Madison half marathon

I ran the half marathon this weekend and it was a blast. Finally I managed to finish it in under 2 hours (1:57:39). I shaved nearly 30 seconds per mile from my previous one in Chicago -. Of course the bad thing was that by the end of this one, I was completely burnt out. It was a lot more tiring than the Chicago one.

Some observations:

• Easily the best course I have run (of the two that I have ). We racers made our way near two lakes and the views were absolutely phenomenal. The views probably helped me along initially.
• They need way more port a potties at the start. I got to somewhere near the start line at 6:15 and ended up waiting for 40 mins at the pot a potty. I had to run to join the race on time and I ended up starting way at the back instead of with my pace team. I had signed up for the 2 hour pace team but luckily I did not need them.
• They also need more Gatorade especially in the last few miles. Near the end it felt like they were spaced too far apart. I was running on fumes towards the end.
• There were a couple of people serving beer unofficially at around the 8th mile. That was totally cool . One runner in fact went for it. I would have probably been completely dehydrated had I attempted to have a glass.
• The best costumes were by a couple of folks dressed up as mustard and ketchup. I am not sure how people run in costumes without feeling really hot but it was a lot of fun to watch.

I wanted to go the brat fest pretty badly but my money was in my car and I spent nearly half hour just searching for my car. By the time I reached it, I was so tired that I decided to just go home. Maybe next year I will have a boca brat. It looks like they broke the record without my help .

If you are thinking of running a race, I strongly suggest the Madison one. It was definitely a fun one and the crowds were fantastic.

Interesting article about running shoes

Recently I read this really interesting article about running shoes and it got me thinking if the argument in the article is valid. The first thing I thought was my own personal experience. My first shoes were an Adidas pair that was bought pretty cheap and they did work fine. I did not have any problems and as far as I know, they did not have any kind of support. The one thing is I was not doing half as many miles as I am doing now but I was way heavier. My next shoe was a Brooks, then I went to Saucony before finally settling on my ASICS. I dont have any scientific knowledge but for now, I think I am sticking to my ASICS. They work well enough for me for the number of miles I am doing.

On a slightly higher level, I am not sure I completely trust the statistics. I am not saying it is wrong but I have seen enough ways to spin numbers (bank stress test anyone) that I would take it with a pinch of salt.

That being said, I have switched to buying the older models so that they are cheaper than the newest models but otherwise I am not planning on switching completely over to shoes without cushoning. The one change I am making is running more miles on my existing shoes – close to 450 as long as I dont feel too much pain in my legs.I agree that this is not as extreme as the article suggests but it is a start.

Horrible Saturday

This Saturday, I had the anti-pleasure (word???) of going to a local tamil sangam program. My wife badly wanted to go and everybody I knew were not planning on going. This meant I could not pawn her off on someone else. So after much deliberation, I got two tickets (cost me 24 dollars – bah). My hope was to drop my wife, pray that there is someone she knows and head out of there. I could always slip in for dinner and eat my money’s worth.

I had Saturday evening really well planned. I would drop my wife, get back home and relax. At 7:00, game 7 of the Bulls – Celtics series would start (it has been called the greatest series of all time and I tend to agree), I can catch a few minutes and then go have dinner and get back for the rest. Hopefully, I could get to see the Bulls win.

Well, talk about plans going straight down the toilet. There was no one we knew in there. So I ended up staying the whole time. I did step out for a few minutes to grumble about my luck to a couple of friends but that was it. And boy, was it bad. By the end of the program, I was so pissed that I was getting ready to eat my arm.To top it all, I missed the entire Bulls game and they lost. Damn it. If I had a choice between the stupid program and the emergency surgery I had a few months back, I would have chosen the surgery 10 times out of 10. I should add that the initial parts were done without pain killers and it still was a lot more pleasant. At least I got to watch TV . This was the first instance where I appreciated the serving of alcohol in sports events. At worst, you can drink all your sorrow.

Anyway, I have been running quite a bit over the last few weeks. Last week, I hit a little more than 36 miles. I can’t believe the half marathon is almost upon me. I should start running a little less over the next 3 weeks as I get ready for it.

Finally a run outside

I finally managed to get a run outside. Saturday, the temperature went a little about 35 F which was all I needed to head out . I ran outside for 30 minutes. After running on the treadmill all winter, running outside felt a lot different. It was really tiring because without realizing it, I ran a pretty hilly route.

Of course, that was followed by a snowstorm on Sunday . Hopefully things start getting warmer and it gets easier to run outside. With the Madison half marathon coming up pretty fast, I want to get at least half my miles outside.

The only other interesting news was the fact that I managed to buy two pairs of running shoes last week – both ASICS 2130s. I got them online from Amazon. All the local stores have only the new ones (2140) and since I don’t care much about which model I use, I decided to go with the cheaper one. Hopefully the shoes should tide me over till at least the middle of fall if not till the end of fall. Advice to people who are buying shoes – the older models are a lot cheaper online and if you are not planning on challenging Haile Gebrselassie, you should do fine in the older models. I wish the shoe stores locally would also stock them – I dont mind paying a few dollars extra if I can get them at the brick and mortar stores. Of course, paying 30 dollars more for each pair doesnt seem like a good use of my money.

