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 Christmas Sunday run (contd.)

My Garmin Forerunner 210 is now connected to my notebook and am able to upload my route and view it on google maps.

So we ran two different courses yesterday.

RUN 1 - was the tradition, oft done Nehru Park to India gate via Rashtrapati Bhavan. route. Flat, shaded and beautiful early morning. The view of India gate as the sun is rising, the cyclists, skaters, walkers, joggers, hawkers and gawkers complete the scene. You dont see T shirt and shorts clad runners passing by on cold, foggy mornings like this one.



RUN 2 - took us to Nyay marg which was sunny and very low traffic. The best part was that across the road from UP house, Jharkhand house, etc is central ridge area. We ventured across the road into this area. This also houses the Delhi earth Station which is an ISRO facility. Right here, we also came across 2 old world markers stating this to be the estate of Princess of Oudh Click on this link to read the story by Indian Express. The route of the run is here, at the north most point you can see the route taking us into the ridge and thats exactly where we saw the boards.



When we were nearing the end of the first run we, saw searing past at atleast 200 kmph a Yellow Lamborghini. At the end of the 2nd run, there raced again another Lamborghini at roughly the same speed, this time a white one. Those cars sounded beastly and oh-so-fantastic. However they were f***ing dangerous as these guys could definitely not apply their brakes on time. The lambos could probably react but the drivers, i do not think, have that experience. Exhilarating but sad.

A good run in any case. No cramps, a bit of muscle soreness and a slight niggle on the right knee but that shall pass by end of the day today. RICE - Rest Ice Compression & Elevation will do its work.

The 31.66 K Christmas Sunday

Finally, I crossed the half marathon barrier !!

Ran a 31.66 KM today morning, in preparation of the StanChart Mumbai Marathon. This is the single longest distance I ave ever run.

I was fine till about 27 th KM but then I slowed and walked for a bit and started my running again. It was more of a shuffle than running but let's just call it running. eventually I was on my feet for abt 4 hrs 10 mins. Mighty proud of it.

Shiv, luckily for me, shared his magic elixir of Tang + electoral. The mistake I was about to commit was that I was gonna drink only water, no sodium, potash or salts of any kind. My future long runs will see me carrying salt replenishment as well.

The experiment of sandwich worked well. 2 pieces of bread with butter & German homemade strawberry jam cut into quarters and individually wrapped in cling film made it easy to eat on the run without my sweat mixed in my food. This way I could share my foods well with the good fellow runners.

More on the route of the run with maps later.

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 :

Running & Living 4th Gurgaon marathon & More

What a run ! The energy of the runners gathered was so infectious that I felt all energized inspite of no training ! Sunday runs (Only running on Sundays) with an average weekly average of 8 kms cannot count as training. But man it was good.

Wifey Sue was always helpful in getting me out of bed early in the morning to go run, and I was creative with new excuses to continue enjoying the warm bed.

Awesomely, my big bro & wife Ravi & Sheetal were there to cheer me on. Him with his Leica and she with the Tea (and holding onto my jacket, phone, car keys and Heart Monitor chest strap since the Garmin gave in. (you'll read abt it below)

The run started on time as every R & L event. About a km down when I found my pace about 6.30-6.45 min per KM by my Garmin Forerunner 210 . Of course the Garmin was not charged as there must have been a loose charger connection and the Garmin died out after 3-4 KMs. Now I have nearly always tried to pace myself with a digital assistant and now I had none. This is where Akila helped.



Akila was running an easy, fun untimed pace. My pace was around the same and hoped that her company and steady pace will pull me through. And it did. The first loop of 10.5 KMs went super smooth without noticing the multiple curves and bends in the route which we noticed only on the 2nd loop. On the way we got Sanjeev Chabara and some new inputs into our chat.




On the end of the 1st loop Akila complained of cramps and slowed down urging me to continue at my pace. Did nt make much of a difference as she caught up at nearly every water / food point. This was another good thing Rahul (founder of R & L ) did - food on the run. I had biscuits, wafers, oranges, butter & jam sandwiches on the way not counting the energy drinks & water.

Several times on the 2nd loop I was thinking, Man, I am tired let me walk a bit.. but then another thought would walk in and shout - Hey HAVE YOU USED UP YOUR WEAK ? NO- THEN KEEP RUNNING !! And just like that I was off running again.



Towards the end at 500 mins to go I started into a faster pace, and at 21 K point with 0.097 Ks to go I lauched into a full sprint. Oh it was so much fun. Fun to run, to fly and fun to know I still had some energy to sprint ! Had a good finish !

Finished in 2 hrs 23 min - 4 min faster than the ADHM 3 weeks ago.

Thanks to Running & Living for the excellent run

The running grand plan

During my talk with the veteran runners I learnt about the long term and short term plans and realized I had made one too a couple of years ago.

2011 - run a half marathon under 2.00 hrs ( far from it)
2012 - run a full marathon (on track, atleast with booking my spot for the run and carrying my loyal supporter(s) with me)

These plans are going to expire pretty soon, next month in fact. So while running and talking I made out an outlining of my future target :

2012 - Mumbai Marathon

2013 - Bangalore Ultra 50 K

2014 - Bangalore Ultra 75 K

2015 - full marathon under 5 hr + Bangalore Ultra 75 K

2016 - Comrades 89 K South Africa