Happy Anniversary to Appaji & Avva !!

27th June 1983, day when two people bonded themselves as one by tying the knot in the presence of God and several others, promised each other of staying together in each and every aspects of life, take every moment of it as it unfolds a new story. Marriage is what bonded them into noblest relation of husband and wife. 

Man was from far away countryside, fighting his odds with family, had to struggle to get his education. He had to run away from his home to get higher education. With adoration of few people whom he still remembers, helped him all through his student life. Man was glad that he landed into a job. Now an eligible bachelor married this women. This girl in her teen age had to sacrifice few things after losing her father very early. Left with a mother and younger sister, was fighting her own odds, soon after her father’s demise, she was in the verge of discontinuing her education but continued till she finished her basic education. Soon she got proposal for marriage. 

Man visited the girls home formally along with his family members, both agreed to marry each other. Nothing seems to be out of the world but people here are special and they stand out in the crowed. Man was able to progress ahead with his job, girl now a women, faithfully maintained the family amidst meagre income. They welcomed their first child after two years into marriage. Now a proud father and mother, couple celebrated the first year birthday of their son with over joy and happiness, spending beyond their economic strength. Life remained to be nice and happy. With arrival of their second child, things were turning good. Man landed into decently paid government job and both were happy to see the family growing. Although smooth but life remained to take its twists and turns, the couple sailed across each barrier. Now being self-sustained, they welcomed their third child. With children growing each day, women was more occupied with bring up the family of five people. Not only did she manage the family in terms of teaching her children good manners, she was able to manage all the financial things just with her basic education. Children were given good education.

Over the time, couple managed to build a home for themselves. They provided higher education to their kids. Now was the time their children get married. They were happy to announce their daughters marriage and arranged the occasion in a very grand way and now expecting to celebrate few more occasions of marriage in the family. Couple were delighted and happy when they welcomed their grandson into this growing family, now a proud grand father and grand mother. Today 27th June 2013, with lots of joy, happiness, togetherness, love, affection, modesty, couple are celebrating their 30th Year Anniversary of bonding, their Marriage.

With lots of love, Wishing a Very Happy Marriage Anniversary to Appaji and Avva. God bless you with many more years of joy, happiness and togetherness.

-Prashant, Jaya, Prasad

Few pictures down memory lane ... I believe no captions are needed. :)

TCS World 10k.. yet again !!

Having been part of this run for the last 2 years, this is my 3 year in a row at TCS World 10k run. Always amazed with enthusiasm, fervour and electrifying atmosphere when I run at Bangalore’s world 10k. With increase in the number of participants every year TCS10K is growing bigger and better. Like Mumbai Marathon, I feel Bangalore 10k is not a marathon but a running festival where everyone participates and celebrate their run. Men and women of all ages, people with special abilities bring on their best foot forward and set an amazing example of human spirit. Running is all about that, isn't it :)

Two of my friends Anup [7606] and Irfan [2683] were running TCS10k for the second time and Shrikant [5462] was new entrant to running. Due to rains in Bangalore day before, Sunday seemed to be perfect day for running. Run started sharply at 7.22 am inside the Kanteerava Stadium. Due to the large number of participants my initial run was bit slow. After around 2 kms into race, I got caught with stomach stitch, which slowed my pace again for some time. At 5 kms into the race, I was feeling good and increased my pace and could finally finish in 1 hour 33 sec net timing, although I was aiming to finish few mins before. That was okay to me, I enjoyed the race thoroughly, did small steps at DJ, ran with elderly person for some time, overall it was good run. After the run, I waited for my friends, who finished within a small difference of time each. Anup finished in 1.04 hrs, Irfan in 1.10 hrs and Shrikant in 1.17 hrs. All doing their best from the previous run. Happy to see them making it through smiling. It was great fun to run and even more wonderful sharing the running experience with others. We got our medals and small dose of snacks. Got the pictures clicked and enjoyed the moment. 

Few picks are below

Irfan, Shrikant, Anup and Me [L-R]

Shrikant, Karan, Me, Irfan, Puneeth, Anup

One more click

Shrikant, Me and Irfan

Happy Running !!!!

P.S: Certificate, timing details and marathon photos to follow.

Infosys Summer Run 10k 2013

With running becoming popular in Bangalore, most people are now serious about running. Running communities have come up which trains new runners. Few running organizations have already been there for some time now and organize runs, also providing each runner with individual consultation. Runners for life is one such group which has membership norms and is most active in the city. Also few groups are created among runners where you don’t need any membership, you can be part of their running over the weekends, Nike free run is one such group.  With this growing interest in running, people in IT turning out make themselves fit, so as people in Infosys.

