May 31, 2010 – Monday: Yoga at the Haddows Park

Standard stuff, except that I am becoming a little bit braver to try a few asanas which I would earlier, simply watch. Not that trying = doing, but at least trying = trying 🙂

Even now, there are quite a few where I watch, but now, I feel a little less guilty about those.

Need to be a lot more regular to improve though. I am still the same rigid and stiff mass I have always been. Now, I average < 1 yoga session per week. So, for the moment, my aim should be to get that at least to twice a week and then start praying for improvement.

May 30, 2010 – Sunday: Classic ++ with Senthil and Ram

We had 2 new runners who joined us today, Ben and Johny, who we discovered later to be BA pilots. They discovered us by going to the Chennai Runners website and landed up at AU. What was really, really nice was that they bought a plastic bag with some 2-3 pairs of shoes and t-shirts having read about the Extra miles program on the site. Absolutely great gesture. As some one said, some people just have it in them.

They looked really fit with some good running pedigree and so it was just apt that they paired up with McKinsey Ramesh, who evidently had a good time running with them. [More on that later].

Anyway, that brings us to the attendance list: Apart from the runners already mentioned, we had Senthil Anand, Ram, Saravanan, Vilwa (back after a break) and me. We also saw Ashok treading a solo path having started out at 4:45 with an intention of running 2 hours, all within AU. Hope that went well. In the end, we also met up with Manish and Balaji. Shankar, after 4-5 days of continuous training, was MIA

Once we started off, it was Ben, Johny and Ramesh bolting ahead, Ram, Saravanan and Vilwa in pursuit, Senthil and I on a 5:1 R:W following them.

The weather was pretty decent – not too hot and humid, and it was good for running. Met Yash at Greenways road – he missed the Classic this weekend because of another engagement that he was driving for: This was the 1st classic that he had missed since his 1st classic over 3 months back.

Senthil kept upping the pace in the hope that we might be able to catch Ram and Vilwa, but though they remained in view, they were beyond ‘catching’ distance. For me, that is. At BNBeach, Senthil engaged a higher gear, sprinted ahead effortlessly to catch Ram and pop the IIT plan into his head.

When has a fish refused to swim? Ram obviously was keen and so from Indira nagar, once we got together, IIT was the destination. But, not before Ram took us through a new route inside Indira Nagar – through the Railway Station (!) – onto Canal bank road. And I always thought that it required a train speeding away for me to run inside a Railway station.

For once, I was not jinxed and we managed to hoodwink the IIT security guards to get inside. But, by the time we got to 17k, I was exhausted and totally drained. I tried a few tricks – running faster and taking more breaks etc, but I was gone. Totally pooped. Ram and Senthil pushed me to finish. They proposed that they carry me over, but I suspect that might have been a little bit difficult. But, somehow kept going and stopped exactly at 20k done in 2 hrs, 2 mins. Never before have I done that distance in that time. So, once again, all credit to Senthil and Ram who keep pushing the envelope all the time. Thanks guys.

Ram and Senthil were joined by Manish and Balaji and went on to finish the 21.1k half. Terrific effort.

Ram led the yoga sessions this time. I provided the laughs by executing a near perfect backward somersault while Ram was demonstrating the Sarvangasan.

That reminds me of Ben-Johny-Ramesh run. During the run, Ramesh apparently warned them about the Adayar bridge incline and then later got to know that one of them stay and run in the Alps mountains. :-). Not sure if they had to walk through the Adayar bridge’s steep slope. Hope they coped.

Sure hope they run again with us.

May 28, 2010 – Friday: Dimensions – AU loop – Dimensions with Senthil

Super run – once again with Senthil.

Pushed from the beginning. It was 3.6k till the AU entrance and 5k was reached in ~28 minutes. We took a walk break then, and then again a 1 min break at 7k, and yet again at 9k – and still managed to finish 10k in 58 minutes. Slowed down, but wanted to complete 1 hour and so continued to run slowly and stopped exactly at 1:00:00 at a total distance of 10.3k.

Really nice run. Thanks again Senthil.

Took ages to recover though 🙂

May 25, 2010 – Tuesday: Dimensions – Marina – Dimensions with Shankar

Nice, slow, easy, chatty run with Shankar with multiple walk breaks in between.

Laila seems to have altered the summer profile – the weather was really good. It was neither too hot nor humid, and felt great at the end of the run. Good start for the Hyderabad training.

Did 9.1k in 1:02.

