One more mile...

The Deadline

2009-03-31T12:06:00.002-04:00

I had to post today - otherwise it would be all of March without a post! Me having a serious case of writers block here.

So what have I been up to in the 6 weeks since we last chatted. Here we go:

My agenda got unexpectedly busy since I am teaching a class for a faculty member who had to go on leave.
The running is going great and has picked up. I am getting to be very consistent specially over the last 3 weeks or so. This has also meant dropping five pounds in the last couple of weeks. I need to shed some more so that I can eat all I please in Italy!
Today I am going to the airport to pick up one of my closest friends and former neighbors who is visiting from Norway. I am so looking forward to seeing her after five years!

The reason she is coming is that we are both going for a wedding this weekend to New Orleans. My former roommate (and hence common friend and neighbor) is getting married! We are driving down there on Friday and spending the weekend there. We have a history of road trips since we drove most of the West Coast together a few years ago. So hopefully I will have another post soon with pictures.
My blog reader is still full :( - Please don't hate me!
I recently had a chance to try out Mizuno's new gait analysis and fitting system. It is way more fancy than anything I have ever seen. They make you do a number of things like standing in different positions, squatting, walking etc. Maybe I should post the results that the system printed out for me.
That makes it two ideas for blog posts in just this post.
No more writers block (maybe).

The shoe affair

2009-02-11T23:48:00.004-05:00

Some of you may have noticed the link for New Balance Harrisburg on the side of my blog. Courtesy them, I received a new pair of New Balance 1123's a couple of weeks ago. My only obligation is to write a review (soon- after I put more miles on them).

Well, nothing like a new pair of shoes to get you running again. This winter has probably been the lowest mileage winter for me ever. But with temperatures climbing back into the 60's and a new pair of shoes strapped on, I am finally back to a 5-6 day a week training program.

The running has been hard. But today, somewhere in the middle of a 3 miler, I felt my stride fall into place and got back to that comfortable feeling of old. An extra few pounds that I seem to have accumulated over the winter do not help the running either. But a few solid weeks of building my base should easily knock that off. This week I should be back up to 20 miles/week. My goal is to maintain this as a minimum and get my long run numbers back up there. With training, as with most difficult things, a lot of it has more to do with inertia than anything else. Well, I am glad to have got the ball rolling!

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Not make anyone jealous or anything.. but I am planning my next conference trip to present a new paper that was recently accepted.

Its in the Summer.

And its in....

Roma!!!

Walk-about

2009-01-29T12:19:00.011-05:00

So its time to break the longest blog silence in the history of this blog. I got back two weeks ago from a long trip to India that included a conference, a wedding (NOT mine!) and hopping between several cities. It was a great time to be home with family and December being a vacation month for most people, I also had the chance to meet up with some old friends who were in town.

The trip started in Delhi where most of my mom's family lives. Spent a couple of days there with my grandfather and the rest of the fam. Delhi being the capital, seems to be in the middle of a huge construction boom to modernize everything. But I guess somethings will always be there in Delhi, like ...

the auto rickshaw (seen here in front of India Gate).

I left Delhi to spend three days at home in Calcutta. I wanted to see my grandmother and spend some time with her. Going back and not seeing my grandfather at home felt strange. But I was glad that I saw everyone at home and they seemed to be doing ok.

I had to leave three days later for Bangalore, where I was presenting a couple of papers at a big conference. I was returning to Bangalore after 5 years and the city had changed so much that I barely recognized it. The conference went of well and my paper won an award for the best talk. The award also included about $250 and I was able to use this to set up a scholarship in memory of my grand dad. To begin with, it takes care of the entire schooling expenses of two children - a girl who is 12 and a boy who is 7 - for a year. I plan to try and support them until they graduate from high school. A few hundred dollars can go a long way in helping someone and I am sure it is something my granddad would approve of, given all he did.

From Bangalore, I flew to Delhi for the wedding. My parents and sister also arrived there from Calcutta and since we had a couple of days to spare, along with my aunt and her family, we caught the train to Amritsar. Amritsar is an old city (1500's) in the Punjab, very close to the border with Pakistan. It is considered a holy city for the Sikhs being the location of the Golden Temple.

The temple was built in the late 1500's and is absolutely stunning. Even more so is the atmosphere of the place. One walks in from a bustling, old city into complete peace and quite. I went to the temple several times over those two days, including once at 4am. Here are some pictures in the day and at night.

Amritsar is also of importance for its place in the freedom struggle of India and is the site of Jallianwala Bagh massacre, an incident where a British general ordered his troops to open fire on peaceful protesters who were trapped in a garden that had only one exit that had been blocked. The incident is widely considered as the spark that lit the country into its Independence struggle. Today the garden is a monument, but bullet marks can still be seen in the walls (in the white squares in the picture) surrounding it.

From Amritsar, an hours ride away is the Wagah border which marks the boundary with Pakistan. We travelled to the border to see the lowering of the flags. After the Mumbai terrorist attacks there has been a lot of tension at the borders of the two countries. But the ceremony of lowering the flags still happens every day. The border consists of two gates marking the two countries and every day at sunset the two armies conduct an elaborate parade with some showmanship thrown in for good measure. It all makes for very interesting viewing.

The two day trip was followed by a week in Delhi for my cousins wedding. Yes, our weddings are a week long and a lot of fun! I am still waiting on pictures from there as I refused to make my bulky camera along. Will post some if/when I get them. After that, I spent about 10 days at home in Calcutta before heading back to Atlanta. All in all, it was a trip filled with memories.

Since getting back, I have been following up on my academic job applications. Things don't look so good in this economy, with university budgets being slashed and endowments halved. But still I am hopeful. We'll see.

Well its been a long post - and I promise the next one will be sooner/shorter. Have a great weekend everyone!

Happy Turkey Day!

2008-11-27T00:14:00.002-05:00

Wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving! And good luck to anyone racing in a turkey trot.

Many of you wrote/commented to ask me - Where did I go? Well.. its good to be missed :)

Here's a quick update of whats been up:

1. I did not sign up for the Thanksgiving Half since it was a little to pricey ($55.. ouch). I did however volunteer for it. They had plenty of different volunteer options, but I signed up for the 4:45 am slot (which means I need to wake up in 4 hours) since a. Very few others wanted to do that, b. It gives me enough time to come back home and cook. Any local runners doing this race - I'll be at the first drinks station, camera in hand. And no I do not charge $75 for pictures!

2. Which brings me to the more interesting albeit non-running related story. Somehow I got talked into cooking up a Thanksgiving dinner for a bunch of friends. That basically means that I have 20lb bird taking up half of my fridge and one clueless human using google as a recipe book. I will let y'all know how this one goes.. any last minute tips are most welcome!

3. I did sign up for the ING Ga Full Marathon in March next year. Gives me something to train for. I have actually been really good about it since I signed up. I started a base training program averaging about 20-25 miles/week for the next month before I actually start my plan. I did this race last year and even though it was a blast, I feel like I can do much better. This time I am just going to train smarter/harder. Training will be a challenge given that I am travelling a lot over the next month. But I have good reason to keep up with it.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! May you all enjoy the best of health, family and many more miles under your shoes.

Where did Fall go?

2008-10-28T23:26:00.002-04:00

Ah Fall.. my favorite time of the year. Except that it seems to have been squeezed into a week. Seriously, with our temperatures going from the high 70's to the 30's in a week, the mercury seems to be mimicking the Dow Jones. I mean c'mon this is Georgia and its still October. Monday and Tuesday felt more like December (yes.. now all you northern folks can complain about the whining!).

Not a whole lot to report. Things are still crazy with work - and yet again I promise to catch up on the blog reading soon :) The workouts have been good but brief. I am just not finding a lot of time yet. On Sunday I had a nice 5 miler in the afternoon. My routine has mostly 3-4 short runs a week with a couple of days on the trainer.

I originally has some travel plans for the Thanksgiving break, but it seems like that trip may not pan out. This gives me the opportunity of doing the Thanksgiving Day Half Marathon here in Atlanta. I loved this race last year so I am thinking about it now. Also, that gives me some incentive to step up the mileage over the next few weeks. It is kind of at a short notice, but might as well make the most of it. Even if it does not happen, at least it will jump start my training.

Have a great week everyone!

Saying goodbye

2008-10-15T11:52:00.003-04:00

It has taken me a few days to write this. Even though there is an inevitability to some things happening, it does not ever make it easy to say goodbye to someone you are very close to. I grew up living together with my grandparents and maybe that's what makes it so hard to lose my dadu (grandfather). But then I realize that because of that, I have so much to be grateful for. I am so glad for all the time we had together, for how an unexpected trip home this summer meant that I could spend time with him, and for how I just happened to call him a few hours before he passed away, never realizing that this would be the last time.

One of his favorite stories he loved telling me, was about when he would pick me up and drop me from school. I had just learned how to read and I would spell every advertisement board I saw on the way home and ask him what it meant. There are so many little things like that I remember. Like how he took me and my cousin to buy us our first bicycles, how he stood in line with me so that I could get autographs of my favorite cricket players, how he never complained, always saying that he is ok, how he always found humor in the smallest of things - so many memories that will always be mine to keep.

My grandfather grew up in what is now Pakistan. During the partition of India, they had to leave everything behind and move the entire family into a single room. He got a job selling tires for Goodyear and he would cycle for many miles every day to make all his calls. Starting from there he went on to retire as the head for the entire region. But the thing I remember the most about him is his passion for service. He worked tirelessly to help anyone. One of the things he enjoyed the most was serving his Rotary club. As a child I accompanied him on various projects. My best memory is about a project he was working on with Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity. I was going to go with him to a Hunger camp, but I actually got to ride with Mother Teresa all the way there. She gave him a little card with a blessing she wrote and he always kept that with him.

As I think about so much that I remember and learned from him, I realize that nothing less than a celebration would be a deserving way to say good bye. After all it is what he would want.

Wiped out

2008-10-04T12:02:00.003-04:00

It feels like a long week. Last Sat I came down with a sore throat, nasal congestion and a fever (103.. yikes!). A weekend of feeling lousy and having OTC stuff do nothing for me meant that I went in to see the doc on Monday. She was sure I was down with a strep throat but the tests kept coming back negative. Anyways... a few strong doses of a generic antibiotic seems to be the cure to anything! So by Thu I felt decent enough to work the whole day.

But I tried going out for a run yesterday and just could not make it through it. I was exhausted. Will give it another try tomorrow.

The only upside - I lost 8 lbs in 6 days.

Moral of the story.. forget those long miles, just fall sick!

Bad blogger.

2008-09-26T16:00:00.003-04:00

Well.. bad blogger and bad blog reader. That's me. But then admission is the first step right! So my friends and readers I hereby offer my defense and wait for the jury to return on this one.

Whats been up you say? Well a whole lot.. the running's been so-so. I have not been the most regular but this week has been better and I hope to use the weekend well. The class I have been teaching has been going great though - at least that's what I think. I have a bunch of midterms to grade this weekend so I'll know if they are getting it!

The big thing though is I've been getting stuff together to apply for faculty and postdoc positions for next Fall. For some reason academics love putting out deadlines waayy in advance (although everyone I know only seems to be doing things at the very last second!) and most of these positions have application deadlines that are in December/Jan.

I got something of a forced head start into the application process since I happened to have applied to one of the better schools in India for a position only to find out that their director was visiting Atlanta and wanted to conduct interviews. Well.. nothing like an interview in 2 days to get you moving!

Anyways .. it went well and they indicated that they are interested. Thing is I am not so sure about it in my head. I was doing this to get a feel for what the position entails and how do things compare wrt to a similar position here. As far as making a big decision on where to go - I am just going to let it to stew in my head for a bit longer. The way I look at it - the application process is the same in most places so why not apply anywhere that's interesting for now and then decide later. After all, one of the best things about being in my position is that I have nothing that binds me to any one place.

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I could not end a post without complaining about the insane gas crisis in metro-ATL now. Its been a good two weeks but the situation seems to be getting worse and worse. Last week I only filled 3 gallons thinking I was doing my bit in not causing a shortage. But yesterday I stood in line for 45 minutes to get gas. Hopefully things will improve.

Have a great weekend y'all! I have to run.. lots of blog catching up to do.

Hit the ground Running

2008-09-08T19:43:00.002-04:00

Well.. not so much as far as running is concerned. I only managed a 4 miler and a 3 miler last week. I did however get in two rides of about 15 miles each so I am not beating myself up about it too much.

Hmm.. whats been up. Let me see...

1. Work- Teaching a class this semester at the U. Its a lot of fun (seriously!). Got a decent small bunch and that lets me work some interesting material into the course. We actually managed to talk about the design of Chrome - the new browser from Google, the same week it was introduced!

2. A lot of catching up .. with work, research, friends.

3. One word - Football!

4. The paper I had worked on earlier this Summer got accepted. So it gives me a good chance to make another trip to India this December. I was actually quite pleased about this because they only accepted about 14% of all submissions. Great timing too since it gives me a chance to check in on dad.

Have a terrific week peeps!

Back

2008-09-01T13:40:00.002-04:00

Hello everyone! I just got back to Atlanta yesterday. Thank you so much for all the good wishes and for checking in. Dad's doing much better and has been cleared to resume a normal (albeit light) daily work load.

I had to jump through some additional hoops to get back since I had to apply for a new visa in order to re-enter. That required the university to send me some documents, hence the delay. Everything went off fairly smoothly though. I am just glad I was able to make it to India as quickly as I did.

