Books in 2024

2024 was off to an even worse start than 2023. Early in the year, I fell sick enough to not be able to read and then got busy. And after a long time, just got so listless that even reading didn't appeal as much, esp since I had so many podcasts or shorter pieces to read. I rebooted my ability to read at least 25 pages at a time, thanks in large part due to Terry Pratchett's Thief of Time, which I found as lovely as any of his other works. The irony was that I got my largest set of books due to multiple people going nuts gifting! One saving grace was that I read a bunch of children's books, thanks to my boys

Anyway here they are

1. Survival of the Fittest by Mike Stroud*
2. Crossword Century by Alan Connor
3. Playful Parenting by Lawrence J Cohen
4. The Three Year Swim Club by Julie Checkoway
5. To the Limit by Michael Crawley
6. Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett
7. Revenge of the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
8. The Striker and the Clock by Georgia Cloepfil
9. Ergodicity by Luca Dell'Anna
10. You (Only faster) by Greg McMillan
11. I will judge you by your bookshelf by Grant Snider
12. How to know a person by David Brooks
13. The Microstress Effect by Rob Cross & Karen Dillon
14. Is it worth dying for? by Robert S Eliot

* which I found disappointingly dated although I chose it for the theme. I guess I would have loved it, had I read it 10+ years ago when I first heard of the author!

Goa Ironman 70.3

I participated in the relay at the Goa Ironman 70.3 event on 27 Oct 24. It was one of the hardest races of my life.

But not for the reasons you may think.

After all, I only did a half marathon. My teammates did what I think are the harder legs of the relay - the 1.9km swim and the 90km ride. The things that made it hard for me are mostly mental.

For one, I had to wait in a tent, which was fully exposed to the sun for at least an hour, with only a rough sense of when my teammate would arrive. Phones are not allowed for participants on the event locations and could result in disqualification.

The swim started at 7am and we knew our stud swimmer would finish in about 30 min and he did so, within a min of that planned time. Then there's ~500m to run along the beach to the bike start where our cyclist would pick up the chip and get on his way. Since it is a 90km ride and our cyclist was expected to finish in ~3:15 hrs, it meant that I would start my run only around 11am. That meant a challenge to the timing of my breakfast. 11am is usually my snack time. I eat breakfast at around 9am or a little later every day. I eat lunch at around 1pm. So 11am is neither here nor there.

And then there's the effect of dehydration which you experience just standing around in the hot sun. So you need to keep hydrating while not drinking so much that you need to pee on the run. Mercifully there were porta potties in the transition area.

And then there's the burden of history. I have been part of another relay team in the past, where my team lost to the eventual 3rd placed team due to my not being able to beat their runner, by ~20 seconds. I just melted in the heat on that day in the past over just 10K. So I have some bad memories to exorcise. And I would hate to be the reason my team didn't do well again.

I had set myself a target of 1 hr 36 min based on a calculator which adjusted my normal half marathon time of 1 hr 30-31 minutes by ~5 minutes to account for the expected 30 deg C temperature.

On raceday, I was saved by the incredible idea of someone to just throw a mug of iced water at participants who needed it, every few km. Each time, I had water dumped on me, I picked up pace. When I finished, I found out out that the temperature when I finished was 32 deg C with 81% humidity which made it feel like 46 deg C (way worse than I expected!).

I did slow down a bit on the last lap of 7km, but I finished in ~1:36:12 hr, which led us to 2nd place among teams in our category. Overall, there were 2 other teams which were ahead of us, but they were from the NDRF (govt. teams) and in a different category.

We got to take pics with one of the greatest Indian sportspeople at the finish line :)

Here's my run data, if you are interested. The distance is a little less than 21.1km thanks to a combination of transition distance and some expected deviations due to the GPS.

For now, I am just happy to have put some demons to rest.

Books in 2023

2023 has been an tougher year than 2022 from a personal time perspective and hence for reading. The first 3+ months were a washout since we had no nanny. But I managed what I could from Apr onwards. Here are the books I finished

1. Deep by James Nestor (this is a little all over the place vs his subsequent book, Breathe, but it is fascinating and never boring)
2. Dare to Tri by Louise Minchin (I was trying to coach someone to his first triathlon and wanted to see what the journey of someone who did so, was like)
3. Outlive by Peter Attia (sort of overhang from my reading from 2022. I was just curious to see what he had to say, given his presence in the modern health space)
4. Choosing to Run by Des Linden
5. The Innovation Stack by Jim McKelvey
6. Radical Candor by Kim Scott
7. The Long Game by Dorie Clark
8. The Power Law by Sebastian Mallaby
9. A Boy in the water by Tom Gregory*
10. Good for a Girl by Lauren Fleshman
11. The Best by Mark Williams and Tim Wigmore**
12. Adapt by Tim Harford***
13. The Museum of Curiosity: Series 1-4 (audiobook)
14. The Museum of Curiosity: Series 5-8 (audiobook)
15. The Museum of Curiosity: Series 9-12 (audiobook)
16. The Museum of Curiosity: Series 13-16 (audiobook)
17. Master of Change by Brad Stulberg
18. In it for the long run by Damian Hall
19. We share the sun by Sarah Gearhart

*wonderful moving book. A hark back to the days when the world was perhaps simpler. Very hard to not cry at several points in the book.

