 in 5:35
.
.
.
8th lap of 1.2 in 5:56

Started deliberately slow to try and do the run in 48:00

Will do it soon.

This was for last week's missed run...

Bangalore Ultra 2010 - Registration

I have done it.
I have gone ahead and registered to kill myself this year on Children's Day.
I will run 75 km on that day.

There are reasons behind this, unrelated to running.

But I can tell you that I now have a goal (insert Hrithik Roshan here saying "tum bolti tha na, ki mera koi Lakshya hai, ... woh hai mera Lakshya...ok, ok, you can take off that serious expression now... At ease!)

If I survive, you will see another post.

Now, start praying for me.

Click here to attend live funeral ;)

Dear Shubha Mudgal...

I just love your music.

Years ago, one was startled by a bout of what sounded like rock sung by a portly cute woman in the rain, singing "Ab ke sawan..." apparently to the tunes of Shantanu Moitra. In the words of Sonu Sam, my then-hostelmate, "Dude, this woman is cool..."

And then of course, came Raincoat, followed by Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi.

I can't tell you how many times you have healed my heart.

If you read this someday, you should let me buy you coffee for this lifetime of beautiful music. Actually you should try the filter coffee I make. I make a mean coffee :)

Why don't you record more often?

Random Musings during Sunday run

I did something which is a strict no-no on a long run today. Didn't fuel up before the run. All I had was my customary filter coffee before I started.

At around 23 km, massive hunger set in. I had had only fruits for both lunch and dinner y'day (not being able to go out due to the wretched rain). So calorie-wise, I must have been sub 1200 or so y'day. And to burn out 1500 calories shocks your system.

I don't know know if you are used to hallucinating over food. I am. In each of the ultras, I have had this overwhelming feeling of wanting to eat something. Today while running towards Haji Ali I just saw the Cadbury's office and that triggered a bout of craving for chocolate! In a few mins, that was followed by a bout of nausea. I had to stop and then slowly pick up. Still no food. But stomach went back to normal.

The above prompted a guilt trip on how I can barely manage to stay hungry. When I was younger I used to fast without water even for over 24 hrs once every few months. Now I guess I can't do it especially if I am running. My body fat (which was a lot in those days) is going down now. So there are no reserves to burn. Body gets down to glucose in less than 2 hours.

God bless the poor, hungry souls who don't even have a meal a day.

Sunday Happiness

This is one of my favourite songs of all time, in part due to the kid in the video and in part due to the lovely sound throughout. God bless the band, Blind Melon.
By some incredible coincidence it just appeared on TV at the moment I was dealing with some not-so-happy matter. Guess the big man above knows when to cheer you up...

Waterproof will to run

Dear Monsoon,
You ruined my Sat by raining down incessantly for the entire day. I missed my only other running day in the week.

You can sully my bedroom by leaking thru the roof,
You can make it muggy in the house
You can cloud out the sun
Not my waterproof will to run

31 km in 3:15. Not impressive. I know. But you didn't make it easy by raining on me and adding headwind.

Thanks to A for his company. He came along till Babulnath.

Registrations open for Mumbai Marathon 2011

Click on http://www.procamrunning.in/scmm/Registration/applicationmodes.php

Umbrella...

Feel a bit like that irritating song by Rihanna.

This is my 3rd umbrella lost in the cab/train in the last 1 year. The Sun umbrella co. must really like me.

Long Run

...atleast it was intended to be a long one :(

Ended up doing a little over 22 km in 2:05 although the plan had been to do 30.

It is ok. The run was a breeze thanks to my latest encrushment which dominates my mindspace now.

Used my NB shoes. Ran the previous 2 runs in old NB (without realizing).

While I have managed 3 runs during this last week, mileage is still short of 30 miles. If that plan of doing 75 km in the ultra has to materialize, then something must be done to bump up mileage. Concrete plans soon - based on the Pose book of running bought a while ago.

Good news include weight being maintained and some improvement in upper body strength. Next step - weight loss and more strength

Inception

Spoiler Alert!

Christopher Nolan shows why Dark Knight was not an isolated masterpiece.
Now that that is out of the way, as several people in the theatre said, the last time someone felt this way was when we all saw The Matrix. It was breathtaking cinema at its best.

Inception beats all comers from anywhere in the last few years. It is a super entertainer and a taut movie. Lee Smith, take a bow. For a 148 min to feel like this, the movie deserves big praise.

All actors essay likeable roles - Ken Watanabe as Saito, Marion Cotillard as Mal, Joseph Gordon Levitt as Arthur, Ellen Paige as Ariadne, Michael Caine as Leo's father in law and of course Leo. While there are shades of his nervy nature (think The Aviator, Blood Diamond, Shutter Island,...) he does sparkle under Nolan's direction. The delectable Marion lends the movie both and an angst-ridden air

The movie is surely a watermark in scripts.