The return flight was a rather cool direct flight that goes non-stop from Bombay to New York in 16 hours. Unfortunately a bunch of lousy connection flights turned the whole trip into a 40 hour journey largely spent waiting at airports.

Anyways - all is well, I am back and have 400+ blog posts from a rather prolific group to catch up on - so life is good! Have a super holiday y'all!

A quick update

2008-08-01T11:45:00.002-04:00

Thanks for all the good wishes, prayers and support. Dad is doing better and is back home today.

I am going to be here in India for a few days. Will keep everyone posted with a more detail note later - I just wanted to let you know that things are going well.

Thank You so much!

2008-07-27T11:48:00.002-04:00

I found out Saturday that my dad had a serious heart attack. I was able to get a flight out right away and am in transit now. Just spoke to my mom and he is doing better. The doctors had to put a stent in and will observe him for a few more days. I will be there in Calcutta in a few more hours. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

Holy Smokes Batman

2008-07-23T15:21:00.005-04:00

No spoilers until the disclaimer. So read on!

Yes.. you cant imagine how different this movie is. The thing about films that are based on a series like this one is that they are often cliched. Now, there is nothing wrong with that (and neither does that mean that I wont watch them). But that's where the Dark Knight stands out from other movies in this genre. For one thing it has a real plot. And a stellar one at that. Add to that some dynamite performances, great dialogues and all in all, its definitely worth watching a couple of times. Of course, Heath Ledger as the Joker was amazing. A lot has been written about the performance, how he prepared for it (locked himself up alone in a hotel for a month) and a possible Oscar (the first posthumous one since Peter Finch). He really did add a whole new dimension to the character.

Yesterday afternoon I was at the lab talking to one of my friends when we decided to check again for tickets. We managed to land four and a bunch of us got together for dinner since the movie did not start until 10. The theater was not terribly crowded so if you have not seen you probably want to try going on a week-night. And btw its a good two and a half hours or so long so plan for that.

Disclaimer - I would not recommend reading the rest of this if you haven't seen this movie.

Some other things that stood out for me:

- The joker's dialogues. Specially the scene where he is in the hospital talking to Harvey about chaos.

- A lot of seemingly political references. The spying scene where Morgan Freeman claims that listening in on a whole city is too much power for anyone, even if your intentions are good is one that comes to mind.

- The whole theme of questioning if the defeating of an evil force that's mindless needs the good to become bad also.

- Gotham as a very believable metropolis. Stark differences in the camera work between the night and day scenes.

Anyways there's my tuppence.

Tonight is the night

2008-07-22T18:28:00.002-04:00

That I get to see the Dark Knight.

Cause I have in my hands... a ticket!

Weekend workouts

2008-07-21T18:22:00.004-04:00

I really really tried to get Imax tickets for the Dark Knight... but it seems like everyone did the same. So I'll just have to try again this week. If it doesn't happen it will have to be on a regular screen, I have some nerd-cred to keep after all :)

The weekend was otherwise uneventful. Friday I ended up at the gym again for more strength training and ended up working out much longer than I expected. My sore arms reminded me of that for the rest of the weekend. But it was a great session with a lot of time spent working on my legs.

The weekend was a scorcher with temps well in the 90's and a code red day on Sunday. Saturday was a 10 mile ride in Stone Mountain Park that was not as miserable as I expected. I thought I would be toasted in the 4pm heat but the path was very nicely shaded and not bad at all. I tried something new on the bike. I am usually a masher... riding in a big gear and constantly pushing hard. But this ride I tried to focus on using a smaller gear and spinning more. Surprisingly... I ended up going faster than usual and of course it was easier on my legs.

Sunday I was exhausted and in no mood to run. But I couldn't post a zero on VRR so I got out there reluctantly at 7pm. It was still hot and this was one of those runs where every mile was a struggle. Anyways I did 5 miles at a slow 10:30'ish a mile.

That's about it peeps.. have a great week!

More riding

2008-07-16T18:57:00.002-04:00

The weekend plan for a ride and a run went ok. I ended up doing a (tiny) brick - a 15 mile ride and a 6 mile run.

Monday night was absolutely gorgeous so I met up with some friends at Stone Mountain Park to eat out and enjoy a night that was in the 60's. I made up for the lack of exercise by hitting the trainer for an hour at night. I really love the flexibility in working out that its giving me. Its been a few weeks now since I have had it and its been put to good use. I ended up getting a used Blackburn Trakstand on Craigslist for 40 bucks. Its in pretty good condition and was way cheaper than a new one so that worked out nicely. Some thoughts on it...

1. When I was looking for one, Ryan had mentioned that they all "suck to be on so get a cheap one". So true.. if you are looking to ride on one for more than a half hour, make sure you have the tv/ipod on. The only reason to choose one is to ride at night or when the weather outside doesn't let you.

2. The one I got is a magentic with 5 levels of resistance (it seems like the newer ones this company makes are mostly 3 levels) but they lower ones feel too easy on all gears. I like the feeling of pushing a bit, but I guess these are good if you like spinning.

3. One thing to look for if you are picking one out is the noise level. On some gear/resistance settings, these things can get loud!

Anyways.. today is strength training day so I am off to the gym. I may follow that up with a 4 mile run.

Work those legs

2008-07-12T18:24:00.003-04:00

So I've been doing a lot of reading lately to try and figure how I can get better at staying injury free. It's sort of funny - after the marathon I've been majorly frustrated with my knee. But like anything else, you can either get down or light a fire up under your ass (wise words!).

All this brings me to the issue of weight training. Turns out that a lot of running injuries can be due to an imbalance in different muscle groups. Chief culprits - the quads and the IT band. Some suggestions to work on these -

0. Stretch, stretch, stretch.
1. Cross train - get on that bike (to my neighbor - that weird humming sound you hear is just me on the trainer!)
2. Strength train - for the quads, some thing I've been trying is leg presses using one leg at a time, squats.
3. The dreaded foam roller.

I've incorporated a lot more of all those into my workouts over the past 4-6 weeks and I finally think I may be seeing some results.

Anyways - plans for the weekend - a ride at Stone Mountain and a 6 mile run.

Finally a big shout out to everyone doing Chattanooga this weekend - Wes, Sarah, Kevin, Ryan and to everyone else racing this weekend.

Weekend Updates

2008-07-07T19:19:00.002-04:00

Hope everyone had a fantastic 4th of July!

I managed to royally kick back over this weekend. That meant:

- Watching the Olympic Trials
Mostly the track events, although NBC forced me to watch the swimming too!

- Nadal Vs. Federer
If you missed that then all I can say is you missed one of the greatest tennis matches ever. For the record, I was rooting for Federer. But what can you say except that Nadal earned it.

- BBQ and Fireworks
Of course I had to do that! Hung out with some friends and then caught the fireworks at the old courthouse in Decatur.

-A 5 miler on Sunday
Uneventful - but I suppose that is good since it means no pain!

Alright I am off to the gym to work on some strength training.

The Cape and Boston

2008-07-01T14:52:00.015-04:00

The trip was wonderful. So here are some pictures - and I promise only a little bit of text!

The drive on Wednesday from Boston to Cape Cod wasn't too bad. We left right in the middle of rush hour so the traffic was craptastic. One thing crazy though - I saw a number of people actually drive in the emergency lanes. Apparently in Ma during certain hours, the emergency lanes can be used for regular traffic (??? - Can someone verify this! Makes no sense to me - isn't rush hour when you need the emergency lane the most?!?).

We were staying in Falmouth which is only 4 miles from Woods Hole. Its an absolutely gorgeous town. The hotel we had was really old and with a lot of character. Its about the only thing that came up on the online searches but there a number of smaller b&b's that looked even more appealing. Here's some sights around Falsmouth/Woods Hole. Woods Hole is known for two big institutes - the Oceanographic Institute and the Marine Biology Lab. We were visiting the latter. It was mostly overcast so the lighting wasn't absolutely great for taking pictures.
The Marine Biology Lab (MBL)

The Inn on the Square

Being such a brief trip, we ended up working really long hours and got a lot done. But still, I managed to use Thursday morning to take the ferry to Marthas Vineyard and spend a couple of hours around Vineyard Haven(Tisbury) and Oak Bluffs. If you are an architecture lover, I highly recommend wandering around this part of the country. A lot of buildings are from the 1700's and the towns have managed to preserve their feel (yes - that means no fast food joints, nationalized hotel chains or even starbucks in the city center!). On the plus side, everything is locally owned, and as much as my six meal experience qualifies me to say this, the bakeries, coffee shops and restraunts are terrific.

On Saturday I had about 7-8 hours in Boston. Now there's two things you can do when your'e in a city for a short time - try and see it all (aka the guided tour bus approach) or realize that it aint happening so make the most of what you got.

For me travelling is all about seeing a place on my own two feet. Its just how I like doing it. Now that has implications - it usually means that all you can pack is a small backpack, and that you must be someone who is very comfortable spending most of their time being lost.

So I planned a 6 hour walk for myself starting at MIT. The weather was cool, slightly overcast and perfect for walking.

Crossing the Charles river, the view from across. Damn these people like sailing!

They have a really gorgeous Esplanade that runs along the river. As Nancy had mentioned - its absolutely teeming with runners! I basically followed this path all the way from Harvard bridge up to the Hatch Shell.

Finally, I switched my route to walk through old Boston and join the Freedom Trail that goes along the Boston Commons area. Phew.. a good 10-12 mile walk!

A Celtics banner on the State Building!

A lot going on

2008-06-24T19:07:00.002-04:00

Seems like I am eternally playing catch up with blogging these days. Anyways, the weekend was great. My cousin was in town from NYC to look for places here since he may be starting law school here in the Fall. We went to watch R.E.M. on Saturday night at the Lakewood Amphitheater.

Being an (almost) local band, they drew a huge crowd and put on a great show. They played a lot of numbers from their new album (which unfortunately I had no heard) mixed in with a few older ones.

Since then, I have pretty much been catching up with work on an upcoming deadline because tomorrow I am off to Cape Cod for a two day meeting. I have never been there so I am really looking forward to it. That's what I like the most about Summer, you still have enough daylight left to do and see stuff even after a whole day of work. We're going to be meeting at the Marine Biology Lab there in Woods Hall and its supposed to be a really picturesque village very close to Martha's Vineyard.

I'll be back Saturday night after stopping for a day in Boston. Of course I am taking my running shoes along just in case I get a chance to run Heartbreak Hill!

A lesson in pain

2008-06-18T13:44:00.003-04:00

Who knew that such a innocuous looking cylindrical piece of polymer could make a grown man wince.

Yes - I am talking about this.

Of late I have felt my IT band getting really tight. And thanks to that I have again started feeling a dull knee pain that is specially pronounced while walking down the stairs. Apparently these are tell tale signs of a stiff IT band.

I tried looking up different stretches for this specific muscle, but I found a couple of indirect stretches that begun so ..."This is an extremely difficult muscle to stretch, so we are going to do this indirectly by trying to stretch blah blah.."

Only solution - the foam roller.

Let me tell you this. It works beautifully. A couple of days on it and I feel like new. But if you are as tight as I was when you start using this, all I can say is "ouch".

Tagged - Twice

2008-06-13T16:25:00.007-04:00

Its been a crazy week - but I finally found some time to post, after which I promise to catch up on my blog reading! And coming soon - a post on my new (to me) trainer!
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Alright, this one has been doing the rounds recently. I got tagged by Jen and JadeLady. So here goes.

1. How would you describe your running 10 years ago?
10 years ago: "Run - who me? No way!"

2. What is your best and worst run/race experience?
Tough one - I'd have to toss up between the Thanksgiving Day Half (which was my PR) and the ING Ga Full (being the first full I did).

Worst - nah. I like them all, no matter how much I suck.

3. Why do you run?
I wish I had a deep reason but hey, I got to do something, so why not this.

4. What is the best or worst piece of advice you've been given about running?
Best - Love them hills! Actually its more specific than that. As a newbie, I'd get wiped out going up a hill. Until someone told me to reduce the length of my stride and increase my cadence (basically like going up the hill on first gear).

Worst - No beer! (Thats actually good advice gone bad)

5. Tell us something surprising about yourself that not many people would know.
This one is new, something I just realized about myself. I um.. think I'm developing an unusual attraction for calves. No not this one but this one. Seriously. To phrase it delicately, this has become my favorite part of the human anatomy. So now I am going to carry on pretending I am normal and blame running for that!

As usual, if you want to play along, considered yourself tagged.

Friday randomness

2008-06-06T17:11:00.003-04:00

Is any body else as addicted to Woot as I am? Not that I have ever bought anything there. I just love checking whats on it today. For those of you who don't know what it is, let me try and define it for you. It can only be call the web's weirdest shopping site. They sell only ONE product - and this changes every day. It could be anything from toe nail clippers to plasma tv's and everything in between.

So imagine my delight at finding this - Chainlove

It is woot on wheels - one bike product sold until they run out. Check it out.

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I am headed to the pool today after work. Quick updates for Wed and Thu:

Wed: 3 miles

Thu: 4 miles (The last one being a 7:42 - I didn't know my ass can move that fast)

Consistency

2008-06-04T18:10:00.002-04:00

No not in training.

How's this for a weather forecast.

Talk about predictable!

Recovery Theory

2008-06-03T12:49:00.002-04:00

An interesting article here.

It talks about recovery after a hard workout. Conclusion - eating a mix of carbohydrates and protein right after you are done seems to do a lot to help prevent soreness.

