Sunday, June 27, 2010

June Blossoms...

Thanks to VJ (especially thanks to him since he has not claimed his coupons!) and Movin, forgetting the fact that I overspent beyond what I had budgeted and didn't buy the one book I planned, the following joined my collection*

  1. Does Anything eat Wasps? (the New Scientist)
  2. The Power of Babel by John McWhorter (a natural history of language)
  3. The McSweeney's joke book of book jokes
  4. Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett (Pterry on football!)
  5. Possession by AS Byatt
  6. Pose Method of Running by Nicholas Romanov
  7. Touch Play (the Prakash Padukone story)
  8. Samurai Williams by Giles Milton
  9. A Flowering Tree (and other oral tales from India) by AK Ramanujam
  10. Phantoms in the Brain by VS Ramachandran

* I am now trying to hide my self-proclaimed depression under a pile of books.

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Saturday, June 26, 2010

Mere Yaar ki Shaadi

Best Buddy's* wedding in Delhi and I am in Bangalore :(

God bless the curly haired buffoon and his beautiful bride. Hope to see them soon in NYC, if not in our own country.

Maybe I will weep privately since there is exactly 1 such pal left in life. A phase of life comes to an end for all of us.

Where is teleportation when you need it?

* the caps lock is intentional...

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Mileage Log

42K weekend. return to a 25 mile+ week after quite a while. feels good...especially now

15K or so y'day in 1:23
27K or so today in 2:48. actually did a warm up of about 1K, but am ok with ignoring it

old NB shoes.

thanks to Honda-san (who ran with us for almost 2 laps at my pace! he must have been maddened by running so slow) and Commander (he regularly snatches a generation gap these days whenever I run with him - and the gap is in the opposite direction!) who eventually lapped me by about a mile

brain is mostly kheema these days. hope to regain sanity soon...

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Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Turing's birthday, another sub-3

The last time I wrote of a luminary who had a sub 3 hr marathon, I thought I won't find anything more amazing more easily.
God bless his soul...

hat tip to commander

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Monday, June 21, 2010

Sun

Modest mileage of 4 miles. Old NB shoes.

Mind is a mess with health issues in family.

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Saturday, June 19, 2010

Sat

17.5 km or so in the morning, some of it run alone - the rest with the Red Dragon/Bus gang and with Vijay.

Ran with old NB shoes which are now washed :)

Also managed to qualify for 2 quizzes - 1 travel quiz with VJ (VJ answered almost everything my team did!) which resulted in some generous coupons from KQA and another movie quiz with Movin (again Movin answered everything we did), where we were the last team to qualify for the finals. Got coupons for doing so although we came last in the finals...I think I will make a good quizzing manager ;) In both quizzes that my team qualified, didn't mess up much. We missed the Science quiz by a whisker despite a good team since we negated some answers. But the day ended well.

Now for t'row's run and open quizzes...

As someone commented, the KQA ASKQANCE 2010 is turning out to a Quizzing Woodstock of sorts with quizzers turning out from Kolkata, Delhi, Bombay, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kochi among others...Solid fun. And meeting up with old friends and acquaintances from the past when quizzing used to be the dominant hobby in my life.

Thought for the day - 2 pen torch cells and Manoj Kumar. Go figure!

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Sunday, June 13, 2010

Sunday evening run

Was quite tired from the run y'day and didn't even want to wake up this morn.
Ran in the eve - 9.6 km in 51 min or so.

1st lap was in a deliberate 6:26 with the hope that I could make it up a sub 50 later. However after the 2nd lap of 5:50 sore calves caught up and I just didn't have the finishing strength.

Lesson for the day: No attempting funny stuff when time targets are to be met unless I get in some muscle work

Only +ve - used the NB shoes

Expect to get 2 new pairs in 2010 in about 2 weeks time. After that there shall be some manic running hopefully. For the 1st time will be trying out an Adidas pair in addition to my annual NB pair. Lets see

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Saturday, June 12, 2010

Aarey Colony

3.5 hrs
~50 km cycling in 120 min
~12 km running in 70 min
~10-20 min stoppage

Went cycling to Aarey Colony today from my home in Shivaji Park. Good, green place.
It is so good that for a brief moment considered shifting home to the suburbs.