May 23, 2010 – Sunday: Classic cut short to a 10k

It was a field of fast and elite runners at AU this morning: We had the comrades-ready Shahid, Shameek, Shenaz, Neville (1st time – great to see him), McKinsey Ramesh – All of them ran ahead. Madhavan, and Karur Senthil were behind.

That meant that I was by myself. I had also forgotten my Garmin, but thankfully had the phone – and so it was back to the Nokia Sportstracker for this run. But, it was going to be a pain to keep removing and looking at it during the R:W.

Thankfully, met Mukesh at the gate and we did a 4:1 on a real slow run:walk. Mukesh wanted to do a 10k and I didn’t want to run alone :-). He got a little bit tired by ~7k mark and so we took a 3 min walk break near Malar hospital bridge, and then did a 3:2 R:W back to AU.

Here is the Nokia Sportstracker link (remember, this shows 6% more): http://sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/workoutdetail/index.do?id=2539483

Accounting for the 6%, we did 10.4k in 1h 14m 26s.

So, today’s run was nice and easy. Skipped breakfast and got home quite early.

May 22, 2010 – Saturday: SmokingRunners union goes bad; Ran in the TM

Running with Prabhakar after a long time, and it was going really well. Somewhere around the Riverview road, Prabs tripped over something and twisted his ankle (the same injured one) badly. Aborted the run and walked back.

At that time, we had done ~2 kms in 13 or 14 minutes.

Having walked back to the club, I got on to the ‘flattering’ treadmill in the gym which, I think, shows way more than the actual – so, even though it shows 10.3 in 1 hr, I don’t think that is real. But, looks nice. 🙂

Tried to do a little bit of core work at the gym, but gave up after some 10 minutes.

May 18, 2010 – Tuesday: 10k under 1 hour, finally

I have been trying for the last month or more to do a 10k in under 1 hour, but could never do it. It had got to a point where I was seriously doubting myself and wondered if I could ever do it. So, today is a good shot in the arm for me.

Committed to Ram last night and also roped Senthil in for this morning’s run. It got even better when Shankar and Ananth joined in – 5 for an unposted run is pretty good.

The start and the initial (high) pace was completely thanks to Ram who started off chasing a train and we were huffing and puffing within 1 km! I almost resigned myself to one of those deary struggles when the initial pace is a bit too high. I was a tad surprised when I settled in nicely during the Poes garden patch (an extra bit which we add to the Gandhi – Marina run whenever Ram is with us 🙂 ). 4 of us were still running together when we got into Cathedral road. I was feeling good then and so Senthil and I pushed ahead a little, raised our game a bit and got into a nice rhythm at around the 10.2-10.3 kmph speed. That was when a sub-30 min 5k ambition started creeping in, and was even brave enough to break that to Senthil. He doesn’t need a carrot even on bad days, and he was on red-hot form today. We reached Marina, exactly 5k in 28.something minutes.

Frankly, even that 5k was tiring and in my mind, the run back was going to be a relaxed affair. Took a walk break till it got rounded off to 30 minutes and started back. Senthil, obviously, had different plans. He had got the scent of a quick run and the word ‘relax’ never entered his mind. He was pushing for a sub 1 hour 10k, and all I could negotiate with him at that point was to get into a 5:1 Run:Walk.

That just meant that he pushed like hell during that 5 minute patch. Phew! It was tough to keep up, but I was just hanging on there for that 5 minutes. I think there was a point, again during that nice Poes garden return patch, when we ran that 5 minutes at around a speed of ~ 11.5 or 12 kmph. That set us up quite well heading into the last 1.5 odd kms, with some 10 odd minutes left for my hour to tick over.

But, I hadn’t accounted for the 2nd flyover – that flattened me out and at the top of that hill, I was spent. I urged Senthil to push ahead, while I took a walk break with 700 meters to go!  Thankfully, that gave me some breath back and took the last patch rather decently. The 10k mark arrived just a bit (about 100 mts) ahead of the Dimensions finish point, at some 57.something minutes. At Dimensions, the reading was 10.1 in 58m 30s. Senthil finished more than a minute faster than me.

The entire 2nd half of the run belonged to Senthil. He pushed, pulled, waved and urged at every point where I flagged (and there were a number of those when I sub-conciously lost pace) – so, really nice of him. 🙂

The run was so damn satisfying today. Loved it. The stretching that followed was, as usual, embarrassing, but by this time, I am used to that. 🙂

May 17, 2010 – Monday: Little bit of yoga and core

Having got the weight touching 80 yesterday :-(, I didn’t need much more motivation to do something this morning.

That ‘something’ just happened to be yoga at the Haddows road park, followed by some core once I got back home.