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Workout updates -

Sunday 10 miles (1:42)
Monday 30 min cross train + 2 miles (18:35)

I am loving have the whole digs to myself - I got through a mountain of cleaning this weekend. Now that I have 2 empty rooms, I am thinking of getting a bike trainer to ride indoors. Any suggestions/recommendations?

Workout updates and Changes!

2008-05-29T23:28:00.002-04:00

First off, I've been really enjoying my workouts this week:

A 30 min cross training session on Tuesday.
20 min of swimming (after a long time!)

And today a 4 miler in 36:04 with splits:

8:44
8:55
9:21
9:44

Those would look so good in reverse!

I saw this girl while running today and I swear she looked like Paula Radcliffe - and yes, with abs like that too! Add to that the fact that she was doing something like 7 minute miles and it looked like an easy workout for her. Quite amazing.

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I don't usually blog much about my personal life, but I am thrilled about some huge changes happening this weekend. To cut a long story short, a few months back I happened to have caught my apartment mate stealing a tidy sum of money by faking utility bills. Needless to say, things had been uncomfortable since. Usually, things like this don't bother me much. But to have to come home everyday and live like that was such a big nuisance. Well, I managed to renew the lease by myself. So from this weekend on, I have the two-bedroom place all to me.

Its not like I needed the two rooms, but a. I didn't want the disruption of a move at this time, b. A one bed was $20 less/month - hence this made more sense, since it leaves me with the option to get someone to share it with, if need be.

Thankfully I have been good about saving money all this year. It was a big decision for me, but I crunched some numbers, and it fits into my monthly budget. What it essentially means is that I'll have less money to spend/put aside, but given that this is my last year of school, I am not worried about that.

You cant imagine how much I am looking forward to this weekend!

Memorial Day weekend update

2008-05-26T22:42:00.005-04:00

Hope all of you had a wonderful weekend.

I know I did. Two whole days off felt good! On Saturday, I went some friends to watch the Braves play the Diamondbacks. It was a great game - tied until the top of the 9th and then Francoeur hit a home run to win the game.

Chipper Jones in action

I did manage to get a 6 miler in, but I think the beer from the baseball game got to me, along with the heat! Took me 1:02 at around 10:20 min/mile. Its going to be a long, hot Georgia summer and I really need to switch my runs to early in the morning.

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The Endurance Bar is now open - so stop by for a visit. Shirley has a few contests going too!

A beautiful day for a bike ride

2008-05-21T23:39:00.003-04:00

Despite my best efforts, I couldn't go to bed early last night. I believe its been over a decade since I have slept before midnight! Finally went to bed at 2:30 'ish. I had planned on sleeping in for a bit, but as luck would have it, the darn landscapers would be mowing the lawn today morning at 8am. Since I was up at a decent time and in no rush to get to work, I decided to ride in.

The weather was just right- sunny and in the 60's in the morning, with highs in the mid 70's. There was a little bit of a breeze too, so the ride was nice and cool. I noticed the neatest thing ever as I was riding on the street about a mile from home. There is a little bridge close to the railroad tracks that has a bunch of wildflowers growing on the side. I guess it was the traffic crushing the petals that had blown onto the street or something but the road was stained in the coolest colors! Something I can never notice while driving!

Both the rides were uneventful and fun. I did get lost for a couple of miles since I tried another new route. On this route, I came across a "Community Natural Food Store" - sounds like something worth checking out! Some more of this and I'll know this part of Atlanta like the back of my hand.

Total: ~22 miles

Done

2008-05-21T00:00:00.002-04:00

Mates.. its midnight - which means I am done!

Time to get a cold one.

I did sneak away for a short run today. I guess it was my effort to hurry up but I managed 3 miles in 26:53 (8:58 min/mile).

Guess where I am going - straight to bed!

Sucky run

2008-05-19T22:44:00.002-04:00

Managed a 4.5 miler at a very pedestrian 48:06. Oh well... stuff happens!

I spent most of the weekend working on the submission for the conference I mentioned in my last post. I guess I wasn't clear, but this is just the submission - so I have no clue for a couple of
months if the paper will be accepted!But the conference is in Bangalore in December, and I am planning on going home that time, so getting it accepted would help pay for some part of the trip. Only problem is that it seems like every Indian in the planet working in this area has the same thought - so the acceptance rates are under 20%!

The deadline was midnight today. I kind of had things done by 4am this morning. Believe me thats early for me! I guess it was the lack of sleep or something, but once I reached school today, I realized I had forgotten the power supply on my laptop at home. I worked until the computer died and then rushed home just to retrieve the darn power supply. The whole trip turned out to be pointless since I found out later this evening that the deadline was extended by 24 hours. At this point I am so sick of looking at this thing - its driving me crazy! So I am just going to let it be for the rest of the night and catch up on my blog reading.

Sorry for the venting!

Go go go..

2008-05-16T00:11:00.003-04:00

I've been getting in my usual short runs this week. Sorry for the delayed updates - but I've been working towards a conference deadline coming up next week.

Nancy's virtual 10k on the 10th was great... except for my pacer.
He was um.. rather offended by the race title! "Cavepeople unite". Should have gone with the cool gecko instead.

6.2 miles ... 56:32

Kudos to the best race director eva for organizing another highly successful race!

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A lot of you are racing this weekend - so a huge shout to Brian, Charlie, Wes, Teacherwoman, J'mom.

I know I am missing someone... sorry but good luck to all of you! I cant wait to read your reports.

Happ Mothers Day!

2008-05-12T00:13:00.003-04:00

To all you amazing moms out there - here is wishing you a great Mothers Day!

Now a little something for all you wonderful running mum's out there. You know how much I love you all! To do all you do and still find time to run and blog... you are my heroes.

On a personal note - I will never forget the comments I received on one of my posts. I think Nancy summed it up best - "We are all like a bunch of mother hens". Thank you for fussing over all your little chickens :)

Virtual shopping for all of you was harder than I thought.. maybe some flowers...
Nah! What good is that... Besides we need something with a lil' more bling :)

Happy Mothers Day! You are always appreciated - even if we only say so once a year.

Finding a groove

2008-05-08T23:37:00.003-04:00

Just a quick post on some numbers.

Yesterday I did a part ride/part train commute, since my day was busier. I guess a few miles on the bike is better than none right?

After the ride, I also managed to get a brief run workout in. Nothing big:

3 miles in 27:10

Today was some strength training, followed by another short run

3.5 miles in 31:40

Those are not big numbers, but I feel its the first week in a while where I've been getting something done everyday and that makes me feel good.

Have a great Friday everyone!

First commute

2008-05-06T22:14:00.004-04:00

Today I did do the commuting by bike thing. I ended up taking a slightly longer, but much nicer path. It was 11 miles one way and 10 miles the other. I did try a couple of different routes, hence the difference. I was a little surprised that with some planning, I was able to ride all but 2 or 3 miles of that on trails. It was wonderful to not have to worry about traffic!

The morning ride was much easier, since it was cooler. Took me about 40-45 minutes each way. The shower thing at the gym worked out nicely. I left home about an hour earlier than usual, so I actually ended up at my lab at about the same time that I normally do.

Ok, I'll be the first one to admit that I am one of those irritating people who does nothing without searching the Internet first! So here is what are some useful links for anyone else planning a bike commute in Atlanta.

1. ATL transit - A great site that lets you plan a trip using Google maps. It also lets you do a part of the trip on public transit.

2. A very useful map that identifies streets by the volume of traffic and ease of riding.

3. The PATH foundation
The maintain several trails around the city.

Atlanta is always talked about as one of the worst transit systems in the nation, and this is largely true. But, I was surprised by the groups I found, and I really hope things change in the future. When you have 7-8 lane highways and traffic still does not move, it sure is time for a rethink!

Some other thoughts:
Pros:
0 The obvious ones - its good for you and the environment!
0 You can really let your mind wander while on a trail and actually enjoy the commute.
0 Hills!

Cons:
0 Somewhat hard to ride with a backpack. I do need this since I carry my computer with me.
0 A little more time consuming. But this one is easy - start earlier, or do part of the trip on public transit.
0 Hills!

Guess how I am getting to work tomorrow :)

New Tires and more

2008-05-05T22:36:00.004-04:00

First off, I just wanted to update everyone. The proposal went really well this Friday. The committee was quite pleased. I kind of knew it would go decent, but it actually ended up way better than I had hoped for. I usually never rehearse a talk so sometimes the words just come out weird! But on this day things were great. I could tell it was going good, because the audience was involved and I had an awesome time doing it. So now, as Meg said, I am officially ABD (All But Dissertation). Unfortunately the "All But" part, is somewhat misleading as to how much work is left! But thanks for all you good wishes - they sure helped!

On Sat night, I caught the Zakir Hussain concert. It was an incredible show he put on. The range of sounds he can produce from one instrument is amazing. A phenomenal artist who really knows how to work the crowd in a show!

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Today I finally took the bike down to Bicycle South, the local bike shop. Since I had bought the bike used, the tires were in fairly bad shape and the shop recommended that I get new ones. To use his words, he said it wouldn't be possible for him to put a new tube in! So I got new tires, and did a general tune up. Then I took her out for a 10 mile ride this evening. Its been a long time since I did that and I had a blast! For me, the problem with riding is that in order to get a decent workout I need time. And thats not always possible. So I've been giving this some thought and I think I have a routine in mind that might just work for me.

Here's the deal. First some background - I am a poor grad student. Thats important because nothing motivates a grad student like saving money (ok.. maybe free food first).

Usually, I park at Turner Field since our University has a free parking permit for students to park there. But with the Braves season on, there are many days in the Summer when I cannot park or have to leave early. So starting tomorrow, I am going to try riding the 8 miles each way to school. I already have a locker at the gym so taking a shower there is not a problem. My only concern is morning traffic - but that should not be too bad. It usually takes me 30 minutes door-to-door. So if I leave a little earlier than usual I'll still get there around the same time. Anyhow, I am going to give it a try this week and see how comfortable I feel doing it. Besides - the money I save on parking for just this week, will pay some for the new tires :D

Simon can smile!

2008-05-02T00:30:00.003-04:00

Amazing performance from a show called Britains Got Talent. I've never seen Simon enjoy something so much!

Laying Low

2008-04-29T22:53:00.003-04:00

I feel like I am down with a slight case of 'writers block'. The running has dried up and with it my posts!

I have kept it down to three or four runs a week that are very short (2-3 miles). Its helped and I have been running pain free. I do plan on increasing the mileage slowly in a couple of weeks and get back to normal. But for now, I am stuck working out in the gym and cross training. To be honest, I have been really irregular with that. I do not enjoy working out indoors, so you can imagine how glad I will be to back running again!

Talking about training, I picked up Chris Charmichael's "Food for Fitness" recently.

He was/is Lance Armstrong's coach for a long time, including his recent marathon training. I am just a few chapters into it, so I'll save a longer review for later.

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This Friday, I have my PhD proposal exam. This is basically an hour long talk where I present my existing research to my committee and lay out a road map for the last year or so. I have everything ready to go and am looking forward to it. Wish me luck! I'll let y'all know how it goes.

Also, for Saturday night I got tickets to watch Zakir Hussain live in concert. He is a phenomenal percussionist and I cannot wait to listen to him live. He plays the tabla and is probably one of the most recognized classical Indian musicians. It feels kind of strange that the first time I hear him perform will be in Atlanta! But it should be a great show.

Media updates

2008-04-20T21:23:00.002-04:00

A very cool article in the NY Times on Sara Hall here. They talk about the specific drills she does for speed work and includes a video.

On an aside - she is married to Ryan Hall. Anyone notice how many contemporary elite running couples there are? On the top of my head, I can think of the Goucher's , the Hall's and late Ryan Shay and his wife Alicia Craig. I wonder if this has always been the case?

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A very funny commercial by Flora titled "The day after the Marathon"

South Beach

2008-04-18T08:47:00.009-04:00

I ended up listening to most of the talks at the conference. It was a great experience to attend the premier conference in my research area and to meet people whose research I have read over the years. I know listening to talks all day isn't most people's idea of fun but I am wierd that way :)

Charlie asked me some questions about my talk:
How many people were in the group you presented to? Did it matter? Are you used to public speaking? Are you glad that your presentation was over? Would you want to do it again and change something?

Mine was the first talk in the first session. So as you can imagine the crowd wasn't that great. Maybe 30 people or so. Usually this is a good thing for most people - but I like a good crowd. I really enjoy trying to explain what I have to say and see if people are getting it or not. I used to be a little nervous speaking to larger crowds, but teaching for two semster's at
the university really helped. Now I actually enjoy preparing
for and giving a talk. The only tricky thing with talks of this nature is that the audience can vary a lot. This usually makes it difficult to figure out how much time should be spent on presenting the background.

We did have an hour and half off for lunch everyday and I used this to explore the city in a rather interesting way. More on this in a separate post. Yesterday however, as things were winding down, I decided to skip the session after lunch and use the 4-5 hour slot to go to South Beach.th

Actually, it was a little more random than that. I was walking out of the hotel, looking for a place to eat, when I saw a bus that said "Route C: Miami Beach". So I hopped on and decided to skip the next session. Small problem. I had no beach gear since all that was in the hotel (By all that - I am referring to a swim suit and sandals). Anyhoo, I bought one of those cheesy touristy "South Beach" t-shirts and a swimsuit for $10 for both, stuffed my shoes into my backpack and went bare foot - walking around in jeans and a shirt would be a tad overdressed for South Beach (actually, even just the swimsuit is a tad over dressed for South Beach!)

It was kind of just like I had thought it would be. As a beach, it is quite nice. The crowds and bars and restaurants are just like what you would think them to be. Definitely worth checking out - although I would say this - the rest of Miami is an incredibly different city, so do get off the beach and explore.

