Breaking the mind's shackle - Back to marathon !!

Peachtree Road Race 4th Of July Independence Day, Atlanta, Ga.

Last few months it’s been a roller coaster ride of things happening in my life. Trying to find some sort of peace and calmness along the way I am moving in. Missed to run Mumbai Marathon, which could have well be my 4^th consecutive run in SCMM, also TCS 10k run which could have been my 5^th consecutive year in a row. Albeit my running was going on, was looking up for some event where I could final break the shackle of not running a marathon in recent times.

Moved to US in May, my first trip to US. I did settle there in a week’s time. Now what, I started running whenever I could find time, whenever things where getting hard on me. These days I was not maintaining any routine but run whenever I can. I did search for marathons in Atlanta, could find one on 4^th July, Peachtree Road Race 10k. Thought this could well be my chance to run abroad and run a marathon after a long time. But to my dismay, registrations were full and I could gather some information like I may get a running number during expo. Meantime I was running now and then, really not sure about getting a running number or not on the day of expo.

Looking for Running number !!

With Jeff Galloway 

Hoping to get running number I went to expo on 2^nd July, enquired if I can get a running number or number transfer or for sale. I got some information of sale next day at the expo, was happy to hear that. I met Jeff Galloway, running legend, trainer. I was happy to meet, had been reading his articles on running and training for long. Took some pictures, he was kind enough to look for a running number for me with his friends, but there was no luck though.

I returned to expo next day and went directly to AJC booth, where running number were sold. I asked the lady if any free numbers are available. After checking, she got back to me with good news, some free numbers were available. That means I get a number for the race and its free. I thanked the lady and was back preparing myself mentally for the race next day.

With Bib Finally

Again with Jeff with Bib

All Check, All Set

 I had light dinner, arranged the stuff for the D-day. Slept hoping for a good run. I woke at right time, got ready. I was hearing to the my favorite playlist in the morning. Moment I was out, it was raining. I caught train which had thousands of runners, could barely find place to stand in train. Got down at Buckhead and then a long walk till the start point, I saw huge number of people all walking down to start line. I was in line up J and was looking to join the crowd. Did some basic stretch and I was all set to run my first marathon this year outside India, in a crowd where I could hardly see any Indian faces.

Rain intensified right at the start line, I wished couple of people whom I was having a chat, a good run and there I started. Initially slow to adjust myself to the run, but through the miles I was feeling confident, happy and run was going good. High fives, cheers all the way was good. I finished the race all smiling and happy in a 1hr 3min with 10mins wasting to secure my mobile getting wet due to rain. Only this time I carried it not to miss to take picture of my run and the event :)

Few photos of the race below..

Post-race, award ceremony was cancelled since it rained heavily and crowd of 60,000 plus people was beyond anybody’s control. I left the race and went to after race party arranged by Jeff Galloway, hoping to meet him again.  Party was cool with nice snacks and beer. I had both and left to room with some really nice memories of the race and race as a whole.

Happy running !!

Happy Running Year 2015 !!

A year has passed, some promises kept & some not, a year to look back and re-invent. so its that time of the year, you make new commitments to yourself & possibly push yourself to achieve it. Try improvise yourself to the best, be healthy, keep your family healthy & run countless miles. 

Wish you a very happy running year... !!

Keep Running.  

Bengaluru Marathon 2014 - Blistered run !!!

Although motivations for the run where good, these days my preparations for the run was turning bleak. Not able to fully concentrate, I was fighting some odds within. Although had my weekend runs, but sure it was, I wasn't breaking the within 2 hour run any time soon. So gave up the hopes of much practice. I was running whenever I could find time, just wanted to run and enjoy the marathon without any injuries. Benguluru Marathon in its first edition left no stone unturned in promoting the event across, I missed most of the promo runs and off course the set of T-Shirts they gave out each time during their promo runs. 

Event was scheduled on 19th October 2014. This time I was running on my new shoes Nike Lunar Glide 5, which I bought couple of months back. Although I didn't clock much mileage with that in two months but I felt good about the runs done with that. Most of the runs where around 8 to 10kms and I could feel not much of the usual pain I used to get. Well, all set for the run, I wanted to finish somewhere between 2.15 hrs to 2.30 hrs, seeing the course and also the last run did. Run started good, could recall the TCS 10k event with similar start. I did the first 10k in 1hr 5mins but soon got trouble in the foot, initially thought some stone got into shoe but to my dismay it was big blister which was irritating me. I could run a bit but walk, even walking started causing me problem. I could somehow manage to do walks and runs after that. I finished the run in 2hr 35 mins by far my worst run on the flat surface. I could have done better but I know the reason. 

Bengaluru Marathon in their first attempt did a wonderful job of arranging a full fledge marathon event. I am sure it will grow bigger in coming year and I will be there to run and do my personal bests.

Half Marathon Route

Marathon Certificate

Keep Running,

Cheers

Bidding adieu to Orkut !!

Did you ever imagine to be in contact and share information among your friends, your loved ones? With the aim of creating social networking service which would help users to meet new friends, Orkut Büyükkökten, Google employee created this service which Google honored him by naming the site orkut.com. Although email and slow growing mobile communication had brought people much closer with instant messaging access but social media site Orkut took information sharing to a new level. Although not much of tech savvy those days, I started to ponder on Orkut. Since Orkut required the same login user and password which I had for Gmail, it didn’t took much time to log into it and create a self-profile. Though I don’t remember whom I had added first, but it was among my engineering class mates.