Old NB shoes for running though.

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Sunday, June 06, 2010

Half Yearly Mileage, Running Review

It is almost 26 weeks since I started tracking the annual mileage for 2010 (post the ill-fated Mumbai Marathon).

I have run ~484 km as of date, way short of what one would expect from someone who expects to run about 2000 km a year. However there is some hope since most of my racing begins around October. Expect manic running then.

Also I am planning a 75 at this year's ultra. So there will be atleast 3-4 weeks of 100 km mileage which will make all the mileage till date seem tame. So about 15 weeks of the remaining 26 or so will have atleast 50 km. So I will get close to that 2000 km target.

So far, the year has been poor on running achievements. No PBs. And this is supposed to be my runup to Boston. That sabbatical seems very tentative. But so far, seems like the only way to get to Heartbreak Hill.

However I have a 6 mile in sub 47 min and have managed to conquer the 5 km in sub 23 min more than once. Year end should see a 46 min 10 km. Wish me luck. Lets see.

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Saturday, June 05, 2010

Mileage Log, long weekend

4 km on Fri
22.8 km on Sat in 2:05 of which I ran 21 km in about 1:54 or so and hence ended up doing the remaining 1.8 km in 11 min
9.6 km in 49:52 with Manoj Bhat. This was earlier planned as a fast 10k but due to the run y'day and also since I woke up late watching Marathon Man* till past midnight, ate humble pie :(

Ran all of them with old shoes incl. the run today in a pair of Reebok which I hadn't used since 2005! I still hate them...

Also managed to redeem some pride at the World Quizzing Championship 2010 scoring 64 from 8 sections. Not too bad compared to the disaster at the Mahaquizzer on the previous weekend. However it is troubling to note that the memory is withering to not even recall Emma Lazarus :(

* Marathon Man has little to do with running but is a decent watch although it has little running save for some amusing dialogue related to Dustin Hoffman's running in the beginning. He does run a bit in the movie in some chase sequence. Laurence Olivier is menacing.

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Rajneeti

SPOILER ALERT

Rajneeti is a much awaited movie on the Hindi movie circuit. Big starcast - Naseeruddin Shah, Nana Patekar, Manoj Bajpai, Ajay Devgn, Ranbir Kapoor, Katrina (not much of an actress usually) and Arjun Rampal (not much of a star, but he is like the male equivalent of eye candy...) were assembled for what was hyped to be a big movie.

The movie is long, but it does not feel so. Prakash Jha attempts to do a Indian political version of the Great Indian Novel (GIN) and almost succeeds. The script is populist especially in the second half. Hardly any songs (atleast in the theatre I went to, they hastily cut a song which had just begun!).

The movie tells the story of a political dynasty and shows how the new generation takes over under a violent transition. The pace is excellent for such a long movie but one wonders whether the director attempted too much. The plot is extremely predictable and Manoj Bajpai and Nana Patekar shine. Katrina actually manages to speak Hindi*. The music by Wayne Sharp is not very noticeable but does not intrude/distract either. So I guess it is fine. There is not much need for it. There are some moments which remind one of Godfather in addition to the GIN - the car explosions and the new woman in the family spotting acts by goons which work with the family etc. Remember Pacino as Michael defending his family to Kay? Prakash Jha even makes a cameo.

Worth a watch despite the below.

The woman who plays Ranbir's mother has really poor make up and it is obvious she is a much younger woman. Shah is wasted and does not appear beyond the 1st reel or so. Some of the dialogue is unnecessary especially when Ajay Devgn finds out about his birth. Complete LCD kind of movie.

* much better than most of her contemporaries (of which I would like to single out Genelia D Souza for slurred speech!). But her Hindi does catch up when she shrieks Khyon once! :)

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