Infosys running community organizes 5k and 10k run every six months called Infosys September Run and Infosys Summer Run in September and April respectively. I was part of ISR held in September 2012 and finished 10k with timing of 1 hour 3 mins. Event was good except that I had to skip my work for some time and later had extend the work at night. Summer time it’s called Infosys Summer Run which was held yesterday 24^th April. I had registered for it only couple of day before the run since I was not sure. But things took it course day before when I had to attend a telepresense call at Cisco Belandur office, that is around 18 kms from electronic city office. Well, it was a day of events, I went to attend the meeting in the morning, after the meeting I met my Cisco office colleagues and left to Infosys by 3 pm expecting to have ample time before the run that will start at 5 pm. I went to my room got my running gears and shoes, was back on my office desk by 4 pm. Completed a small work I was doing and then left to the starting point of the run. All through the way I was giving a second thought for the run as I was bit exhausted travelling almost 40kms on bike in Bangaluru traffic. I thought about Chennai marathon which was even worse than this, so made my mind on running comfortably and finishing the race. This time around running crowd was good in numbers. We were supposed to run 2.5 kms loop four times for 10k run. Marathon started at 5.30 pm, as always I started slowly, picked up bit of speed in loop 2 and the next two loops, I was aiming to finish within an hour. Except the stomach stitch in my last loop, run was pretty well. Finished it in 59 mins 11 secs, according to my watch timings, will wait for the official timing to come out. It was a descent run, I need to work on increasing my pace, which would cut down some more minutes. No pictures taken, no certificate yet :)

Happy Running !!

I run, now I cycle too

[21-April-2013]

I had thoughts of buying a cycle for some time now, but I was not sure on maintaining it. This thought kept me more puzzled whether to buy cycle or not. These days especially starting with this year, I have been cycling around, with couple of duathlons and major adventure event in February Enduro3 in which I cycled around 75kms. It was simple decision to make and buy the cycle. With budget around 11k to 12k I felt this would not put big hole in my pocket. After some research and inquiry, I had brought down my options to Hercules and LA-Sovereign. Hercules is well established cycle brand in India and very popular brand and this was safe bet, but somehow I had my reservations on this, not sure why but I wanted to go for other brands and thought of taking my chances. Extending budget beyond 15k or close to 20k was not an option for me. Well, I thought good cycle with better price tag would always perform well, how about making an average cycle to outperform and meet all your expectations. Cyclists owning Trek, Marida, etc please don’t curse me for this.

I browsed for LA-Sovereign and found the features and price fit my needs. LA-Sovereign wave was priced at 11,190 rupees. A descent bike, good color , Thai-India collaborative brand. Last Saturday I went to check the bike at RR Cycles at Madivala. I asked for LA-Sovereign wave alloy and found the cycle very good looking. I checked the reviews with the shop owners which he said is descent one, feature which stand out in this bike is the front disc, wheel rim size which 27.5 in this cycle for 12k range. Later I googled to check the reviews in the net, to my surprise there were no reviews available for this bike except it was mentioned in some blogs, 27.5er or commonly called 650B bikes are intermediate of 26er and 29er bikes and had a good review. Now let me try this one. I spoke to few of my friends who own cycles, they too were not heard of this brand much. So now it was just a matter of gut feeling to go with this bike. Next day I visited the cycle shop, with few more tests and comprehensions, finally I decided to take chances and bet on LA-Sovereign wave 650b. Cycle came along with side stand, dealer fitted me water bottle cage and bell. I bought the lock, in all paid 11,400 /- rupees. They offered two months of service on the bike. I rode the bike back to my room that was around 15kms. It was a good ride but I had few hiccups during the gear change and also wheels were wobbling. No presumption yet, I will put up a good review, after good long ride in 2-3 months from now. For now, I welcome new member to my family LA-Sovereign Wave 650b.

Few pics here

At RR Cycles, Madivala

With LA-Sovereign Wave 650b

Balachandra with bike

LA-Sovereign Wave 650b

Happy Cycling !!

Boston Marathon Blasts- Lets keep the human spirits high!!

As soon as I read the post on facebook from my friend, who mentioned blasts occurred at Boston Marathon and he luckily missed running due to some registration problem, I was shocked. I have never heard of such incident where athletes, spectators were targeted in the terror attack except the 1972 Summer Olympics incident in Munich. I began to read the articles in the newspaper which explained most of the events. Series of two blasts occurred at the finish line after around 4 hours into the race, 3 are dead and almost 100 people got injured. It was a shocker. I was not able to comprehend the attack, as the matter of fact 99 percent of the people running in the marathon are general public who put in lot of efforts over the years just to prove to themselves that they can do it, they can run and complete the race. It was sheer attack on the humanity beyond any doubts.