Of course I'll leave you with some pictures that I took. These are all on South Beach. My flights in a couple of hours so I was posting to catch up with everyone. Have a great weekend y'all!

Sun 'n Spice

2008-04-14T17:27:00.003-04:00

I reached Miami on Sunday afternoon for a conference. I had my talk presenting a paper this morning and it went well. So now I can attend the rest of the conference - or at least bits n pieces of it :)

Its in the late 70's, the sun is shining, we're right in front of the water and I am here until Friday (Anyone jealous yet?). Since I spent most of yesterday preparing for the talk, I haven't got around much. But I did pass on the boxed lunch at the conference today and instead went for a stroll where I found a really nice little latin cafe. The food was excellent, cheap and there was an impromptu birthday party for one of the servers - so I landed up with some cake too! I plan on going for a run later tonight along the beach - so no worries.

I have a few hours every day to explore - so let me know of any running trails, sights and must see things, that all you Miami experts may know of. I have been to Ft. Lauderdale and the Keys before, but this is my first time in Miami, so anything you may suggest is new to me.

Have a great week everyone!

Wow

2008-04-07T22:02:00.004-04:00

I am just blown away with all your comments - honestly, I am probably happier after sharing about the race with everyone than I was finishing it! You guys are a special bunch...

Makita did something so cool for me. Stop by her blog here to see it! (Thanks - that was special)

ING Ga Race Report

2008-04-06T00:23:00.000-04:00

Thanks for all your comments everyone! All your support, advice and encouragement means a lot to me.

I've been at Hilton Head, SC since the race and could only do the last two short posts. Now for the detailed ING Race Report.
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It had been raining all of Saturday afternoon and when I checked the forecast, it said that there was a good chance of rain on Sunday morning. I decided to put on my running shell just in case it does rain. I had run the Atlanta Half marathon in Nov without any cover from the rain and didn't want to get soaked for this one.

Fortunately when I left the house at 5:30 am it looked like the rain was done and it was going to be a cool morning. I caught the train to get to Centennial Olympic Park and as soon as I reached the station I could feel the excitement - catching a train full of runners is one of my favorite things about a big Atlanta race! On the train I had a quick breakfast of a Powerbar and some Gatorade to wash it down.

The race started and ended at Centennial Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta. The crowd was huge! There were some 14,000 runners starting together for the Half and the Full. My number had me assigned to Corral 6. To get an idea of how crowded this was - it took me a good 20 minutes to go from where I was standing to the start line! And there were probably a few thousand people still behind me. I was glad to just start because it was 40 degrees and I was cold just waiting.

Mile 1 - Went straight through my university (Georgia State). It was a great way to start. Running down the same streets and past the same buildings that brought me to this city. I planned to go just slower than the 4:30 pace group, since I was thinking that 4:40-4:45 is a more realistic target for me. Everything felt great this first mile and this one went at 10:24.

Miles 2,3,4 - Started with a long climb and it was here that my knee started feeling a little weak. Coming into the race, I had no doubt that the knee would bother me. But I must admit that I did not expect it to start so soon. I figured I had recovered enough to get a few decent miles in. I had to slow down a bit, and as soon as I did, it felt better. We ran past the Martin Luther King Center as the mile 4 marker came up.

Miles 5,6 : The knee felt a lot better and we had some great crowds cheering us through this section. There was even a guy with a keg handing out free beer. Too bad he was standing so early on in the race! Instead I opted for my first Gel since I planned to have one every hour. As we approached the half split the crowd thinned out (so did the queue for the port-a-potties). I think some 12,000 runners were registered for the half and 2,000 for the full.

10k Split: 1:07:43

Miles 7,8,9,10: I was feeling good now, the pace was decent again and I was very familiar with these miles. They went through the Carter Center, Little Five Points and heading up towards Decatur. I had run this part of the course on most of my training runs and the familiarity of it, along with the crowds at Little Five Points picked me up. These miles went fast and easy - and believe it or not I was having a blast. I cant thank the people who came out to cheer the runners enough. It makes a huge difference. The picture here shows me climbing one of the hills just past the Carter Center. Who ever designed the course seemed to have picked every hill in the city - it was just crazy how many climbs there were. I kept telling myself that this would mean a flat finish hopefully (oh how wrong I was).

Miles 11,12, 13, 14: These ran right through the city of Decatur - which is where I live. I had some friends out cheering here and I was glad for the support! The group around Agnes Scott College was amazing and they had a little band playing some live music. I stopped briefly to use the port-a-potty here. The strong feeling from the previous miles kept itself going. I grabbed some Gatorade (as an aside - the organizers flooded the course with fluid stations this year), got my second gel and with all the energy, forgot everything about knee and started feeling like I am in a big party here! I soaked in the atmosphere and just loved every minute of it.

Half Split: 2:24:20

Miles 15, 16, 17: As we ran through Emory University, all my highs quickly disappeared. The campus was quite. And my knee started bothering me again. This time it felt quite bad and I even considered stopping at the medical tent they had setup. But I decided to brush it off and keep going. I knew I could run through the pain and I so desperately wanted to finish - even if it wasn't at a time that I intended. So I kept going.

Miles 18, 19, 20: The last good miles. I got some fresh legs with another gel shot and I even started thinking about my finish time again. We ran through the Druid Hills neighborhood and there were a few people sitting in their yard watching runners go by.

20 mile split: 3:46:51

Miles 21,22, 23: As we approached Virginia Highlands, the crowds got bigger. A band was playing U2 covers and tons of people were out cheering. I was still feeling good and in my mind the crossing of the 20 mile mark was a big deal - I knew now that I would finish. Heck I would crawl the last 10k if I had to - but 10k I knew I could handle. Unfortunately, as we crossed Piedmont Park and headed towards Ga Tech the climb up 10th street kicked my butt. For the first time I had to walk a stretch of the climb.

Miles 24,25: Who ever picked this course was probably in love with the hills. The last 5k was the worst 5k to pick. Going up 5th street into Ga Tech was ok but the climb past the football stadium was killer. I used to live near here 4 years ago - and from then I have memories of how hard this climb was. I was hoping after this things would get flatter - but yet another hill came up. For these miles my pace went from the 10:40's to the 14's as I hit the wall head on. The only thing I could do was keep going - even if I was almost at a speed walking pace.

Mile 26.2: The last mile felt like it went on forever. Most of this mile was down a deserted, crumby section of downtown with no people . As I approached the end, I could here the music and people near the finish. One turn later I could see it all and picked up the pace for one last burst. As I crossed the finish , I remembered something Wes had written about good finish pictures - and pumped my hands up in the air. I was done !

Final chip time: 5:08:00

I wanted a better time - but given the course and my knee I'll take it. More than the time though was the experience - I've never had so much fun and so much misery doing the same thing! In the end, its all the good stuff you remember, and I loved every one of those 308 minutes!

Warning

2008-04-05T19:56:00.003-04:00

Falling asleep on the beach with sunglasses on can leave you looking like ...

In negative!

(I am back from a wonderful break - and need to catch up on all your blogs and post the ING report - Enjoy the rest of your weekend everyone!)

Quick update

2008-03-30T13:32:00.000-04:00

I finished! Final time: Somewhere around 5:05.

I had a blast.. although my knee is killing me. More soon!

ING Ga Preview and Simply Stu Report Part-1

2008-03-29T20:54:00.004-04:00

Tomorrow is the day! Wish me luck homies!

The race starts at 7 am. I picked up my packet at the expo on Friday. The forecast calls for rain but I hope it doesn't get too bad. On the bright side, that makes the temperatures stay around the 50F mark for most of the race, which is perfect.

The plan is to have fun. I would like to finish somewhere around the 4:30 mark but as long as I finish, I can't complain. My training has been a little short of what I would like - I got all the long runs in but had skip some of the other workouts to give my knee time to heal. So given all that I'm just going to take it as it comes. Best thing about a first race is that any time is a PR :)

Post race, I am headed to Hilton Head, SC for a quick break, but I will try and post a race report as soon as I can.

Good luck to Sarah, Shirley and anyone else who is racing this weekend!

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Shirley asked me to be a part of her team for the Simply Stu Tri this weekend. The goal is to race any distance for the three events over the weekend. For the swim, I got in 20 laps at the pool on Friday. This is my weakest sport and I am all signed for classes this summer to work on it.

For my bike ride, I actually rode to the expo to pick up my race packet. The round trip was just over 16 miles. It was really useful since I planned the route to go over some parts of the course for the full.

Needless to say, the run will be the full tomorrow. She also sent me a very cool race shirt - that I plan to wear after my full tomorrow. So I'll post pictures in my next post!

Sweetwater Creek and Team Evotri

2008-03-24T11:00:00.003-04:00

On Sunday I met up with Wes at the Sweetwater Creek State Park just outside Atlanta.

Since neither of us had been to this park before we didn't know much about the trails. Well... the trails were good in parts but the hills were long, and going downhill wasn't so much fun either. The first "trail" we got onto turned out not to be a trail since we climbed a long hill only to find a dead end! Once we picked the trail that ran along the river though, it was much more fun to run on, with some great views of the river since the foliage had not grown back yet. I forgot my Garmin in the car

Wes - it was great to meet up with you again, although next time I'll let you pick the venue!

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A couple of my blogger friends - Shirley and Sara - are running for the Tram Evotri contest. Please check out their entries here and here and vote for them! The contest closes on Friday March 28th.

Twice in 2 days

2008-03-16T00:07:00.002-04:00

Thats tornadoes I am talking about.

Its been crazy weather here to say the least. We've had tornadoes rip through downtown Atlanta yesterday and today, causing extensive damage.

Friday was specially surreal and thats when the picture above was shot. I am usually downtown on Friday nights (since thats where campus is). But for some reason I decided to skip working out at the rec center and came home earlier than usual. As I was watching the SEC game happening at the Georgia Dome on TV, it was interrupted by a tornado hitting downtown and causing some damage to the dome. The next thing we hear is that it is on a path right to where I live. We took shelter but were fortunate that we were just off the path. We did get some golf-ball size hail but overall the damage was minimal.

I hope everyone else in Ga is safe and sound and please keep those affected in your thoughts.

Taper time

2008-03-09T20:42:00.003-04:00

First off... I need to vent! I was on my long run this weekend and was running on the side walk that was on the side of this fairly busy/fast moving road. At this point I am a good 2.5 hrs into my run and my brain has drifted off as usual. All of a sudden a big green truck, probably doing 55-60 mph swerves on to the sidewalk and starts yelling a bunch of obscenities at me while still moving, first onto the sidewalk some more and then speeding away.

Now I know that there are people who get their kicks by hurling abuses at random people and that doesn't bother me so much.If you train long enough, a few things like this are bound to happen and they don't mean much. But driving onto the sidewalk just drove me batshit crazy. I was so shocked initially that I didn't even think of getting his license plate and by the time I snapped out of it, he had sped away. Its just so stupid and he could have hit anyone coming from the opposite direction. Grrr... some people just don't belong behind a wheel.

Run: 3:22:30 (17.5 miles)

Other than that incident, the run was ok. I was supposed to do 20 miles, this being the last long run before the start of the 3-week taper (13 and 10 miles next 2 weekends) for the full. I was a little apprehensive about the knees but a few miles in, I just felt great. The right knee felt almost a 100% and the left one was getting there also. I really got the nutrition figured out too with about 200 calories/hr. And that made a huge difference. I felt strong and aerobically I felt like I could just keep going.

At about mile 16 though, the left knee started to act up ever so slightly. I persevered for a bit more but at mile 17.5 I decided to just stop. At that point, I felt I would just be doing more damage than good since other than the knee, I was in no doubt of finishing the 20.

That leaves me with two 18 milers going into the full, but I feel comfortable that if the knee heels, I am in good shape. I have been running a lot slower than usual but I have trained for up to a 4 hour run and got the nutrition figured out. Now its a lot of cross training, nursing the knee to get ready for the first full... I cant believe I am doing this!

Have a great week everyone!

Overplanning

2008-03-02T20:58:00.002-05:00

Firstly.. sorry for some very delayed reading of all your blogs this week. I've just been swamped with work and my feed reader had 40 something unread posts that I just caught up on. The 8 miler (64 laps) on the track last week was ok.. a little boring and tedious but I survived. Keeping count is hard, but I just go up to 8 laps for each mile and reset the count to 0. That way even if I loose track, I can look at the clock and figure out how many laps are done for that mile.

When I started a 16 week plan for the Full, I threw in an extra week, figuring I might miss a long run somewhere down the line. Small problem.. I forgot I did that! So looking at my calendar today I noticed that the extra week had snuck in there.

Thats not a bad problem to have. So I am shuffling things around a bit. Moved the 20 miler to next weekend since it will give me some more time to recover. I feel comfortable with the extra breathing room that it gives me.

I am looking forward to this week. We're off for Spring break, but I am working on two grants so it gives me time to catch up on that. Since its Spring break, I am planning to run into work tomorrow morning and then maybe one more day this week. Its about 7.5 miles each way and I do have the option of taking the train back if I want to. I might do that and ride my bike in a few times this week since I am not in a huge hurry to get in on time any given day. This should be a fun way to get in a few extra miles for the week. You got to love being in a University when everyone is off!