Nolan who has also produced the movie with his wife will make hundreds of millions from this if not a billion!

And the background music by Hans Zimmer does not distract one bit while ensuring you watch most of the movie leaning forward in your seat to see what happens next.

Due to the nature of the movie, I shall not reveal much here. The movie tells the story of an extractor of people's memories who is engaged for a risky job. The underlying complexity to the job and associated events form the best part of two hours of the movie.

Must watch.

Everyone Communicates Few Connect

Book Review here

Running Report

No running on Sat (today) :(

However 12.1 km on Thu. Woo hoo!

6 km y'day with some rare fast times as follows.
1 km at 10 kmph,
1 km at 11 kmph,
1 km at 12 kmph,
1 km at 14 kmph
1 km at 12 kmph
1 km at 11 kmph

Now for that long run t'row.

Mad elephant in a Myanmarese rice field

When I wrote these posts (1, 2, 3 & 4) I was mostly referring to fictional women. However I had alluded to my encrushing* addiction to real women here.

Today I am happy to report my latest encrushment. Someone loves Fry and Seth. Need I say more? I might just die of excitement if I now find out that her favourite football team is Argentina and that The Lives of Others is the best movie of the last 5 years.

Woo hoo...

* See previous post for definition

The title was a reference to the overwhelming impact of pachyderms...mentioned in an earlier post

Encrush

I have finally invented/coined a word to denote a verb which means having a crush on someone. It shall henceforth be called "Encrush"

Weekend Football & Running

90 mins of football in rain y'day

6 km running as well

12 km running today

Body was sore all over despite being in better shape than I have been for most of 2010.

Biggest pain is amount of laundry generated by 2 days of running in the rain and football.

Mileage Log, Assorted Grouses...

6 miles on Sat in 51 min

6 miles on Sun in 49:10 min

Started out slower (a deliberate 7 min or so) on Sat and lost momentum in mid laps and could never turn in a sub 6 min after 2nd lap for the lap of 1.2 km (Shivaji Park).

Started out much faster on Sun (and I thought I was going slow - 6:07) for first lap. Managed to do 2nd in 5:53, but then lost pace again. I think I am losing strength again as I am unable to accelerate. Of course, the complete lack of leg strengthening is not exactly a plus.

Was planning a 30 km to beat the grief out of my system after my boys from Argentina lost on Sat. Ended up being so depressed that I indulged in self-flagellation (atleast what I think is a bachelor's equivalent - washing clothes). Then watched Spain win. So woke up too late to even step out. Ran in the eve.

I have run in the eve on just 2 Sun in 2010 so far. So it is weird.

Some guy who lapped me during my last lap on Sat and finished about 30 sec ahead asked me how many I was doing? Egomaniac?

Now that I have left my old NB at home in BLR, all mileage logged will be using the newer NB.

Missed friend's wedding 2 Sundays ago and hence haven't managed to get my new pairs of shoes.

And the monsoon is f* up my clothes with fungus and the roof is leaking!

I think Diego didn't plan for the Germany match - Unlike a lot of people, I think Mascherano was off colour during the entire world cup. Also 4-3-1-2 left little choice when Masherano/Messi got blocked just like it did. There were no attacks along 1 flank.

Instead we could have brought in Riquelme or even Aimar. Both Aguerro and Pastore didn't get enough time. To be fair, Diego perhaps didn't want people to think Aguerro was getting favoured. And I think it would have been fine to let Messi not play for full matches. Atleast the opposition would have been confused about whom to mark.

Anyways, boo hoo for now. Woo hoo for later.

Arshad Ahmed RIP

Arshad was a senior of mine from engineering. He was a sharp brain and was really tall, dark and handsome. He taught me Z-transforms amongst other things. He also taught me some engineering mathematics. He was just a year older than I am. He had amazingly infectious laughter and was mostly laughing whenever we met. He was one of the few guys I kept in touch right through engineering and after, until 2008. I wanted to be like him and adored him.

He began running sometime in 2006, influenced by his girlfriend who was an athlete of sorts and we exchanged a lot of notes about typical issues one faces when one starts out. He had run a super fast 5K for a beginner and was planning a marathon sometime in life.

He died in a road accident in Apr 2008. His mom also died in the same accident (god bless her soul).

I found out today and haven't been able to rest for a moment since I found early in the morning when I met a batchmate after 10 years, at the airport. I feel miserable that it never struck me to find out why he had stopped emailing for nearly two years.

I cannot be sadder.

God bless his soul.

Why do such bright and cheerful people have to die so young?

Arshad, Wish you were here...