Spring – where art thou?

March comes to an end and still I dont see any signs of spring. I had all my plans set for last weekend to slowly start running outside. One of the problems with running on a treadmill is that it can get boring after a while. Another problem is that it is not safe to completely switch to outside running all at once.

So I had this glorious plan to start my outside running with my shortest run and then move all my runs outside. Unfortunately, the plan hit a snag on the very first day it was to be implemented. Snow $@#(*$#(. I ended up running inside another day.

Well then Sunday came along and with it my long run. I ran that inside as well because it was too cold outside. Apparently it was really hot inside the gym which I didn’t realize. After my run, I found that I lost a little more than 5 pounds, mostly fluids. Usually losing 5 pounds would have made me extremely happy but this really freaked me out. So the rest of the week, I have been making up for it by drinking everything I can get my hands on. Maybe a visit to a bar will fix things .  Running outside is usually not this bad because there is always some wind and it is rarely hot enough to lose this much fluid, at least not in Madison.

Only thing that went according to plan with the arrival of spring is getting a start on my ice baths . I couldn’t find a reason to avoid it and so I welcomed Spring by taking a dip in real cold water. AAaahhhh.

My running log says that I have run close to 280 miles in 2009 and apparently I have run a total of 1 day and 18 hours . I really like the stat about the total amount of time I ran. Anyway, hopefully spring (when it does arrive) and summer will increase my average per week.

The lost art of high-five greetings

A couple of weeks back, I walked into a good friend at one of the grocery shops here in Madison (Woodmans if you are interested). He was on the phone but he saw me and put his hand up. Unfortunately for me, I assumed he was trying to high-five me and went ahead with a high-five. He realized a bit late what I was trying to do and tried to join in. The end result was one of the saddest high-fives in human history.

I still remember when the high-fives were cool. My earliest memory of this practice was from cricket on TV. The West Indian bowlers (Marshall, Ambrose, Walsh etc), after taking another Indian wicket, would calmly walk down the pitch and high-five each other. Even while cursing the fact that another Indian wicket was lost, people would admire the way the West Indian team celebrated. It looked too cool. Of course, it translated to road side cricket, Soma cricket, cricket inside friend’s house and even book cricket. I am not sure about the last one simply because it was a little tough to execute a proper high five when playing book cricket sitting in the last bench in school and away from the teacher’s eye. Maybe an under five or something. But it was still a tradition. Eventually it morphed into this cool way of greeting people.Even today, when you meet a kid, high fives are the in thing. The parents are extremely thrilled – my child can do this cool act. And the recipient of the high-five feels happy – he/she might be in the inner circle of the kid or whatever.

That got me wondering – when did we forget about the high-fives. I remember in days of yore (college) that we always used the high-five to greet friends. Everybody knew by instinct what should be done when two friends meet. But sometime between my college days and now, something happened and I forgot how to do a proper high-five. Either I got too old to execute one or something was wrong. I will chalk it up to old age because I am not the only one who seems to be losing it.

Ah well. Maybe I need to start playing more cricket to get back in touch . The one activity I do regularly, running is not exactly suited for this – who do I high-five after running 5 miles?

Well my running is finally getting back on track. I am seriously contemplating running the Madison half. Till date, this year, I have run around 190 miles.

New year resolutions

I know this post is a little late. The new year is eleven days old and talking about resolutions should already be done. But I am usually late and I finally got some time while I upgrade my computer at work to a new version.

Most people I know have resolutions every year and then eventually fail at them. This unfortunately includes me. On analyzing this phenomenon a little, I have concluded that most people fail because the resolutions reflect what they hope they will be and have nothing to do with reality. Take a resolution of mine for example. I tell myself every year that I will lose x number of pounds – x being a really high number. Eventually this just fails because I don’t face the reality that I love to eat. So this year, instead of my usual resolutions, I decided that I am going to try different things that will eventually help me reach my goal of losing weight- this is just a way of giving an opt out to myself in case I fail .

Most of the resolutions here centre around exercising – I have other things I hope to achieve. Hopefully I will get to them in future posts. So without further rambling, here is my list for 2009.

1. Try and run at least 1500 miles this year. This comes close to 30 miles a week and is definitely not an easy target. Fortunately, because of all the training I did for the marathon, I have become a tad faster and so I can run 30 miles a week spending less than 5 hours each week. Thinking about it that way makes it more achievable. I will also post my totals every week to let my two readers know if I actually make it.

2. Run more races. I want to run at least 5 or 6 this year including a marathon if I get the time to train. Last year, because of my obsession with running a marathon, I missed out on having fun in some smaller races. This year, I hope to make up for all that. Most of my races are going to be local or at least within driving distance from home. I also plan to start early in Spring.

3. Learn swimming. I know this has nothing to do with running but I badly want to learn how to swim. I am planning on taking a few classes in the Y in a bid to stay afloat. Being fat has its advantages when it comes to staying afloat.

4. Update this blog at least once a week. As I run more, my brain starts thinking more random things and I get ideas on what to write.