May 15, 2010 – Saturday: AU run with newbies

I was going to miss tomorrow’s classic run – happily 🙂 – Divs is coming late tonight.

So, a run today with the VCY folks at AU was perfectly on for me. Ashok sms’ed me this morning and said that he may not make it but urged me to go since Yash, Anand and Sudha would come.

None of them did, but instead we had 2 newbies – Jayanth and Anshul – along with Ram Prasad. So, we set off.

I am struggling big time. This much is very clear. I ran 1 lap, 3.7kms in ~24 mins and had to stop for a water and walk break. I could not even finish the 2nd lap. I had to start walking at 7kms (45 min mark) and then change into a 2:1 RW – ! Not a 4:1 or even a 3:1 – but a 2:1. That’s all I could do.

Finished 10k in 1:05, but it was tough. I don’t get it. I concede that the heat and humidity are sapping, but it is not bad enough to get me hanging my tongue out like a dog unless there is something wrong with me. I am sure there is something wrong, but I can’t figure out what exactly – I’ve lost much of the basic stamina and fitness, gained a little bit of weight – but would it make such a difference that I am struggling at 7k, and having finished 10k, feel like a dog?

At this rate, Divs would blitz me badly, but too late now.

May 14, 2010 – Friday: A little bit of core..

I woke up at 6:15 or so and immediately set off to the park to join the yoga jingbang which starts at 6:30 – or so, I thought. Apparently, they are starting early to beat the summer heat and had already started at 6.

I could have joined half-way, but didn’t want to. So, got back home and did a little bit of stretches and some core exercises at home.

There is really not much of motivation to do it by myself and so as usual, it was just a tick in the box.

Core stabilization: 30 secs face down Planks, 20 sec of side Planks either side, 30 secs bridges and 20 secs Superman.

Strengthening: 25 crunches.

Done. See what I mean about the tick – 🙂

May 13, 2010 – Thursday: Dimensions <-> Marina run with Senthil

The usual suspects didn’t turn up this morning at Dimensions. Senthil and Mukesh (from Bombay) did, and we debated on the route for a bit before we decided on the Dimensions – Gandhi Statue and back with the double flyover offering the variety.

Running with Senthil is always challenging and a pleasure. The pace is always a little bit on the edge but not totally debilitating at any point. Though I’ve said it before, it still amazes me on how Senthil manages to have these easy conversations while I am choking. He could give a job interview on the run.

Ran until Marina and took a 2 min walk break. Mukesh had opted to walk even earlier and said that he would join in on the return.

As expected, the pace was just a notch higher on the way back – Mukesh did join, but dropped off in between.

The Savera fly-over on the return completely knocked the wind out of my sails and I had to take a short walk break on the down-incline; Same thing happened again on the TTK-CP Ramasamy Rd flyover as well.

But, in between those 2 flyovers, we realized why Yash goes to the Russian cultural centre for his yoga sessions – That place seems to be a nice bird sanctuary in the mornings. 🙂 I wouldn’t mind doing some yoga there. Remember Dean Karno’s quote on motivation?

Anyway, Senthil did his calculations on pace, distance etc while I concentrated on staying alive, and proposed that we run another ~700 meters from Dimensions to complete a round 10k. I wasn’t going to fall for that one – Honestly, I couldn’t have. I was gone at that stage.

There are runs where you get exhausted somewhere in-between and the rest of the run/ walk is a tortuous exercise in just trying to finish; There are runs where you feel that there is a lot more left in the tank – and then there are runs like these which are almost so perfect where the battery drains out exactly at the finish point. It was great.

I stopped at Dimensions – ~9.3k in 58 mins; The ubercool Senthil ran more and did 10k in 1:02. It took me a while to recover; Did our stretches and was a great way to start the day.

May 12, 2010 – Wednesday: Slow and Easy run at AU with the VCY folks

The Velachery (self-christened as VCY) chapter has a bunch of over-enthusiastic runners which even caused one of the CRs to playfully comment – “more mails than miles” – in jest, of course.

But, their enthusiasm is unquestionable; The zest, verve and more importantly, their consistency is truly remarkable. They post and run more often and more regularly than the core chapter.

This was a chapter which bore fruit during the CR Anniversary event that happened a couple of months back and so comprises mostly of people who are just starting off and so doing small runs and run-walks.

They are unafraid of posting small runs, proud of their slowish timings and they remind me quite often of the quote that Tiger sent a while back:

If you run, you are a runner. It doesn’t matter how fast or how far. It doesn’t matter if today is your first day or if you’ve been running for twenty years. There is no test to pass, no license to earn, no membership card to get. You just run.
– John Bingham

VCY folks are all runners and total enthu-cutlets at that. :-).

