SCMM Full marathon report - II - Acknowledgement

I just have to thanks my fellow runners who have played a part in me getting to my 1st full , running my first full and finishing my 1st full healthy, safe and injury free.


Sandeep Srivastava - Technical and nutritional expert - His indepth reasearch and willingness to share the knowledge he had on what all to eat, drink and maintain the salt levels to avoid cramping. Worked like a charm and made it seem so easy. Plus his encouragement and making me run that extra 300 mtrs during my longest training run of 31.66 Ks 3 weeks before the full.





Sanjeev Chabra - Seemingly slow runner. But you DEFINITELY have to acknowledge the consistency, preseverence and the surprise rabbit hiding in that skin. FInished his full in a little over 5 hrs ! Awesome job. He taught me to persevere and keep at it, slow, head down and keep pushing...



Rahul Verghese - What can I say - organised the running in NCR. His 10 K runs every month in Gurgaon got me running. His Running & Living events got me intouch with all the running people I know. During the SCMM 2012 he was the pacer for 5.30 hrs and was so perfect that the group finished in exact time ! I stuck to the group for about 20 Ks then lagged behind as I couldnt keep up the pace. Those 20 Ks were cheating as I did not realize they were done until I started getting tired. Full of energy, smiling , laughing, singing songs (chorus as well) taking pics. Swell !



Shiv - Goaded me into my longest training run. His guidance on what strategy to adopt including not to watch the clock but to aim to finish. He brought me to reality against my impractical thoughts of 5 hr finish ! Met him both before and after the marathon and found more words of encouragement.





My biggest and staunchest supporters are however my family, who forgive me for waking up super early and skipping out on family time specially on weekends.




Sunina & Rudi - My wife and baby son who accompanied me to the SCMM 2012 without complain. Constanly encouraging me, motivating me and telling me that they knew I was going to finish the race, without a doubt. My training was accomplished only due to Sue kicking me out of bed to go train !






Dad & Ma - Their pat on the back and the encouragement goes a long way. Their confidence that I can do what I set out to achieve straightens my back even when my energy is down.

A funny thing happened ...

This funny thing happens every day ! He has only one policy - IGNORE DAD. I change his diapers, burp him, walk him to sleep. Love him. but who cares - its Ignore dad policy at work all the time.

Perhaps the reason for this, I can fathom.

Credit of the sketch to the original artist. Reproduced from Cartoon Stock

Thanks guys for excellent work.

Drunk !

You may have seen drunks sleeping it off, limbs akimbo, mouth wide open, lost in their own world with no idea whats happening around them. Something like this guy :



Well here's Rudy, punch drunk, on milk !

Rudy & Sammy

This is Sammy the caterpillar, Rudy's favoritest toy.



This is Rudy, during his daily conversations with Sammy.

The devilish angel - Rudra

The last two days our sonny boy has been sunny. He does not realize that when the sun goes down so must our heads and we must sleep. For him night time is paaartey time, so he's up showing us all facets of emotions, lying quietly, smiling, chortling, crying, howling, bawling, poopy face, hungry face, cry face etc.

Here is a pic of him finally asleep in mommy's lap looking angelic :

Daddy on Diaper Duty !

Ever since friends and family learnt about us having a baby, they have been teasing me that I too will now be part of the diaper dads club. Its the municipal duty.

The first 40 days were breezy as I did not have to change a single one as my wife had help, only assisting once. However then came the day the help was gone and it became my solid duty to change my sons nappy / diaper whenever I was home from work.

I never gagged. Why ? I had dogs in the past who would once in a while poop or pee in the house and it would my job to clean up the mess. Compared to that this was a piece of cake. (pun intended. what pun ?)

Then on Sunday when we planned our baby's first day out, it happened. The horror of baby poop !

I was home and on Diaper Duty. I opened sonny boy's diaper and peeked in a saw a small speck of poo. wife said to do some gentle leg movements / exercises to make sure all is out. The babys leg movements, not mine. I had already pooped in the morning. I clean myself and do not need any additional help. Back to the topic on hand. So I did some gentle exercises with him. Nothing else came.

I started cleaning him up. That is when he decided to poop some more and out came a dribble which turned into a muddy waterfall. Panic. This was just before I had placed the diaper so some of the gooey stuff was on the changing mat and his blanket (dont ask) and expecting some more I placed the diaper under his soft butt and over the poop. He was done. And so was I. Poop was everywhere on the diaper, under the diaper on the sheet, blankets, legs.

I waited a few moments more, no movement no precursors or anything so I started cleaning him up again. And then came the shower, the golden shower and he peed and peed and peed - all over the bed, the blanket, his clothes, his socks, his clean change of clothes, his grandmommy (who was there by now)and of course his dad, me. By this time to damage control, I had started moving the changing sheet and the blanket and the daper and lo behold all was covered in a fine layer of my sonny boys finest gooey stuff on tap. I ended up getting poo and pee in all areas it shouldnt.

I finally managed to get him changed. Mommy and Grandma were in splits over my handling of the situation. No harm done. We could go out on a incident free day out. Thanks to me, I saved the day !

Credit of the sketch to Anitta Hiekkanen

Sleepless nights.... ON

Yesterday night was my first sleepless night (nearly) with Rudra. It wa s also a record of sorts for him. He slept only 3 hrs in a 12 hr period. and all those 3 hrs were in snatches of 15 min - 20 mins at a time. Both Sunina & the nanny were tired and sleepy but the dudes switch was turned all the way up - to ON!

Around 1 AM Sunina woke me up and presented me my opponent - Rudy to lull him to sleep. I tried various forms of martial arts - the rumbling stomach, the walking sleep, the shoulder chin up art, then my sonorous sound style. All i could get was 15 minutes out of him. He was more trained then I thought. I did the best thing possible - bring in the experts ! I sauntered back to my bed and fell off asleep.

I was woken up again around 3 AM with the tough warrior still fighting it out. Then my memory blurs. I remember buckling in and bringing in the nanny who was a now a little refreshed. We decided to tackle this tough guy from scratch.

We cleaned him up, changed his clothes, turned him around on her lap and gave him a constant one- twos on his back and off like a light for 4 hrs ! Here's the story :

Rudra Shakti Madan

Three is a magic number. Man and a woman had a baby, they had three in the family - a magic number.

This has been one of my favorites for sometime now. Must have been more like a prophecy as it has now been fulfilled.

Our baby boy Rudra Shakti Madan was born on Friday the 7th October, 2011.

He is probably going to be terribly spoilt as all the family has been looking forward to welcome him and now that he is here all the bottled up Love (and in my case love garnished with liquor) is going to gush and surround him.

Rudra Shakti Madan