Mileage Log

6 km y'day - abt 32 mins. 1st lap in 7 min or so...

22 km or so today in abt 2:10

Thanks to P, who ran with me for the 1st 11 or so due to which we covered the route till Wilson College in 1:05 despite Peddar Road.

Good part is that I had loads of fuel left in the tank when I finished. Mumbai 2011, here I come.

Used the new NB shoes.

And yeah, turned in another sorry performance at the Mahaquizzer 2010. But I am consoling myself that I am perhaps the only guy who ran a half an hr before the quiz.

Mileage Log

This weekend was one where I felt sorry for myself at not being in Bangalore for the Sunfeast when just about everyone from my gang ran the 10K.

Ran a 6K y'day and a 12K today, both w/o timing. So relatively relaxed runs.

Used the NB shoes.

Don't know where I am heading with this kind of mileage especially if I want to take a serious shot at my grand plan this year of a 75K at the Ultra in Bangalore in Nov...

Feeling listless is not the best feeling to start your week with.

Ended up sleeping for 2 hrs each y'day and today due to plain fatigue from the heat. This heat is sapping the life out of me. Barely felt the runs today. Have drunk over 4 litres of water and still feel weak...

How to buy books

Version 1:

1. First go to the section that interests you most (Literary Fiction in my case) . Buy a few books.
2. Now, go to the next favourite section (Fiction). Then go to the next set of interests (Sports).
3. Now check your coupon value against the value of books purchased.
4. Now repeat the process. (Buy books on Music, Travel).
5. Now check against what other freebie option you have (Credit Card Points).
6. Buy more books (Non Fiction - Geology, a book by an author whose other book you bought sometime ago and liked)...
7. Keep repeating

Version 2: Get into bookshop. While you randomly browse and pick up books, spot a really pretty woman. Start giving her the eye when she's not looking and steal looks when she is! Pick a few books off the rack closest to you when she detects you are staring too long. Follow her when she leaves your section. Buy some more. Keep doing more of the same till she heads to the counter....

What do you think I did for my previous post? ;)

Plunderings of a bibliomaniac

I had promised that plundering would begin soon when I wrote this. A discount voucher to the new Landmark store in Phoenix Mills and some accumulated credit card points precipitated today's events, which have left my excesses from 2005 a little behind. So here goes...

1. Hand of God (the life of Diego Maradona by Jimmy Burns)
2. 2666 by Roberto Bolano
3. The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano
4. The Map that Changed the World by Simon Winchester*
5. In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniel Mueenuddin**
6. An Utter and Incomplete History of Classical Music by Stephen Fry***
7. Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
8. Hammer of the Gods by Stephen Davis****
9. Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin Uncensored)
10. Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
11. Making Movies by Sidney Lumet
12. Red Man Walking by Frank Worrall#
13. Inverting the Pyramid## by Jonathan Wilson
14. Stephen Fry in America
15. Sometimes I forgot to laugh by Peter Roebuck
16. Arth (a movie by Mahesh Bhatt)
17. Ankur (a movie by Shyam Benegal)
18. Saaransh (a movie by Mahesh Bhatt)
19. Utpal Dutt comedy movie collection### (4 movies by Basu Chatterjee)

Now for some serious pleasure. If only one had summer holidays....hum bhi agar bacche hote...

* about William Smith and the birth of Modern Geology

** my 2nd book by a Pakistani author

*** a book I had read before, but had not possessed

**** The Led Zeppelin saga

# about Roy Keane

## the history of football tactics

### includes Shaukeen, Pasand Apni Apni, Lakhon ki baat, Baton Baton mein

Weekend Mileage

My running has dropped so much right now that other than tracking what I do on Sat/Sun, I am doing little else.

However Sat's run was interesting. Ran 6 km in 29:44 as below

1st lap: 6:07

2nd lap:5:53

3rd lap:5:53

4th lap:5:51

5th lap:6:00

Ran 12 km this morn in about 1hr 05 min.

It is bloody hot & humid here in Bombay, but it is better than being in Jalgaon where I haven't dared to even take my running shoes...

All the above was done with my NB shoes.

Blossoms

Kindly Sit Down*

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

The Year of Living Biblically by AJ Jacobs

were all bought at Blossoms on a whirlwind visit under the pretext of Rs.150 of prize coupons from some KQA quiz. Ended up spending Rs.470 on the above, bulk of it on the AJ Jacobs book...

*a collection of best after dinner stories from both houses of parliament in the UK compiled by Jack Aspinwall, MP

Mileage Log

15-16 km on Sun run at a sub 6 min/km pace

9.6 km in 49:25 min on Mon to compensate for not running on Sat

Very hectic weekend and some random unfortunate event which derailed Sat...

Awesome breakfast with friends on Sun at MTR

Mileage Log

Sat - 8 miles or so

Sun - 22.5 km or so. Ended up walking the last 2 km. Was too tired and frankly a little woozy from the quiz Sat eve to concentrate on running

NB earns its reputation.

Saw Anil Ambani running up Peddar Road when I was running down... I think we were faster than him ;)

Do you still quiz?

... is the question I am asked by most people who know me from around 10 years ago.

Sometimes I ask myself the same question since I have tasted little success in the big quizzes for a while now, since this happened. And honestly since I began chasing that much elusive Boston dream, quizzing is a distant second to running.

But today was different. In a team with incredible team mates, came 2nd in the Bombay round of the Landmark Quiz 2010. In fact we led for much of the quiz till the penultimate round of buzzer questions where we were frankly bested by the team which eventually won. But who cares?! We get tickets to the national finals in Chennai on Aug 15th :) So my 3rd adopted city has proven to be a lucky hunting ground. More reasons to love this humid city.

And thanks to the TCS team too which spared us some anxious moments at the death.

Woo hoo!

Booty includes 5K worth of coupons at Landmark... So the splurging happens soon