They’ve been improving all the time and posting some impressive runs and timings nowadays.

I’ve been wanting to run with them, but I am a bum and a drive all the way to Velachery, to do a 5k invariably puts me off or choose another option.

But, Ashok post yesterday gave me another opportunity: They were doing a 5k at Anna University – This was perfect for me: I had been a little sick over the last couple of days, endured a torrid last evening and was in no mood nor energy to do a long one, nor a fast (by my standards, that is) one.

I wanted and was looking forward to a nice and easy 5k with some cheerful company. I got exactly that.

It was Ashok (who actually rounds up people at 4:45 in the morning and drives them up and down), Sudha, Ram Prasad, Anand and I. Warmed up and had a nice and easy 5k around AU. Ended it with a sprint and it was 5.3k in ~35 minutes.

Did a little of stretches and some core stuff – but it was mostly fun than any serious stuff.

Nice. 🙂

May 9, 2010 – Sunday: Classic with Senthil, Bharani & Yash

I had made up my mind already that this was going to be a slow one. In fact, I even told myself heading out to AU this morning that I would go at it alone if I had to, but I was in no mood or shape to push.

Got real lucky – apparently, almost everyone there (Shankar, Bharani, Yash, Senthil, and Rajakumar from Korea, on a vacation) had exactly the same thought. 🙂

Senthil, Yash and I started off on a 4:1 with Bharani, Rajakumar and Shankar on a full-run and so go ahead of us while we were slowly but steady right behind. As it happens ever so often, we caught up with all of them by Greenways road, ran together till Malar bridge where we split.

Bharani joined us on the 4:1 while Rajakumar and Shankar went straight ahead and finished at AU to do a 10k.

That put me in the company of runners, all of who were capable of increasing pace and tempo without the slightest catch in their conversation and could push it even without being aware of it. Closer to BN beach, Senthil was doing that a bit – a slight increase in pace and I am sure even he didn’t realize it – but for someone like me sweating bucket-loads and really feeling the heat, a slight increase was enough to render me breathless. At one point, I decided to let Bharani and Senthil go; Yash was still with me almost casually strolling by – the effort hardly palpable. I think all the yoga that he has been doing is affecting his personality and converting him into a monk.

Otherwise, I am not able to explain how he just flew, again with the same expression, at the mere suggestion of the coconut-water break. So, then I joined Senthil and Bharani while Yash disappeared. We next met him at the elaneer shop at the beach.

All 4 were together again and though I was finding it tough, I stuck with them right there. Again, company matters so much. At this point, by myself, it would have been a downward spiraling, disastrous, ragged, run-walk – a situation which has happened so often in the past. Company saved me today because I had no choice but to stick along.

But, when we got to Madhya Kailash, Senthil and Yash had pulled ahead, and I asked Bharani to run ahead because I was afraid that I was holding him back a bit too much. But he declined and stuck with me, which again left me no choice but to maintain a respectable pace, which was not too much by the way.

Towards the end, we even managed 30-40 mts at a quicker pace and finished at the rear entrance.

Garmin link: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/32652863

Distance: 15.6k, Time: 1:50,  Average pace: 7 mins/ km, Average Speed: 8.6 kmph –> Slow, but not unhappy.

Then, piddled in the AU hostel loo, changed and joined Yash who was leading everyone through a yoga/ stretching session.

Even I am appalled at my level of inflexibility. I am terrible. I struggle for the most basic of stretches – I look around to see everyone doing the basic ones with ease and then slowly start to struggle with Yash’s “the next variation of this”. At those ones, I would just give up.

Most people wonder at others suppleness and flexibility – but do people get equally wonderstruck at my lack of flexibility – I mean, do they go “what?! you can’t bend beyond that?”. I wonder if people actually discuss me in a dining table or quote me as an example: “There is this guy I know who can’t..” types?  I am building a nice case for my own claim to fame. 🙂

But, one of these days, probably when Divs is here, I am going to make a video tape of how bad I am now – and use that as the barometer for later.

May 8, 2010 – Saturday: Laughing at the park; little bit of yoga

Got up, stretched a bit and went to the Haddows Road park for the yoga. But, apparently, on Saturdays, they do not have yoga, but have laughter therapy instead! 🙂

I was already there with my mat and everything and so couldn’t really walk away from there and so joined in.

 

I didn’t know that these is a routine to this! It was actually nice 🙂

There were a couple of them who suggested that some minimal yoga after this, and so I joined them there and did a couple of asanas. But, my bad flexibility status remains the same.