Boston Marathon has a long standing history of being one of the elite marathon events in the world having completed 116 running years and one of the six World Marathon Majors. People take pride to be part of Boston Marathon and being able to complete it. Running in its 117th year, what happened today is beyond the words to describe. 

Marathon draws people from every ethnicity, age, culture, physicality is a forum to celebrate brotherhood, togetherness and human spirits. Participants pull in lots of efforts, hours of preparation physically and mentally to be able to participate in the race. They struggle to overcome there weakness during the course of their runs. They form an intangible bond with the fellow runners all through the run and spectators become part of their motivation. What they achieve at the end is the sense of accomplishment, beyond the words could reach. Its a human triumph over their weakness.

I am deeply saddened today. I give my condolences to the deceased, keep their souls rest in peace. My heart goes out for all the ones who are injured, I wish for the speedy recovery, wish them to be back on their feet for the next practice session. Running is not over yet, you people have done it, you can do it again.

Final word, lets not get bogged down by the heinous terrorist act, lets show them the human spirits are high beyond the reach of anyone.

Lets get warmed up, lets have a run !!!

To all, Happy Running !!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dedicated to all Boston Marathon Runners

I ran 5 kms in the evening and dedicated my run to all the Boston Marathon runners specially to the one deceased and injured. Lets keep the running spirits high, lets keep the marathon spirits high and finally lets keep OUR human spirits high !!

Happy Running !!

Mumbai Marathon 2013

Mumbai Marathon 2012 was a wonderful experience  for me. I loved everything about it, running, cheerful crowd, course, fellow runners and the whole scintillating atmosphere that formed a perfect marathon. Organizers and authorities did a good job to maintain the crowd and traffic. With these factors, I had no other thoughts running in my mind when I registered again for Mumbai Marathon 2013.

Registration for Mumbai marathon starts as early in June every year due to huge number of participation it usually starts early. This year Mumbai marathon was celebrating its 10^th year and it was my 2^nd year in succession.

I had already started my training for Hyderabad Marathon and also had a thought of running Chennai Marathon this year. So, nothing much did I thought initially about my run in Mumbai. With a good finish time at Chennai Marathon in December boosted my confidence to perform better. I was aiming at finish time around 2 hrs with couple of minutes here and there. 

This time in Mumbai, it was Abhinav who helped me with the stay. Abhinav was a good friend of mine and my previous company colleague. We were in touch even after he left job to pursue MBA in Delhi. He got job in Mumbai and was staying there after his degree. He stayed at Kandivali East.

I travelled to Mumbai on 19^th morning by flight, thanks to SpiceJet for cutting down their fare to 2013 Rs. On landing Mumbai, I went to Abhinav’s room by taxi. It was after long time we were meeting, we had our chat having aloo paranthas prepared by cook. Abhinav  told he will come with me for collecting the bib number and other running stuff. After collecting the goodies, we roamed around the Marine Drive, had our lunch and returned back to the room. I arranged things necessary for the morning and fell asleep. I got up early, got ready and left by 4 am to Kandivali Station to catch local to Bandra. Already there were bunch of people travelling by that local. Friendly smile at 4 am in the morning local, feels good. All knew we were on that local for a cause, to prove ourselves something we had trained so hard.

Race began by 5.40 am. I started with normal pace and this time I wanted to maintain single pace for first 10 kms. I took around 1 hour to complete the 10 kms mark, till this mark I had not taken any break. I was feeling good and thought I could add few more kilometers. I continued in the same pace for next 4-5 kilometers. I remember once the hill running began, bit of pain started in my right knee. I slowed my pace and started slow run, now with another 4 kilometers to cover my watch timer showed 1 hour 45 mins. Now sensing sub 2 hour completion was bit unrealistic with the pain, I thought to finish the race at comfortable pace without hurting myself. I felt 2.15 hours was achievable but knee pain was making me feel that too was far. With my slowest pace, I completed my run in 2.22 hours as shown in my watch. After the race I collected the medal and snacks and went back to the room.

Finisher Certificate

Timing Details.

Marathon Photos.

I called up Keta, my good friend. We worked together in Pune. After her marriage she is now staying in Mumbai with her husband Aditya. We planned to meet around 4 pm after that I would catch my bus to Bangaluru.