Horror in Bombay

This was my first long weekend in a while and I should say the incidents in Bombay made me wish that I had just gone to work. I spent the whole weekend watching the news, reading about the terrorist act and alternating between extreme anger and anguish.

In my opinion, this is easily the worst terrorist act done on India and we have had a few. The fact that a couple of guys could hold the entire country hostage for a couple of days made a mockery of the entire security apparatus. Till we Indians actually understand that every Indian life is precious, we will never ever be anything than a developing nation. All the fancy ideas about becoming developed – well we should just forget about that. I still cant believe that ass of a deputy chief minister R.R. Patil actually said such minor incidents do happen in big cities. I guess we Indians deserve what we get as far as our elected officials go.

The other interesting thing I noticed as I was watching the news is the fact that I would have happily agreed to have this terrorist who got arrested tortured to get out all the information. Till the day of the attack, it would have been really tough to convince me that torture has a purpose in modern society. I still think that is true but in those few initial moments it was really tough to hold emotions in check.

I hope we can enact some serious changes in India especially our responses to emergency. It was sad that the commandos took so long to get there. Maybe something like this will spur people to ensure that our elected leaders are more answerable than they have been.

Not running the philly marathon this year

This is definitely one of the toughest decisions that I had to take. Well actually it was kind of forced on me. I had to undergo some emergency surgery + additional surgery which meant that my Philly marathon training is down the drain. I needed at least 4 weeks to recover and with just 5 weeks to go, I decided to forgo the marathon .

I was still hoping to run after the emergency surgery but when I asked my doc if I could, she kind of laughed in my face. The fact that I could not run the marathon was easily the most disappointing moment in a long time. After 11 weeks of at least 40 miles a week running, ice baths, chapped skin and painful legs, I just had to stop. Usually, I am a person who makes grand plans but no follow up on them because of laziness. Well, this time, I actually put in all the effort and so the disappointment was even bigger. I was pretty close to crying and if I were not in too much pain from the surgery, I might just have. All the time I could have done something else – spend time with family and friends, play tennis, go hiking etc were spent running in the hope that I could do the marathon. Instead I will be watching it from home .

Well, anyway, I am more than two weeks into my recovery and so I can start running soon. I have decided to set my sights on the Madison marathon next May. I should say though that this inactivity is getting to me. I am walking like a 90 year old man who usually spends all his time in bed. I am sure a lot of people at work who don’t know about my surgery must have concluded that I am the laziest ass around. I might just be the laziest but I protest that the wrong information was used in confirming this . Today was the first day I could move a little faster which made me cheerful enough to write this.

So anyway, instead of running, I will try and fill up this space about other things for a while.

Longest run till date

This weekend I ran the longest distance I have till date. 22 miles was the target and I guess you can say I managed to hit it. To be honest, I barely managed to run it.

The last few weekends have been great. The runs have been pretty fast especially now that the temperatures are a lot cooler. So, when I looked at my schedule and saw that my Sunday run was a supposed easy 22 miles (whenever someone mentions that 22 miles is easy, they should be checked into an asylum). The definition of an easy run according to the training manual I am following is that I run at a pace 50 seconds slower than my intended marathon pace. For some reason, I decided my marathon pace was going to be 9 mins and 10 seconds per mile. Considering most of my fastest runs are at 8 and my tempo pace is 8:30, this was a little over optimistic but being a stubborn Tauren, I decided I will do it. So Sunday’s run was at a slow 10 min/mile pace.

Well, the day did not start too well. Most of Saturday, I was suffering from an upset stomach which left me dehydrated. After popping a couple of pills on Sunday morning to prevent further incidents, I got all my gear and set out to run. I noticed the temperature was going to start at a nice 62 and was totally happy. I don’t need to wear gloves etc. Unfortunately, in my excitement I left my cap at home.

The start was nice and I was doing a reasonable pace. Unfortunately for me, by the time I hit mile 12, my legs were feeling insanely heavy. But pig-headed that I am, I kept going. By the time I was on my 15th mile, I pretty much wanted water every couple of steps. I was also feeling so weak. After chugging a whole bottle of gatorade, I continued on… and on… and on… At the end of the run, I was pretty much off.  Unless there are substantiated reports about lions and tigers running around on the military ridge trail, I can pretty much say that I was starting to imagine things . The temperature had hit 77 by then and I was shot. It took everything to keep me from puking.  My cap would have kept me a lot cooler had it been on my head instead of resting on a chair at home.

So I have this simple question – why did this dude Pheidippides not choose a shorter distance to run. Even better, he could have kicked one of the Persians and borrowed their horse. Instead he had to run 26 miles (42 km) to deliver some news. Jackass. To him, I would say, smoke signals or even better, an IPhone app simulating smoke signals.

Anyway, the long and short of it is that I spent all of yesterday recovering. All day, I felt like I was burning up. It felt like I was generating a lot of excess heat .The one good thing is that 22 miles will be my longest run before the marathon. I should also note that except for the first mile, I finished all the other miles at the desired speed or a little faster. Yay.

Well, I have just 6 more weeks left. I have lost a little more than 7 pounds – hopefully a few of those were from my waist.