**fabulous reading esp for a coach

***re-read this for some work

I really loved Lauren Fleshman's book since it is a fantastic insider's viewpoint into the life of a gifted athlete and a rare one at that, given she's a woman (sadly, there still aren't enough books about female athletes). I highly recommend you try it. 

13-16 brought some much needed joy into my life. It is a quirky radio show, filled with very smart people and lots of fun and trivia. Hits the spot for me. And each episode in the series is ~20min. I loved it so much that I rationed my consumption so that I wouldn't run out of it quickly. Strongly recommend it as a daily dose to anyone who wants to lighten their day up.

I just picked A Boy in the Water as my book for the year because it had more resonance for me as a coach and I am a sucker for emotional stories and at this point in my life, like swimming a lot. While 18 is about Sang (Kipchoge's coach) and is mostly around running and is predictably a good read, it didn't make me cry at any point

Books in 2022

2022 was the first year in a long time when I read a lot in the health and fitness area. Not since 2011, when I was on a sabbatical and read ~30 books on running, has my reading been that specific. Still, I managed to get some reading not directly relevant to work also. The no of books dropped drastically since the year was up and down personally. I just lacked the energy to read consistently*. 

Of course, I have read a bunch of children's books over the past 3+ years, thanks to my boys. Most of them are wonderful and I remember this particular quirky story, Tikki Tikki Tembo among others.

Here are the books

1. Why we get sick by Benjamin Bikman
2. Metabolical by Robert Lustig
3. The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick
4. The Cold Start problem by Andrew Chen
5. What doesn't kill you by Scott Carney
6. Breath by James Nestor
7. Why we swim by Bonnie Tsu
8. Klopp: Bring the Noise by Raphael Honigstein
9. To be a machine by Mark O'Connell
10. Titan by Vinay Kamath
11. The Midlife Cyclist by Phil Cavell
12. Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman
13. 7 Rules of Power by Jeffrey Pfeffer

*Imagine having a copy of Astrophysics for people in a hurry and still not having read it. That's how bad it was.

11 years

It is amazing how much your life can change in a year. And then again, how much it can stay the same over a decade, depending on where you look from!

Among others, I don't have time to make a detailed post like I did last year.

But a big change from last year is that I started a new job in Dec 2021. So I am no longer on my own.

The last 9 months have been remarkably up and down in all sorts of ways - both on the personal and professional sides.

I am grateful for the fact that running is a big part of my life. If you are on my annual mailer, you will hear more.

In the meanwhile, say hello and let me know what's up with you.

Books in 2021

Update: If you got here because of my linking mistake, here's the link to my 2022 list

Here you go

1. How the World Thinks by Julian Baggini (still being read)
2. The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt (still being read)
3. Verbal Judo by George J Thompson (still being read)
4. Right Hand Left Hand by Chris McManus (still being read)
5. The Smartest Kid in the World by Chris Ware (graphic novel) (still being read)
6. Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez
7. The Biggest Bluff by Maria Konnikova
8. Dreamers by Snigdha Poonam
9. The Most Human Human by Brian Christian
10. One Track Mind by Michael Stocks
11. Books, Movies, Rhythms, Blues by Nick Hornby
12. Out of Thin Air by Michael Crawley
13. The Barefoot Coach by Paddy Upton
14. No Rules Rules by Erin Meyer and Reed Hastings
15. Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke
16. Kicksology by Brian Metzler
17. Think Again by Adam Grant
18. A Bigger Prize by Margaret Heffernan
19. Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance
20. The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle
21. Disrupt and Conquer by TTK Jagannathan & Sandhya Mendonca
22. How will you measure your life by Clayton Christensen
23. The Culture Book by the Culturati
24. Good to Great by Jim Collins
25. High Output Management by Andy Grove

10 years

It has been 10 years now.

The mental flux I discussed last year, hasn't let up much.

Ill-health did hit family too with a couple of scares. 

We now have two sons :) And life has bigger spikes in both directions most days now.

I continue to run without a plan and ran a forgettable marathon earlier this year thanks to a GI malfunction. 

For the first time, my consulting income exceeded my coaching income in a calendar year. I am still consulting on running. I finally got my own website, thanks to my pal, Athreya.

I also continue to work with my amazing friends at ChooseToThinq. 

My newsletter at dschool.substack.com completed one year and I continue to post each week. I wrote about the Tokyo Olympics for SportsKeeda. That was a lot of fun and learning. 

Reading has been good this year but still less than I would like, but hey I am getting paid to read and write! Wait for my annual post on the books I read. This year, I have gone back to paper copies and my audiobook consumption has dipped, partly because I can't listen for too long and I try and avoid my phone as much as I can, with two young kids.

I stay in touch with Spanish by using Duolingo everyday and crossed a year of using it, about 3 months ago.

I continue to be grateful for so many good things in my life. I only wish the same and more for myself and for you, my dear reader. And an extra serving of good health to everyone.

If you are anyone (incl. an NIT Trichy or IIM Lucknow alumnus and) wondering whether to work for yourself and whether you'd be happy and comfortable, I can tell you I am working for myself and I am ok so far, after ten years. That's not too bad, eh?

If you noticed, I could reuse a lot of last year's content because the more things change, the more they remain the same.

And as with the last few years, now that you are here, say hello, write in and let me know how you have been and anything else you have been perhaps meaning to say :)