As planned, I met Keta and Aditya at a CCD with Abhinav, I was meeting her after around 2 years. We had chat almost for an hour. I thanked Abhinav, it was nice meeting him. I said bye to Keta and Aditya and took bus from Borivalli to Bangalore.

Mumbai and my friends again treated me very well. Hope to be here again next year.

Chronicles of Chennai Marathon 2012

Why I named this post 'Chronicles of Chennai Marathon 2012' will explain in sometime. 

Well, having run 2 half marathons I was aiming at finishing the year 2012 with three half marathons. After Hyderabad Marathon in August, I started planning for my first Himalayan trek. I did most of treks in Karnataka and was planning at something bigger. When I proposed my plan to my adventure friend Vijay, he instantly agreed. Plan was to go in first week of October, trek to Gaumukh and Tapovan, visit Rishikesh, Haridwar, Delhi and return. Planning things went fine, except some last minute hitches on getting my leaves approved. I was off for a week and completed the amazing trek to Himalayas.

Back to the main story, running Chennai marathon was back of my mind. As soon as I was back from the trek, I registered in Half Marathon category. Chennai marathon was scheduled on 2nd December 2012. I continued my practices runs on weekdays and long runs during the weekends. By this time, I got allocated to a new project and my work was at peak. More to add on that I was asked to work on a release that falls on 1st December.. holy cow. Although I skipped few runs over the week but I was pretty much on track for the run. Question to me was, if at all I am running on 2nd December, how would I collect running number, timing chip and other stuff for the run?? With not much hopes, it was definite I was going to miss the Chennai Marathon.

On Friday 31st November, I was checking my Facebook account and saw Chennai Runner had put up the final list of runners in all the categories. I downloaded the excel and started going through the list. I noticed a name which looked familiar. I forgot to mention that in September, Infosys running group had arranged 'Infosys September Run [ISR]', I had participated in the 10 kms category. Among the organizers group I did remember some of the member who were runners too. That name I saw in the list was one of the person who was in the organizing group. Next thing was to confirm if he was the same person, I opened up the telephone directory and searched for Romel Dutta. Luckily I got it right, immediately I called him and explained things. He was kind enough to help me. I sent authorization mail to Chennai Runners copying him to collect running stuff on my behalf. Such a relief, but still there was chance of missing the marathon if my work extends beyond a time where I could not make it.

As expected, on 1st December I assumed to finish things by 12 pm and leave to Chennai but my work extended till 4 pm. Travel to Chennai would take anywhere between 6-7 hrs. In the meantime, Romel called me to update he had collected my running stuff. Being very skeptic on leaving to Chennai by 5 or 6 pm I called up my mother and explained everything. Since I had already practiced and put in some hard work for the run she suggested to go ahead and run the marathon. This was a bit of motivation I needed to go and run. I left by 5.30 pm and caught a bus to Chennai. Bus took an extra hour to reach Chennai around 2.00 am. My fellow passenger helped me to catch bus to IIT Madras, which was starting point for the marathon. I was there in campus around 2.45 am and went to Mechanical Department, only there I could see lights were on. Went directly to washroom and got fresh, changed to my running gear. I could already see volunteers gathering at the venue. I took a small nap at a desk, thanks to the good roads, I was able to get a good nap in the bus.

Race was starting at 5.15 am. I called up Romel, he was on his way to the venue. He was there by 4.30 am. I collected the running stuff, thanked him for helping me out and wished him a good run. After all the drama, I just wanted to complete the race without worrying about PR [Personal Record]. I started the race with slow pace, weather was awesome. Initial 4 kms was inside the campus, around 13 kms of run was outside campus and rest 4-5 kms was again inside the campus. Overall my run was good, I cracked time of 2 hr 12 mins to complete the race. Well, that was my best timing so far.

Overall Rank	Bib	Name	Gender Rank	Split @7.25	Split @16.55	Net Time
243	2439	PRASHANT PATIL	231	00:42:33	01:41:30	02:12:06

                                                                    Timing Splits

Later I called up Venky,  he was my buddy and previous company colleague, who lives in Chennai. He came and picked me, we went to a nearby beach, I don't remember the beach name now. We talked about our days in Pune and in Bangalore. I left Chennai that afternoon and reached Bangalore by evening. I hugged my bed for a good sleep later. That's my chronicles of Chennai Marathon.

Timing Certificate

After the event, many runners complained about the running distance was less than 21.1 kms. Chennai Runners team came with justification after couple of days, race distance was less by 700 meters. I was not very happy to hear that but overall it was very good running experience with lots of drama in it.