Team Evotri and more

2008-02-26T10:44:00.004-05:00

One of our very own bloggers Sarah has made the final cut for Team Evotri and needs your votes! Here is a link to her page with more instructions on how you can vote. All you need to do is send an email to vote@evotri.com with "'Sarah McKibben - Final Round" in the Subject line. Please vote for her before Friday Feb29.
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This morning we had some strong thunder storms rolling through Georgia and it knocked out power for a lot of the area around where I live. Now usually I have my alarm clock set and it rings and I end up resetting it every morning. But for some reason with no clock, I woke up way earlier than usual! Maybe I should try ditching the clock.

Of course once I was up, I realized that there was no coffee because the machine had turned off. A normally short 15 minute commute turned into an hour because so many traffic lights were out. Really makes you realize how many things we take for granted work on power!
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I'll get in my run sometime this evening. The knee is doing great. I've given it a rest and things seem normal. For a few more days, I decided to do my shorter runs on the indoor track in the gym. The surface has a lot more give and will make it easier. I plan to run 8 miles tonight. Unfortunately 8 laps of that track make a mile so I'll be going round and round and round!

Walking the Line

2008-02-18T12:33:00.001-05:00

As I had mentioned in my last post, I was scheduled to do 18 miles this weekend but my knee had been troubling me. There is a fine line between running though pain and sidelining yourself with an injury and hence, I was in two minds about doing this run.

Looking at my plan, I noticed that after this 18, I was back down to 10 miles next weekend and then up to 20miles in two weeks. That made me decide to go for it because even if I did some damage, I would have two weeks to recover (hopefully!) from it.So, I came up with a short, flat loop that I could circle. I wanted to avoid the hills because running uphilldownhill would just add unnecessary pressure on the knee.

Less than a mile into my run the knee started bothering me again. I was in half a mind to stop, but I split the run into three 6milers in my head and told myself that I could only stop at the end of one of them. The first 6 miles were hell but as I kept at it, the knee started feeling better. I don't know if it was just the adrenaline kicking in to numb the pain!

Things were good after that until I hit the 14 mile mark. I really started to feel the fatigue. When I started my run it was 5:45 am and I had skipped any breakfast. I had the one Powerbar on me, but I was already done eating it. Pretty silly - I need to be more careful with my nutrition! But with 4 miles to go, I felt I could still finish. My head carried me through those last 4 because my legs certainly weren't! I finished (not a step to soon) with an average pace of 10:55 min/mile.

18 miles: 3:16 (10:55 min/mile)

As a precaution, I iced my legs down after the run. Also, today I am wearing a knee brace just for some support. I figured it wont hurt. Any other recovery tips would be much appreciated. So far though, I feel good. Hopefully things will only be better tomorrow! Have a fabulous week everyone!

The knee

2008-02-15T11:45:00.002-05:00

A lot of icing made the right knee feel really good and I was planning to resume training on Wednesday. Somehow freakishly I ended up twisting my left leg in bed (yea.. I wouldn't be complaining if it was because of THAT!). So basically..no running all week. Tomorrow I am scheduled for an 18 miler and I am going to go out there and do it. Its one thing to miss the shorter runs during the week, but I just wouldn't feel comfortable not getting in the long ones.

Will let y'all know how it goes. Enjoy your weekend!

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A quick update on the experiment. I figure a month and half into the year is a good time to see how its going. So other than essentials, my only purchases have been a stack dvd's, a book and a pencil. Not bad eh? I do consider books as essentials, but still I guess I could have tried harder to find a copy in the library. Overall, I am pretty pleased with how this is going. It is really simple once you get started, not to mention your savings account starts looking pretty healthy and you have more money to contribute to whatever you think is worthy and important! Now thats a feeling nothing you can purchase can ever give you.

Park Hoppping: A 9th on the 9th race report

2008-02-10T20:28:00.000-05:00

True to form I did this late - on the 10th! But Nance - I had reasons :)

Sunday was the most gorgeous day here. 60 degrees, bright blue skies. My plan called for 13 miles but since this was the Sweetheart Shuffle, I had to plan a nice race route. Thats one of the best things about long runs - its like a mini trip in the city! So for todays run, I decided to run through some nice parts of old Atlanta including a lot of parks. For those from here, I started at Decatur and then hit Shadyside park, Druid Hills Golf Course, Candler Park and Little Five Points.

Little Five (Yes - we have a Big Five also!) is to Atlanta what Haight Street is to San Fran. It has the strangest assortment of shops full of the most creative|artsy|70's stuff. So it was a very cool neighborhood to run through. The area around it also has some fairly old houses, so overall I really enjoyed the course. I got lost a couple of times but a long run always gives you enough time to find your way again!

On Thursday night, I was supposed to get in 6 miles, but had to stop at 2 since my right knee was just acting funny. It felt a little weaker than the left one and I decided to cut the run short. I also moved the long run from Sat to Sunday to give it an extra day of rest. So I set off a little gingerly today. Everything was good until about mile 10 when my knee started bothering me again. I finished the 13 and other than the knee I felt great. I think I need to take a couple of days more and ice this thing until it gets better.

Final time: 9 miles : 1:28:12
13 miles: 2:02:45

Have a great week everyone!

Long run

2008-02-04T20:31:00.000-05:00

A ~~quick~~ post on Saturday's scheduled 16 miler.

As I had planned, I went to Stone Mountain Park for the run. I figured this would be a good way to get some hills into the long run, since the course for the ING Georgia Marathon is quite hilly also. The big loop you see around the mountain is 5 miles long so three rounds and a bit more would do it.

After a good brunch of 3 eggs, a muffin and some coffee, I headed out for the Park at around 2 pm. For all you metro-Atlanta bloggers - there is a free parking lot in Stone Mountain Village, which is on a trail 0.3 miles outside the park and leads onto the main road that goes around the mountain.

As I was running along the road, I noticed that due to the fall/winter weather, the woods along the road looked sort of barren. Usually they are too dense to run through, but I decided to try and run along the edge of the lake. It was absolutely gorgeous. My shoes got wet a couple of times from having to run through the little creeks draining into the lake and I had to go slow in parts but it was great. After about three miles, I merged back onto the main road.

As I completed the first loop around the mountain, I thought about going back to the car and getting some Gatorade and a bite of the energy bar, but since I was feeling good and this was only 7 miles into the run (added on a couple of miles due to the trail detour), I passed. That was probably not a good decision, since somewhere around 10.5 miles I could really feel the need for it. Anyhow, I pressed on and after 12 miles made a quick stop and grabbed half a energy bar and some gatorade. I also put on an outer shell since it was getting just a little chilly. Up unto this point I was in shorts and a long sleeve technical shirt. The joys of living in Georgia!

I thought the last four miles would really be a struggle, but somehow in my head I just knew that the 16 would happen. Actually, the stupid head was even thinking of throwing in a couple of extra miles, but thankfully better sense prevailed!

Final time: 2 hrs 52 minutes @ ~10:45 min/mile

I was shooting more for a 10:15-10:30 pace but I'll take the 10:45. I was a tad too cautious and probably also lost some time running on the trail so it was ok.

I have about 9 weeks to go for the marathon and the plan has me doing a 18, 19 and 20 miler for the next few weeks. I am sort of pleased now because I feel like I can make the transition to that distance.

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Sunday I just hobbled around the house and finally drove to a friends for the game. That was probably one of the most entertaining football games I have seen in a while. And being a Giants supporter made it even better! The play when Eli got away from the sack and connected to Tyree was something else. Overall, a great Super Bowl.

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Marcy - I like the Dr. A too! Although I could never imagine myself using a Dr in my title. Thats a little too pompous for me .. I'd just stick with A :)

Wes - I am still around for quite a bit (I see the light.. not the end of the tunnel :P ). We really have to get together and train some.

Makita - I am training for the ING Georgia Marathon.

Nancy - My PhD is in the larger area of Computer Science. I'll update my work site and post a link to that (This way I have some motivation to update it!)

Zen running

2008-02-01T00:52:00.000-05:00

I have noticed one change in my running pattern all of this January. I have basically more or less stopped keeping track of numbers. No more recording runs..heck I've even run without the Garmin more than I have with it! I guess its a temporary thing, but one of my friends is so bummed about it that he insists on giving me his Nike+ chip for my Ipod. Claims it will make fall in love all over again with them integers!

This weekend my plan has me on a 16 mile run. I am planning to do it at Stone Mountain Park because the hills would help in my training. Besides, I can ditch the Garmin since I know the trail. I am a little bit concerned because this is further than I have ever run before (previous being a couple of 14 milers) and probably my longest long run in the last month. So we'll see. I cant wait for Saturday to get here though, thats how much I am looking forward to it!

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In other news, this has been a busy week. I had a paper on my research accepted and had to get it to the publisher this week. Also had another paper that was submitted for review today and now I have a talk to give on it in tomorrow morning. The best part is that I have a grant to present this work at a conference in Miami in April!

Now that I think of it, I don't think I have ever mentioned what I do on this blog. Thats what happens when you get stuck reading an introverted blogger! Well I am working on a PhD and am somewhere in that part where there is teeny-weeny bit of light at the end of the tunnel. This year is really big for me since I need to get a lot of work done in order to graduate next year. So given all that, I am somewhat pleased at how things are starting out.

Yes.. its true

2008-01-21T21:56:00.000-05:00

We did get some snow here in the A. Twice last week. That's two more times than the past 2 years. Clearly such a moment in history should not go by without being captured for all my fellow bloggers (specially those for whom this is reminiscent of a bad spring day!).

I got in a 3 mile run on Saturday just to feel what its like to run in the snow. Besides, I wanted to relate to all the bloggers who run in weather like this everyday!

3 miles, 29:45

After I was done, I went back and basically walked the same path that I usually run on. So here are a few pictures I picked out of the many that I took.

I ended up butt deep in snow to get the one of the lake below, but it was well worth it. Only complaint... I wish this was on a working day. Two inches of snow is usually enough to get the day off here!

Check the press

2008-01-09T23:05:00.000-05:00

First a run update. I got in 6 miles today in 51:03. That was a 8:31 min/mile pace. I didn't realize I was going that fast! When I started out I was really hungry since I had eaten much less than I normally do for lunch. Maybe I should try that again to see if I have a pattern going!

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Strangely the top story on reddit yesterday was about a runner called Cliff Young (You cant imagine how rare it is for a non-political post to make it!) . I had not heard of him but I am sure others amongst you have. Here is the article.

And another rather strange story off how important thinking that you are loosing weight is to actually loosing weight! Here.

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Finally, good luck to Wes, Maddy and everyone else at Disney this weekend or wherever you may be racing!

Back in the saddle

2008-01-05T17:04:00.000-05:00

The weather here can only be described with one word - crazy!

Earlier this week we had about three days in the 20's and 30's. I did get out and run twice, even if they were only about 3 miles a piece.

This morning I was at the book store, trying to finish up a Bill Bryson book (yes.. I am one of those people!). Funny thing is the book had a story about how while browsing a bookstore in Paris Bill saw an owlish guy read a book, mark his page and then put it back on the shelf, presumably to come back later and finish it. That promptly dismissed any feeling of guilt I had, since I handle the book I am reading with care! Besides, I wouldn't describe myself as remotely owlish.

Anyways, I am heading home from the bookstore and I suddenly realize, this is a nice day. On the way I drive past a number of people out on their bikes. Before I know it, I am home and pumping the tires on my bike. In my haste I probably never noticed that most of the people I saw had on tights and all I own is a pair of shorts. But still, it wasn't too bad. Maybe in the mid 40's and in few minutes all was good.

I probably rode somewhere between 15-20 miles. Cant be sure cause the computer needs a new battery. Makes me long for spring now! And the forecast says we may be into the 70's this week.

Enjoy your weekend everyone!

Looking back, Looking forward

2008-01-05T00:23:00.000-05:00

This is a time of the year when a lot of us look forward and sometimes also backwards. In a conversation with a friend just today I got talking some about the looking back deal. So for all of you, a few not so random thoughts on the looking back part...

Have you ever had a moment when you know you are supposed to feel something - sad, angry, something negative - but instead all you've got is nothing. Nothing. And then that bothers you almost as much as whatever happened.

I think there are some things you experience that just need to ferment. Sit in some corner of your subconsciousness and stew, while you eventually carry on.

Almost no two people look at the same thing and see the same thing. Something that provokes intense emotion in me could mean nothing to you. This is the basic meaning of different. Getting angry/sad/(your adjective) about it doesn't change much.

I think we place too much emphasis on "letting it out". Sometimes if you don't, you may just get to a far enough point, from where you can look back and not feel regret, or even wish for a different outcome but, just be glad that you felt.

Happy New Year and more!

2008-01-03T16:01:00.000-05:00

Alright.. I love being the last one to do everything. So Happy New Year to everyone.. and if you still have a hangover than I don't know what to say!

I had a great New Years eve. Got together with some friends, watched the Peach Drop, for the first (and possibly the last) time ever, and then hung out some more. Low key, moderate liquor, high company, overall a pretty great combination!

Resolutions? I have never really had one. I guess they're just not for me. But there is something that is more like a New Year's experiment that I am trying out. I've been thinking about it for most of December and it started with my birthday and then Christmas.

Whenever someone asked me what I wanted, I honestly could not come up with a single thing that I really needed. Now sometimes, I am prone to having occasional fits of idealism and imagining "What if?". The product of one of these fits was the idea to try and see if I can go through all of 2008 without buying anything.

Let me explain. I am not talking here of rent, food and gas of course. But more of the unnecessary purchases most of us tend to make. The idea is to really evaluate if something is absolutely necessary or not before you buy it and I'll make the rules up as I go. The sad thing is, that I have a feeling that this might be a very easy resolution to keep, once I get into the habit. And thats sad because it reflects on how much stuff we have.