May 7, 2010 – Friday: Tiring run with Senthil – AU + IIT

It was humid as hell, but I was feeling terrible anyway. All thanks to Senthil for dragging me along. If it was just me, I would have stopped in 2-3 kms I guess. But bad that I pulled him down. We switched to a R:W within 15 mins of the start and despite that I had to stop and walk several times even in between.

The nice part was that we sneaked thru’ the out gates of IIT for the 2nd half of the run.

10.6k in 1:07.

May 2, 2010 – Sunday: Helping myself…

Shankar’s Canada visa application was rejected – don’t ask! Ridiculous and he was obviously gutted.

Instead of feeling sore, he planned to run a solo marathon inside Anna University! Ram mailed and dedicated his Vancouver run to Shankar.

The mails were buzzing yesterday in support of Shankar’s solo effort. He was starting off at 3:30 and there were plenty of plans made on who would join him and run along at different phases of the run. I wanted to chip in too – I seriously thought that it was a bloody brave way to handle a bad piece of news. But, I was not sure if I wanted to do the entire distance. I was hoping to do ~25k or so or if possible push for 30. 

So, at 3:20, I was there and already waiting there were Anand and Ramani sir. Shankar was a little late, but he came in by 3:40 and we started off by 3:45 I think.

Lap 1: Slow as you like. Talking and running really slowly. Shankar has a larger loop than the ones that I had done and it came to ~4.2 kms per loop which made it a nice, round projected target of 10 laps.

Lap 2: We were together on the 1st lap, but as early as the 2nd lap, Ramani and I pulled ahead just that little bit. We had a pretty good conversation going.

Lap 3: Senthil Anand joined us at 4:30 for the 3rd lap though he ran along with Shankar while Ramani and I were still a little ahead.

We met the regular 5:15 starters – and there weren’t too many of them: McKinsey Ramesh, Madhavan are those I remember.

Lap 4: Yash joined us as well and that became the 4th lap. Good general conversation and hardly felt it.

At the end of that – we had a fairly long break here while I changed my t-shirt which was already drenched. There were a number of walk breaks even earlier while we waited for a few to join us, but this one was really long! The other thing was that Bharani had come in with a bag of goodies (Granula bars) which he put in the Linea’s boot. The idea was to keep it open so that anyone could grab it.

Lap 5: But, it was good because now we had Senthil, Yash and I running together. Oops. I suddenly remembered that I had the Linea keys and was not sure if I closed the boot lid. So, I ran back to give that to Bharani (transpired that the boot was open) and then ran ahead to find Yash and Senthil – it was here that I bumped into Arun Krishnan (another CR rockstar legend) who was looking for Shankar. We back-tracked: I found Senthil and Yash; Arun found Shankar and we kept going.

At the end of that – it was 6:15 or something, and thanks to my last lap’s back and forth running, I had done ~24 kms.

Yash stopped. He had promised yoga classes to Ashok and co at 6:30.

Senthil said that he had just 1 km to go for his 2000th km of tracked runs! 🙂 and so, it was just Senthil and I going around and back for just that 1 km which got him to his 2000th km, and me to the 25th km. Stopped after that. Done. Run finished.

A very slow – 25k in just under 3 hours.

I went to help Shankar, but ended up helping myself. :-).

——————————

Changed everything in the car after that – TShirt, shorts, undies, shoes (to slippers) and phew! that felt a lot better.

We were still chatting when Shankar came in obviously totally fagged out. He looked in fairly bad shape and there was no way he was going to continue. Not sure how much he did (I think it was 23 or 24 – in that range). Yash gave some yoga therapy which made him feel a lot better.

Senthil and I had planned to give him a medal anyway for his solo marathon effort and though he stopped – he certainly deserved it. So here we go: Ramani and Arun Krishnan presenting Shankar with a medal:

 

Shankar felt a tad embarrassed not to have finished the entire distance, but no one really cared. There were more people who turned up around this time (Manish and a few others) to cheer Shankar on if he was running  and the real story of the day was how the CRs turned up to support one of their own.

 

 

Here is an unsung story of Anand – who wanted to do his maiden marathon along with Shankar’s run. He didn’t, but finished 25k and looked fine!

This is Senthil below – a guy who has a coffee table conversation at 10.5 kmph while others are gasping. He did his 2000th km today.

 

Yash’s yoga therapy to Shankar became a full blown class with everyone joining in! That was a good session for about 30 minutes. I was too tired and so just watched.

Yash (white tshirt) putting Bharani (blue tshirt on the floor) and Balaji (yellow tshirt) through some core straps.