Now started a hue of inquisitiveness about Orkut, get more friends in your list, get the testimonials and write scraps on your friends wall. Our engineering lab was turned into internet hub J most of us accessing Orkut in our free times. We kept updating our profile photos, shared the travel pictures, created communities and once again became friends to the distant school and college friends. We started communicating more often now, there was sense of closeness.

With lesser security features, sometime we used to snoop into profiles and check out the photos and scraps of some, if you get what I mean ! Soon Orkut was internet revelation, each one around us was having their profiles on orkut site. According to statistics I have read, India was in 2nd position after Brazil for most Orkut users. 

Google closed Orkut service on 30th September 2014. Although obsolete now, Orkut had created a sense of togetherness among people in the internet world. It will be most missed for being first of its kind to get friends together and will remain in our hearts for long.

This is how my page looked...

Good bye Orkut.. !!

Tour de Ride Series - Shimoga to Agumbe to Hornadu !!

9th -11th August 2013

Finally I am putting it, right this was pending for long and I didn't want to miss out writing this. This ride was my first multi-day cycling expedition and good amount of anticipation was built around it, in spite of being totally bugged with work commitments. On 8th August, I had to rush to catch the bus starting at 11.45 pm from Majestic, funny and coincidently things went good. I left office by 10 pm, had to run to my room, collect my cycle and baggage and on my way to the bus station, I was just thinking how to ride around 18-20kms distance in just about an hour. To my rescue, volvo bus which was passing by allowed me to carry my cycle, I thanked God. Now I was bit relieved my expedition is still on, meantime I handed bit of my workload to my colleague who gracefully accepted my request. I was late to the bus station, but the bus was also late. Now, all that is said and done we were on for our expedition. We boarded our cycles into bus, after bit of negotiation we settled at paying 150 rs to both cycle till Shimoga. Since this was first time we were loading our cycles into bus there was bit of hassle to fit them inside the carriage. 

Our plan for this expedition was to ride through Shimoga, Thirthhalli, Agumbe, Sringeri and Horanadu and end the expedition at Mudigere, around about 240-250 kms through Western Ghats. 

Started off from Shimoga around 7 am after freshening and fuelling up with light breakfast typical idli wada sambar. Thirthhalli was set as our first destination. After learning the road was perfect with no major elevation, we covered the first 60kms pretty smoothly, we stopped at couple of places, one at the bird sanctuary and a dam and few more places to take photos. We had lunch at Thirthhalli, around the same time, we decided to ride further till Agumbe and call off the day. We had another 35 kms to cover. Rain welcomed our ride as we took route to Agumbe. Route was hilly climb and wonderful, Western ghat was never felt so close. We pushed ourself to reach our destination by dark. We reached Agumbe  around 7 pm. I started to search for "Dodda Mane", age old mansion featured in popular TV serial of 90's "Malgudi Days". Was able to locate the house at some distance, due to rain the whole mansion was covered with plastic sheet. The house was full of visitor due to long holiday weekend. We requested Ajji [Grand nanny] at the house we could adjust somewhere inside. She agreed to let us stay for the night. 

Start of our journey

I could recollect all the rooms showed in the Malgudi Days TV serial. It was old, lots of wood work, water well inside the house, water heating drums, felt good about staying in a place which had age old history and different generations leaving under single roof. Kasturi Akka [Amma] maintain the house and guests. Next day we planned to leave early to our next course, we bid adieu to Kasturi Amma with lots of good memories and headed towards to Shringeri Matt. 

Malgudi Days serial was shot here

With Kasturi Akka @ Dodda Mane

We reached Shringeri Matt by 11 am and had darshan of Shardamba Devi. We waited for sometime to have prasadam and soon after we left to Horanadu. We had the plan to reach Horanadu by day light and make a stay there. We started by 1 pm and had the target of around 60 km ride before it turns dark. We kept our pace with the time factor in mind, ride was good with few steep climbs, traversing through coffee and tea plantation was wonderful, we managed to have a good ride and kept the pace at the same time, we stopped couple of time to have authentic plantation tea. 20 kms from Horanadu it turned dark, since we had not equipped ourself with good high beam torch, we thought to call the day. Talking to few people at the tea stall, we found staying at Kalasa place around 12 kms from Horanadu was best option. We rode till Kalasa and fixed a lodge to stay overnight. 

@Shringeri Matt

@Horanadu with Kids

@Horanadu Annapurneshwari Temple

We needed a Airavat bus from KSRTC to transport our cycles, on the course we learned that the bus doesn't pass by our final destination which was Mudigeri. Next morning we enquired more on that and finally decided to stop our ride at Horanadu and catch the bus from there. So now we had only 12 kms ride left for the whole trip. We wanted to catch lots of pictures we missed to take last couple of days and also enjoy the short stops at tea stalls. 

Reached Horanadu by 11 am, had Sri Annapurna Devi darshan. As we sat idle, idea popped into mind why not do some seva. Lunch was about to start, I went to one of the person who was in charge of lunch there and asked if we can serve. He asked us to fill the water glass and serve whoever asks for water while they are having lunch. We got friendly with the guys who were already doing this and had loads of fun doing this service. We did it for 2 hours before we were asked to have our lunch before the stipulated lunch hours.

We had booked the bus at 9pm, we had time of the world to spend next 5-6 hours. Dozed a bit in the temple and went around to have tea. Again dinner prasad started at 8 pm, now we were first to take the seat for dinner. Boarded the bus at 9, but had some quarrel with ticket collector over our luggage "cylces". 

We had wonder three days of cycles, life for us was pacing at 10-15 kmph and felt wonderful to be so close to Western Ghats. Met lot of good, humble people who helped us one or the other way, seeing the excitement in the eyes of village people, especially children was wonderful experience. Bye for now.

Keep Cycling.

Save Environment.