P.S. If this works, you may not want to ask me what I want for Christmas next year!
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Yesterday was really cold here and when I went out for a run at 7 pm it was somewhere in the low-20's with the wind chill. Now I like the cold, but more than that I've just been reading all these posts from everyone up North, so I was just mighty curious to feel what its like to run when its like that.

It wasn't bad once I got warmed up. My throat was really cold since it was exposed, so I need to dress better, but overall I liked it.

3.5 miles, 34:11 minutes.

Merry Christmas everyone!

2007-12-24T11:53:00.000-05:00

I haven't been posting for the past couple of weeks, but its time to wish all my virtual pals a Happy Holidays!

So kick back, enjoy your family and the holidays!

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I was in NYC for the past weekend, so for all us southerners who have no hope of snow (or rain) here's a little white Christmas snap of the snow coming down in Central Park.

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What would the holiday season be without a post on shopping. Now for me the point of heading to the mall is to really feel that the holidays are here. Sure its cheaper and more convenient to shop online, but then you wouldn't know the joy of driving 3.2 miles to find a parking spot!

I finished shopping yesterday and got everything all wrapped up. Now all thats left is loading the car up and making the short trip to see my family. Well, were not exactly related... but thats just a minor detail! They are the best people and Christmas wouldn't be the same without spending time with them.

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And finally.. my favorite commercial from this shopping season. Feed the warrior!

8 on the 8th (or... the 10th)

2007-12-10T19:57:00.000-05:00

Alright.. I am probably the worst since I did this two whole days after I was supposed to! First of all thanks to Nancy for coming up with this awesome idea. So here goes the race report:

Time: 1:14:46. (9:21 min/mile)

Prelude: The last week has basically been a series of deadlines. That's one reason I couldn't do this before the 10th. Sorry!

Pre-Race Nutrition: Hmm.. lets see. To keep it sweet, let me just say that over the week my CoC/day(thats Cups of Coffee) has easily bettered my min/mile for today.

Race report: That was the hardest run I've had for a while. Somewhere between mile 3 and 4 I was so tempted to just stop. But that was just terrible.. doing it late and then not finishing! So I stuck to it.

My stomach felt like a volcano thanks to the caffeine binge I have been on... really need to stop OD'ing on this stuff! But once I decided to stick to it, I found some rhythm and it became easier as it went on. Not the best time, but I'll take it.

Thanks to everyone who participated. And if someone out there wants to still do it.. please do. I'd hate to be the last person to finish!

A truly amazing story

2007-12-06T23:17:00.000-05:00

This left me with no words.

You can read the story also.

The Team Hoyt site.

Yet Another December Born

2007-12-04T17:41:00.000-05:00

Seems like a lot of bloggers are December borns. So I am going to add myself to the list - Not that I have much of a choice in that matter!

What does it feel like to be all of twenty-six years old?... not much different than any other (with the obvious exception of twenty-one!). Birthday plans... hmm.. lets see. I have been at school since 7 am, and will probably be here until 8 pm. But this weekend a few of us plan to get together and possibly go and watch the Thrashers. Nothing quite matches the mindless entertainment level of hockey, some beers and a few good fights!

I did put some of that birthday money to good use. New cycling shoes.. finally going clipless! Cant beat the price at twenty bucks - one of the best thing about a December birthday - everything is on clearance!

I think some dessert and a beer are in order tonight. There has to be some compensation for getting older! Cheers!!

More skeletons in the closet

2007-11-29T14:20:00.001-05:00

So I got tagged by Maddy. Here's five more things to check off the weird list:

1. As a kid in kindergarten my favorite past time was catching frogs and putting them in people's lunch boxes. Our school had a thing for discipline so this phase did not last very long!

2. I have to have rice for at least one meal every day. Yea.. I know all you Atkins fans are appalled. But I get extremely cranky if I don't get my rice. Talking of Atkins check this out (warning. Very NSFW !!)

3. I have a thing for washing my car when its raining. My neighbors used to think I am crazy, but after the drought here in Georgia I have occasionally been hailed as a water conservationist. Truth is I am too lazy and washing it in the rain saves me from having to rinse the soap off.

4. I never ever get jet lagged when traveling half way around the world. But Daylight Savings... I just cant get used to it!

5. When most people learn how to ski they try the bunny slopes. Somehow, I found myself 2100ft above where I started and there was only one way down. Two comments: Ouch and it was awesome!! (For the record, the ski instructors were on strike so this was the alternate plan I came up with)

Since most of you have been tagged, I'll just let you join in if you haven't!
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Work out updates: I got in two short runs this week since I have been working late. The leg has not been so great so I am keeping the runs short and trying to compensate with the cross training. Hopefully get in a few miles tonight.

Just give me what I want...

2007-11-27T13:40:00.000-05:00

Wes .. you know you want a cup!

Turkey Day Race Report

2007-11-23T18:44:00.001-05:00

After swapping some emails back and forth Wes and I decided to meet up at the race expo to pick up our packets. It was really great to meet you and Dee Dee! I agree Wes, we should organize something for all the bloggers here in Georgia. It turned out to be a great decision to meet at the expo since on race morning there was no way you could spot anyone else. I think they had over 8000 runners for the half.

I walked around the expo with Wes for a while looking at all the stuff and talking. This is actually the first "large" race I had entered. So the whole expo thing was very new to me. Both the other half's I had done earlier this year were usually just drive somewhere and pick up you bib kind of deal.

Well, one of the booths around the expo was for the ING Georgia marathon. Originally this race on Thanksgiving was to have been my full, but since I lost a good 6 weeks due to being ill and off running, I had to switch races. The date for the race is March 30 next year. I picked up a flier and walked around some more thinking about it. And then on an impulse decided to go register for it right away. It made a lot of sense since the date is just right and an expo registration was a lot cheaper. So thats the next big race folks!

Any how, after a dinner of turkey meatballs and pasta I decided to call it an early night and hit the sack just around midnight. I woke up at 5 am and drove to the Lindbergh MARTA station. Those of you who have had the pleasure of riding MARTA would understand why it made sense to drive to the closest station to the race start. Pardon the ranting but I commuted on MARTA for three years and they are almost never on schedule! So I wasn't taking chances getting on the station near where I live.

Well, on getting to the start line I tried to look around for Wes and Dee Dee, but it was just crazy crowded. I didn't really expect that many people. And certainly not a guy running in a full turkey costume! We've been in the middle of a record drought here, but this morning it was raining just a bit and right after the gun sounded, somewhere in the middle of mile 1 the rain just picked up. I really liked it though, except that later on I discovered these huge blisters on my feet due to wet socks.

The course was basically straight down Peachtree Street. For those of you not from Georgia, this is the grand-daddy of all streets named Peachtree-something. It hits all the nice spots in the city and goes from up North all the way downtown ending at Turner Field. When I had looked at the course elevation, it was very flat for the first 7 miles and then just became uphill almost all the way until the end. This was also part of the course for the '96 Olympics marathon.

As I had said in my last post, something in my inner thigh on my left leg had been bothering me and it didn't feel all the great even on race day. So given that and the course profile, I decided to start as strong as I could since it would be hard to finish with a few quick miles. So after a first mile of 9:15, the next three went at 8:25, 8:24, 8:40. The mile corresponding to the downhill on the map there went at 7:15. So about half way I really began to feel a PR was on the cards. My leg was just getting to be painful but right as those hills kicked in, so did the endorphins. Talk about timing! The last two miles runs through downtown Atlanta, parts of my university and I happen to park at the lot near the finish line every day. So the familiarity of it all just gave me a little lift into the finish.

Final time as per the unofficial race results: 1:58:40. A new PR by just over 3 minutes! And I broke 2 hours for the first time.

Three Thanksgiving meals and a few beers later I am hobbling around a bit today, but it was worth it!

Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving! And thank you to all my virtual running mates for all your encouragement and support over the year. Enjoy the rest of your weekend everyone!

I ran for ryan

2007-11-19T22:22:00.000-05:00

For my 5.5 mile memorial run Saturday I decided to do one of my favorite loops around a lake close to where I live. There probably isn't anything very 'special' about this loop, but it was somewhere on that road that I became a runner and a part of this amazing community.

The support for this run was incredible. I saw people who committed to doing it on various blogs, on complete running, and on Facebook. Thank You all for being a part of this.

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For my last three or four runs over the last week, I have had this niggling feeling in my inner left thigh. Its nothing that has stopped me from running, but its one of those things where every time your foot lands you realize that somethings funny. So I decided to stick to the bike and some stretching until Thursdays Half Race. Hopefully that will do the trick. Have a great week everyone - specially those of you who are taking the whole week off!

Goat testicles anyone?

2007-11-16T21:36:00.000-05:00

If I remember correctly, Marcy once had a post titled something to the effect of "The sexiness that is Bear Grylls" (Alright... I am too lazy to verify that, but I am pretty darn sure that was the title!)

Well good news for you Marcy. He just turned it up a notch.

A new season of the show Man Vs. Wild started recently and I managed to catch a couple of episodes. The one that just aired had him dropped off somewhere in the Sahara. In a single show his various meals comprised of a live beetle, a grilled snake, raw goat testicles, camel steak and a nice raw frog. And I almost forgot, he skinned a dead camel, drank the fluids in its stomach and then took shelter inside the carcass.

Note to self: Next time finish dinner before the show.

I read all the stories about how some things are set up on the show (Here is a wiki documenting it). But any guy who does all that is one tough bloke and has my allegiance. Besides, how can you not respect a guy whose name is Bear!

Looking forward to turkey day

2007-11-13T22:35:00.000-05:00

Update: A reminder, Saturday is the Ryan Shay memorial run. Please join in.

Last week was very busy since I had to cover two different classes for my advisor. I really do like teaching, but it can be really difficult to just come in and do a one-off thing in the middle of the semester. However, I think it all went off pretty good and I had a lot of fun (as strange as that may sound!)

By Friday, I was just about ready for the weekend. But as luck would have it... I woke up with a terrible cold Saturday. Seems like everyone here is getting it but c'mon whats the point of being sick if you cant get a day off!

This evening I got home at a reasonable time so I decided to try and get a run in. 10 miles in 1:39, nothing great in pace but the loop I was running had some nice hills so I felt like I got a decent workout.

Next week is the half-marathon on Turkey Day. More than the race I look forward to meeting up with Wes (and Dee-Dee!)!

A tribute

2007-11-07T16:28:00.000-05:00

A lot of people in the blog sphere posted about Ryan Shay's death at the Olympic trials and how much it made them think about so many things.

Jeff at amazing hip had what I thought is an incredible idea for a tribute to Ryan. His post is reproduced here with permission. You can find the original here. Please join in on the 17th of November and dedicate 5.5 miles of your run to Ryan and thinking about a few things that are bigger than all of us.

From Jeff:

most folks out there that are reading this that are runners themselves are familiar with the untimely death of ryan shay over the weekend at the 2008 olympic marathon trials in new york on saturday, november 3rd. ryan collapsed at mile 5.5 and was pronounced dead at lenox hill hospital shortly thereafter.

this news has rocked the distance running community, as ryan had an incredibly promising career and had already set many records in his years at notre dame and proved himself at distances ranging from 10k to the marathon. at 28, the prospects of him representing the us in future olympics looked good.

sure, the loss of a talented distance runner is a tough pill to swallow for the united states, who has only recently started to have a resurgence of talent at the marathon level. what is harder to swallow, though, is the thought of those that are left behind trying to make sense of the empty space that he once occupied. his wife, alicia. his training partners, meb, deena, josh, etc. his numerous friends and family.

join me in support of them as they process their loss and dedicate your own 5.5 mile run next saturday, november 17th, in memory of ryan. run the exact distance, or dedicate a 5.5 mile portion of a longer run in his memory. take the time to recognize life's frailty, to think about those in your life that you need to tell that you love and most of all, pray for those that will feel ryan's absence the most.

thank you.

A few updates

2007-11-05T22:03:00.000-05:00

I am sure all of you heard about Ryan Shay's tragic death at the Olympic Trials Saturday. It was one of those things that you can never explain. Please keep his family in your prayers.

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A big one for all the mom's out there on Sunday. Both mom's Paula Radcliffe and Gete Wami had a run to the finish with Radcliffe just out doing Wami. I really enjoyed watching the finish. Even more so than the men's race.

---
I missed out on my run Sunday. Just too much going on. But I made up for it today. I haven't
seen the splits yet but it was a 10 miler in 1:32 and some change. That works out to about a 9:10/mile pace. What pleased me the most was finishing the last mile at 8:26. I feel like I am finally getting the negative splits that have so eluded me!

A big sports weekend

2007-11-02T23:23:00.000-04:00

The Olympic marathon trials are on 7 am (EST). TV coverage is sporadic, but it will be available streaming online for free. Here is the site. Don't miss out, it is one of the best

Sunday is a full day. The NYC Marathon is on. And yes.. Lance is back yet again.

Also on Sunday, the Eagles take on the Cowboys. And the big one ... the Colts Vs. Patriots. Who are y'all rooting for??

Have a super weekend everyone!

No more Ipods?

2007-11-01T10:19:00.001-04:00

The USA Track & Field has banned the use of headphones and audio players citing:

"The new rule was created to ensure safety and to prevent runners from having a competitive edge."

Here is the full story.

Now it doesn't really matter whether you are for or against this. What bothers me is the fact that this is a runners choice, and not that of some organization. I can see the point in safety. But most races are closed courses. And "competitive edge", puhlease... they should have a ton of other things to worry about.

What next.. lets ban Powerbars for giving you some extra juice?

---
Last nights splits:
Mile 1 - 8:20
Mile 2 - 8:02
Mile 3 - 7:52

That felt good, and I did have my Ipod on. So I guess this run doesn't count!

Random Tales

2007-10-31T10:39:00.000-04:00

Happy Halloween everyone!

---

Runners World ran a story about the Hansons-Brooks runners a few months back. And now the New York Times has a piece on them. Its quite an amazing story and definitely worth a read.

Update: Turns out that they have a blog also.

---

Talking about Runners World - I know they draw a lot of flack from serious runners. But I got to come out of the closet and admit this... I really like the stories they do. Well, sometime in July I mailed a check to renew my subscription. Now this is almost November and yesterday I receive a reminder saying that my account is overdue. So I dig through my statements and find out that the check was cashed sometime in August. Now what is going on here... hmm.

I usually go to any lengths to avoid placing a phone call to a real live human being (my 1600 something rollover minutes accumulated over 8 months is a testament to that!) so I take the escape route and email them. No good. They ask me to call them.

So here I am dreading this long winded conversation... but to my surprise I get this really nice lady. She tries to locate the payment but is unable to do so. I tell her that I can fax her a copy of the check after retrieving it from my bank. But she says there is no need for that and simply credits my account. Now thats customer service people!

---

Sunday's long run was ok. I managed 8 miles at just under a 10 min/mile pace. It was slow going but thats alright. Other than that, a whole lot of shorter runs and the usual hitting the gym on week nights. Not a whole lot to report.

Enjoy the rest of your week everyone!

Running to sanity

2007-10-21T23:14:00.000-04:00

Last week was one of those weeks that just seemed "full".

On Monday, there was a deadline so I left work at around 8pm. Before I got home, I found out there was a still a "bit" more to do. I still snuck out for a short 2 miler. That was probably a good thing though since I ended up working until 4 am. Nothing like a night run, to wake you up!

A whole lot of other things filled the week... but I'll spare you the details.

Yesterday was spectacular weather here. Cool and clear. Managed a 6 miler. I was very sore from the day before, so I started out slow. But things got better as the run progressed. Here are the splits.

10:53
10:41
10:04
10:04
9:58
8:21

A slow run/ride for about 30 minutes, seems to always help me get rid of the soreness from the day before.

---
Went to the movies last night to see Into the wild.

The movie is based on a book by the same name by Jon Krakauer(who writes for Outside). The book is something worth reading if you haven't. Its based on the real life story of Chris McCandless and is one of those books that stays with you since it deals with so many things that most us have thought about at some point of time.

With regards to the movie, it was very faithful to the book, somewhat long (2:30 hrs!) but decently made. A little more editing would have helped but overall, fairly watchable.

Nano surgery

2007-10-11T23:09:00.000-04:00

First some running numbers:
Today: 3 miles (25:28)

I kicked butt! Thanks to teacherwoman. I just had to get the Kanye West song on your site, and I must say it makes for good running music!

On the whole been a decent week. Hit the bike twice, got two runs in and a little bit of strength training also.
---
Last week I did one of those completely idiotic, kick yourself in the butt kind of things that I seem to be so good at.

So I am sitting at home, enjoying a glass of ginger ale and I decide to try on the new sleeve I have for the nano. Umm... bad idea to set the glass down on the floor while doing this (The table was too far away!). Now if I had only spilled the glass and got this huge stain on my carpet, that would be ok. Not even something to blog about. But no, I got to make a good story right?!

Somehow the nano slips through my fingers and dunks itself somewhere right between the ice cubes with a resounding plop. Imagine the expression on my face. My first thought was get it out of there. Next one.. you are an idiot!

So that brings me to the next part of my story. What do you do in the unlik ely event of a liquid spill on your nano (or your nano in a liquid spill)? Here is some a dvice:

1. Don't spill.
2. If you just cant resist 1, then do follow this - DO NOT turn it on. I know the temptation. You want to see if it still works. But don't do it.
3. Find the right tools and instructions. This is a great step by step article.
Now I was able to do all the same with one flat head screw driver, and one of those miniature screwdrivers. Just be gentle - and patient. Prying open the case is not a brute force thing.
4. The probable damage is liquid between the lcd screen and the casing and liquid in the wheel. Use something like a cotton bud and completely dry these out. Pay special attention to the wheel.
5. Put it all together again.

And presto.. it works! Well, thats more a testament to the nano's sturdiness than my repairing skills!

A longtime coming

2007-10-07T23:26:00.000-04:00

Its been a long time! But after what seems like forever I finally got back to running over this weekend.

Just two short and slow runs - 2 miles(21:47) and 3 miles(32:07).

Like I said, I had been sick for a bit. I was having these on and off bouts of extreme dizziness, and for a while they couldn't figure out what was causing it. The thing is that I could basically not do much - no driving and sadly.. no running.

Well, the good news is that it turned out to be nothing much and I'm ok now. Thanks to the Internet and endless reading of symptoms, I could point my doctor to what was the eventual diagnosis. But still, I took it cautious and decided not to run until I feel strong enough.

So on Friday I did a gentle 2 miler to see how it feels. Well, I've heard of muscle "memory" but let me tell you about muscle amnesia. I was so sore the next day! It was worse than any long run I have ever run. Anyways, I got out again today and did another slow run of 3 miles. I guess it will be a while to get back in the groove, but thats ok. As far as Fall race plans, this has completely ruined my Thanksgiving Day marathon plans. But since I am registered, I figure I'll do the half. At least it will give me something to train for in the following weeks.

But hey, its fall. Its time for football. And some great weather to run in. So things are good!

This sucks

2007-09-10T21:30:00.000-04:00

I haven't been posting any updates because I haven't worked out at all... for two weeks. Been quite sick and its been rough getting better since one day I feel fine and the next day I just don't. This is so frustrating.

I am thinking of getting out for a run at the end of this week if things go good. Lets see how it goes. Not sure whats going to happen to my plan. Maybe I will just pick it up in between. Will keep y'all posted.

Road Trippin

2007-08-27T23:43:00.000-04:00

Back from another short sabbatical and some more stories from the road. Dont worry I ain't in a funk yet :) If I'm not posting it probably means I'm gone!

So this turned out to be one hell of a long trip. 2400 miles of driving. One driver (me).

My cousin arrived from India and is starting school in Iowa. So we loaded up the Jeep and drove all the way from Atlanta to Iowa.

First stop Chattanooga, TN. Unfortunately no camera here :)

Next stop. St. Louis, Missouri. The gateway to the west. Didn't really have much time here but we had to see the Mississippi and of course the Great Arch. It is quite a majestic sight on the banks of the mighty river.

I have never really spent any time previously in the Midwest other than Chicago, so I had no idea what to expect in Iowa. Well... not true I did expect to see some corn.

Ok - make that a lot of corn! But jokes aside, I absolutely loved Iowa. We were in a little college town that was smack in the middle of nowhere. The campus was gorgeous and I loved the small town life.

A day trip to Des Moines.

And the slight detour on the way back through Chicago. Couldn't resist going back there after being so close. I just love that city!

Every road trip has its fair share of stories. So after locking the keys in the trunk, trying to get past some flooded highways and a lot of driving I am back in Atlanta. But there is nothing quite romantic like a long road stretching into the horizon.

So there is the story in pictures for y'all!

Visual DNA

2007-08-11T14:11:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Avik for sharing this. Pretty interesting and fun!
Get your own Visual DNA here.

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

A big thank you to everyone

2007-08-06T23:45:00.000-04:00

Thanks a bunch to everyone for your comments on the last post. I hadn't checked out the FIRST plans and that was great. As was the plan that Maddy sent me.

I think I am settling for a 3 day/week run, 2 day/week cross train program and I may add a day of strength training to that. That's pretty much what most plans call for.

The weekend was pretty uneventful. On Saturday I woke up early to get a 10 miler in. But my hamstrings were so sore and tight that they felt like guitar strings! So I decided to be a little cautious and move the run to later in the day hoping that I'd feel better with some stretching|icing.

So come 5'oclock I was feeling a little looser and decided to see how it feels. Hmm... Lesson 5: Avoid an afternoon run in Georgia in August. It was freaking hot... mid 90's says the weatherman but it felt like a lot more. There is a reason they put that thermometer in the shade!

This soon became the hardest|slowest|(choose your fav negative adjective) long run I've had. I was going slow... and really thought about stopping a couple of times. But somehow I stuck to it and although I finished a good minute/mile slower than my usual pace (1:41 for 10 miles) - at least I finished. Strangely though, the slow run seems to have helped the hamstring and it feels normal now.

Have a great week everyone!

A man needs a plan.. and my head's spinning!

2007-07-31T23:32:00.000-04:00

Alright everyone... I'm going crazzy here! I just can't decide what plan to use for my Thanksgiving day marathon.

For the first half marathon I used a plan from Hal Higdon. For the second there was no plan since it was only a month after the first. So I just kept up my mileage.

I like Hal's plans, so I looked at his novice marathon Plan 2. I like the look of it, but what puts me off is the lack of variety. Why is everything a run/pace? So I am thinking if I should mess around with the shorter runs in that plan (Tue/Thu) and keep the same distance but use them for speedwork/hillwork.

And two rest days a week... hmm.. with the mileage thats in the first few weeks, I would probably put on 10 pounds! (That might not be so bad - at least I'd land a picture of me next to Britney Spears on Marcy's blog :P )

So then I looked at his Intermediate 1 plan. This is more or less like Novice Plan 2 except that now you have Mondays for cross training instead of rest. Hmm.. this I like the look of!

Right then the little voice in my head's going "Hey buddy aren't we being a little too presumptuous in picking an Intermediate plan here". (Damn that voice!)

Fact is until I got into running, I hadn't done much of anything athletic before in my life. So I guess there is some merit in being cautious.

I think about this a bit on my run today and I realize this:

I am the kind of person who hates planning. But not having a plan here would be suicidal.
Knowing myself (a little), I would tend to lean towards the harder plan. (I would also probably realize I am stupid somewhere down the road!)

Any thoughts on this whole mess? Any other plans out there I should look at?

The one great thing here is that the two plans are so similar I can easily switch midway if I feel the Monday cross training is getting too much.
---
July running stats: 78.5 miles

How hard is hard?

2007-07-29T13:29:00.000-04:00

So the Tour de France finally came to an end today. Its been a rather rough last couple of years for them with a lot of controversies. But I want to focus on another aspect of the Tour that is easily forgotten in the blitz of negative publicity that is the life blood of modern media.

I can give you a lot of statistics about how hard the climbs are, how long the stages are, how difficult the changes in weather are but anyone who has seen a stage in the Pyrenees or the Alps would know that these mean nothing. Its just plain and simple hard. And what makes it harder is the fact that these riders do this almost every day for three long weeks.

So forget about all the muck in contemporary cycling and stop for a second to applaud any man who endured this event on his own.

Finally, I came across an interesting piece in the NY Times thats looks at cycling in the Tour as opposed to running a marathon at a sub five minute/mile pace. What I like about it is the non-judgmental tone of the writer.

Moral of the story: Choose your own dose of pain and then revel in it!

Bitten by the bug

2007-07-25T23:22:00.000-04:00

This had to happen. Some of you probably guessed it I'm sure! But after the riding experience I was hooked. Problem was I couldn't really afford a bike.

So I did what any child of the Internet would do. Turned to Craigslist. And after several weeks of scouring the postings this is what I ended up getting. It still is your basic road bike. A french made Motobecane, a used bike in very good shape and for a very great price - its just what I needed.

Thing is I just want to ride. And I ain't letting a small thing like money get in the way! Sure I'd like a nice bike. But this one will do for getting me started.

I had the fit adjusted for me at the local bike shop and then took her out for a ride yesterday. Got in a 22 mile ride before it got too dark. So far it was just getting a feel for the bike and the shifting. But I plan to take her out for a longer ride this weekend. My hands are so red today - I can finally understand why there is such a thing as riding gloves! As you can see... I've got a lot too learn.

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Couldn't end this post without mentioning that I did get and finish the new Harry Potter book this weekend. Don't worry - I am not giving out any spoilers.

The ending to the whole saga was very satisfying. All the pieces came together really nicely and some of the characters were really nicely developed, instead of being portrayed as all good or all bad.

Hmm.. you can even see my copy behind the rear tire of the bike!

A new workout

2007-07-19T23:58:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Jess for leaving me a very detailed description of an ab workout. I am sharing it here, quote-unquote from her comment. Btw - check out her blog, its great!

So today I started out with the session she described. I have been working on my core for a couple of months now. But I have really been looking for some kind of routine that I can use. And now finally I have it. Thanks a bunch Jess! I also vouch for how good it is... although I'll be sore enough to back that up tomorrow :)

Followed this up with some stretching and then headed out for a 7 mile run. The weather was really getting to me. It was warm and very humid and I ended the run completely drenched. My pace wasn't so great (9:32/mile). But I guess that happens.

Have a great weekend everyone!

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24 crunches (3 sets of 8)
8 crunches with a two count up and a down count down
8 single crunches
8 crunches with three count up one count down
8 single crunches
8 crunches with one count up three count down
8 single crunches
Hold one crunch up for 8 slow counts

4 Bicycle legs slow (holding for 4 counts before switching)
8 Bicycle legs medium (hold two counts)
8 Bicycle legs normal (hold one count)
16 Bicycle legs with upper body rotating opposite knee to opposite elbow.

Plank time:
Hold first one for 24 counts
For second stack left toes on top of right heel (you'll only be on one leg) Hold 8 counts. Switch feet hold eight counts. Both feet on ground for 8 counts.

Side planks:
Do one on each side. Hold for 24 counts.
For second set, hold top leg in the air (your legs should make a triangle) Repeat on other side.

Low back:
Laying on stomach, feet on floor, use low back muscles to lift chest off the ground. 8 singles, 8, 2 count up 2 count down (repeat twice)

Lower Abs:
Legs in the air drop one leg as close to the ground as you can get it and then lift it back up. Repeat alternating legs. (16 counts)

Keep feet in air, foot flexed, use low abs to curl hips off ground as if you're trying to stamp your feet into the ceiling. Do eight.

8 regular crunches (feet stay up)

8 stamp the feet to the ceiling curls

8 regular crunches (feet stay up)

8 full body (regular crunch with feet)

If there's time end with a 24 count plank.

Some more snaps

2007-07-16T23:43:00.000-04:00

Couldn't resist sharing some more of these. I love the cloud formation in the second snap. Also, the fourth one was taken half submerged, keeping the camera at the level of the water. Was well worth it!

An outdoor break

2007-07-11T23:55:00.000-04:00

Spent a few days in Quebec last week. For those of you who haven't been there... its just a fabulous part of Canada if you're into the outdoors. I was in Mont Tremblant. I have been there skiing in the winter, but the summer experience was something else.

Managed to bike, run, hike, kayak, golf and play some tennis. Phew! My poor body is still aching :)

For all the bikers out there. I tried for the first time to ride a "proper" road bike. With clips. The whole feeling of being one with the bike (not to mention clipping off when you stop) took some getting used to. But riding through the mountains and climbing hills for a 35km ride was quite an experience.

All in all it was very thrilling. The descents at high speed give a spectacular rush. I just wish I had the money to get a decent bike and ride some more.

Managed to get a few runs in also. The longest being 10 miles. The trails here are just gorgeous. The terrain makes it challenging but also provides for some great training. The hike up the mountain was great too. All in all a 2500 ft ascent up a 5 mile trail. Some hiking experience is required, specially if you want to make good time.

Let me leave you all with a picture perfect view of a sunset from the deck of the place I was staying at.

Fall plans

2007-06-27T12:41:00.000-04:00

I finally heard from the NYC Marathon that I did not make the lottery for a number. So it now looks like I am going to end up signing up for the Atlanta Marathon on Nov 22. Yes - that is the day before Thanksgiving, and I wasn't too pleased about that since I usually visit family up North at that time. But on the bright side, doing a local race would mean some support which makes a huge difference, plus I can eat all the turkey I want the next day without much guilt!

Now that I have a race picked, I've been thinking about my training plan. Most plans go about 16-weeks so that would mean that I have to stick to one staring July 22nd. I have been running enough to be a few weeks into the beginner plans that I looked at, so I will share my tailored plan soon with all of you.

Can't wait to get started with the training!

Blowing some midweek steam

2007-06-14T00:27:00.001-04:00

Been a decent week so far.

Got a 3 miler in Monday night and followed it up with an 8 mile run on Tuesday. I wasn't really trying to push but when I saw my time at the 3 and 6 mile mark I tried to keep up the pace. Ended up with a 69 minutes and a few seconds time for the full distance. That's somewhere around an 8:40 min/mile pace.

After three nights of running I decided to hit the bike today. Got in a 16 mile ride and it felt good. Hmm.. maybe I should try this more!

----

As a follow up to the post on advertising campaigns, here are two new features added by Nike to their running site. Very cool... although I wouldn't call the Goucher's your typical neighborhood distance runners!

See the video at NikeRunning.com

Tag'd

2007-06-10T18:19:00.001-04:00

Tagged by teacherwoman.

So here is my 6 weird things:

1. I have something for anything thats blue in color.
2. I absolutely hate wearing shoes. I would run in my sandals if I could.
3. I never get jet lagged even when flying half away across the world.
4. I suffer from a severe, self diagnosed case of N.A.D.D. (Don't worry its not as bad as it sounds!)
5. I eat anything and everything - except cottage cheese (yuuukk!)
6. It takes me an hour to finish a cup coffee and by then I have usually reheated it twice.

And now my turn to do the honors. I tag Maddy, Wes, Makita, Charles and Jason.

The Rock

2007-06-07T23:47:00.000-04:00

For the past few weeks I've been looking for some change in my running. For the most part I run at one of two locations - a really scenic loop around the town where I live and the indoor track at school. And while the first is a real joy to run on I have been really feeling the need for some variety.

A week ago I was going to Stone Mountain Park and carried my running shoes along to try the 5 mile loop around the mountain. I actually ended up doing 7 miles that day and I really enjoyed it. The trail is great - very scenic with a few lakes on the side, and these turns that give you some incredibly sudden views of the rock. The picture here was taken with a cell phone so its not the best.

So today when I had a meeting very close to the park I thought ah... here is a chance to do the loop again. When the meeting was done I grabbed a couple of bottles of water, quickly changed into my running clothes in the car and hit the trail, really glad to be out there.

But it was very hard going! This was around 5pm so it warm, at 90 degrees today. All I had eaten since morning was a banana and a bowl of cereal. Nowhere near what I need! And did I mention that its a fairly hilly loop in parts. Anyways - I ended up doing the 5 miles in 48 minutes. Even though today was hard, I enjoyed being out there enough to think about making this a more frequent place to run. At least a couple of times a month to mix things up.

As an aside - there is a separate trail that goes up the mountain and on a clear day it offers some great views of the city. Check the picture below.

Ah those advertising campaigns

2007-06-02T13:48:00.000-04:00

Wes wrote about the "We are not joggers" campaign by Pearl Izumi and the subsequent email he received. I tend to agree with him (and several people who commented on his post). The campaigns emphasis on speed and running as a primal activity is way over the top specially with the references to hunting!

In stark contrast is the "Run easy" campaign started by Reebok. This one paints a picture of running as a social activity - something that is very human.

I guess the real view of running is somewhere in between these extremes. Some of the best runs I have had are with friends where the conversation is easy and intermittent. But on other days I just wanted to run alone and sometimes run hard.

And to round up this post, here is something I came across in the NY Times on the Modern Marathoner. The article talks about how more and more people are training with fewer miles/week and less of an emphasis on speed and time than on the whole marathon "experience".

Simple pleasures

2007-05-16T16:55:00.000-04:00

A lot of times we get out of something as much as we put into it - if that much at all. Sometimes however, you receive something way beyond you what you expect or even deserve. Been that sort of a week with my running.

I have done just about everything that I shouldn't. Eaten poorly, not slept enough, not hydrated enough ... (Someone needs to come up with a cardinal sins list for running!). Partly because of other things and partly because I have just been plain careless.

But still for some reason I have had three amazing runs in this week.

Just when I needed them.

A good reminder as to why I run. I guess we need some constants to fall back on from time to time. And a good run always does it for me.

For the past week I have experimented with adding some "speedwork" to my weekly plan. Right now its basically a 6 mile routine.

Mile 1 - warmup (9.30 pace)
Mile 2 - alternating 'sprint' reps of 0.125 miles. (sprint - in the most humble sense of the word!)
Mile 3 - 10k pace
Mile 4 - repeat Mile 2
Then depending on how good/bad I am feeling I either repeat Mile 2 for Mile 5 or just run the last 2 miles at my 10k pace for a 6 miles in total. The whole thing usually ends up taking between 52-54 minutes.

So far I am really enjoying this. The goal is to add some variety for now. I would be interested in knowing what kind of variations do other runners out there follow.

Now for some blogger news - Congratulations to teacherwoman for being done with grad school!!

New Shoes!

2007-05-08T01:42:00.000-04:00

Got myself a brand new pair of Asics 1120's . I have had three runs in them of 6, 3 and 5 miles each and so far I love them! I have been a big Asics fan for the past year or so since they make their shoes available in the wide variety also (2E, 4E widths). I am pretty sure this isn't a great thing for them economically but I cant even explain what a difference it makes to some of us duck footed runners!

The 1120 is basically an upgrade on the trusty 1110. The midsole has been considerably improved for support. It still inherits the fore foot and heel gel pads from its ancestor. The other upside is of course the price as these can be found retailing around the $70 mark. The downside is that you get to see this picture which is my pathetic attempt at an 'action' shot!

It has been gorgeous weather for running here and sometimes all you need is blue skies, a U2 playlist and of course new shoes! To use the words of a song I'm not so sure I like...

Hey, I put some new shoes on,

and suddenly everything is right,
I said, hey, I put some new shoes on and everybody's smiling,
it so inviting,
Oh, short on money,
but long on time,
slowly strolling in the sweet sunshine,
and i'm running late,
and i dont need an excuse,
'cause i'm wearing my brand new shoes.
- Paolo Nutini

It all comes back (slowly...)

2007-05-06T15:51:00.000-04:00

First of all sorry for not posting in the last couple of weeks. Things have been a little busy since getting back and sometimes you have so much on your mind that there is very little left to put onto paper!

Also, a shout out to Wes for completing his first Tri. Way to go...! (For those of you who don't know him, stop by his blog - its both excellent and regular!)

Now onto some running. I have been slowly trying to get back into the groove. The last couple of weeks have been decent - logging about 18 to 20 miles/week. I want to try and keep it there for another two weeks and see how I feel before stepping up the mileage. One of my concerns has been nutrition. Not so much eating bad, but rather eating too little. My appetite is nowhere close to where it needs to be and hence I am trying to a be a little cautious on longer runs. I guess its mostly due to a change of scene and I am hoping this will fix itself soon!

Another thing I have been really bad about is cross training. It really helps my running but I just haven't been able to get to the gym lately. I know its mostly making excuses and I need to find the time and energy for all this.

Anyways... these are all small things that given time and effort usually sort themselves out. The important thing is that I am back out there running!

Have a good week everyone!

Homecoming

2007-04-21T10:18:00.000-04:00

My first post in a while... I am back from visiting India as I had mentioned. So this post is going to be a little scattered (almost the way I feel right now!) - and about many different things.

There is something provoking about going 'home' after so long. The feeling of revisiting the past and wondering how things would have been had you not moved on. The ability to seamlessly slip back into your 'first' life leaving your 'second' as a reality that is an almost forgotten dream. I guess there always exists a certain romance and bond with the city you grew up in, that like a first love, always beckons you into falling in love with her all over again. All of us have a place we call home, mine will always be Calcutta.

Now onto some running updates. I always wanted to run a race in Calcutta and this time I managed to find a 6km race being organized by the Army. Local races are few and far between so this was extremely fortunate. The course started at the picturesque Maidan and did a loop around to end back where it started. My time was decent - managed a reasonable 32:36. With a 7 am start though it was already incredibly hot (close to a 100 f and humid). The flat land made it easier but I really felt the heat after the 4K mark. One more thing about 'flat and fast' races - I actually find these harder for longer distances. My guess is that absolutely flat terrain causes you to repetitively use the same muscles without utilizing all the muscle groups in your legs. Hence I find myself tiring faster.

Other than the race I only managed to get out and run a few days and all of them were only 3-4 mile runs. Not as I intended but it does have the upside that the thigh strain I had written about before leaving seems to have completely cured itself. Came back and got one run in on Thursday before being knocked out by a terrible cold. So now I'm sitting in bed, writing this post and looking at my shoes and the sun shining outside. Hope to be back out there soon.

Putting it "out there"

2007-03-02T18:05:00.001-05:00

I am usually not the kind of person who sets goals - so I figure by putting these out here I can subject myself to some "peer pressure" (of the best kind!). Not running much this week kind of got my mind spinning on how much this means to me.

Its been about four months since I've been pretty serious about this and by now I figure I'm hooked for life. But when I started out there were a few things I had in mind for this year. I wanted to:

Run a half marathon early this year
Run a full marathon this fall
Set a goal of a 1000 miles for this year

The first is taken care of (actually managed to do two). I have this week entered myself for a lottery to the NYC marathon. If I can't get a number for that I'll probably shoot for either Chicago or the Georgia Marathon. The good thing is that they're fairly close to each other.

So there it is - if you see me slack off please let me hear it good! And Good luck to any of you who may be racing this weekend.

Quick update and something to look forward to

2007-03-01T12:30:00.000-05:00

This morning's run went well. I started of very gingerly trying to see how it feels. Ended up with a decent three mile run that left me feeling better than when I started. Also, it had just stopped raining and thats my favorite time to run... I have always had a thing for rain! Even saw a couple of trees in bloom so I guess its almost Spring.

Next week onwards things are going to be very different. I am traveling to India for 5 weeks. It can be very difficult to find a place to run there - running on the streets isn't even an option - I could fill a whole post explaining why!! But I have some places in mind and I am looking forward to it. Bonus is I'll have some interesting pictures to post for all of you.

Can't wait for tomorrow

2007-02-28T21:25:00.000-05:00

They call it hindsight.

Ok - Maybe pushing the Sunday run wasn't such a great idea after all.

My quads have been really sore the past three days. Took Monday off, but tried running on Tuesday on the track and was forced to stop after a lap. It just didn't feel right and I was afraid of doing more damage. So instead I did some cross training on the elliptical and the bike.

Today wasn't much better either and I didn't even try running. Just stretched and worked on some strength training. 3 whole days ... its been the longest I have gone without running in a few months now and its a lot harder than I thought - talk about withdrawal symptoms!

So now the plan is to get out early in the morning tomorrow and put in 4 easy miles. Hopefully all will go well! Crossing all fingers (and toes for good measure)