SCMM 2015

These are some really long notes about SCMM and running.

Sometimes I think in my perfect world I would never register for races. Nor would I travel to different places just to be able to run in an organized fashion. Its not my perfect world, and hence for above reasons I take decisions from time to time to register for racing events and train for them with experts. 

Before every outstation event I go through this :
i. make travel plans a month/15 days in advance
ii.  plan my clothes (its a big part of how you fare at any run!) well in advance. Shop if required and practice in them.
iii. Excitement starts building up in the race week.
iv. The Friday before the race is full of travel anxiety.No productive work gets done. I still go to office (Must thank my stars that no one bothers me with important work on such fridays!)
v. Dream about things that may go wrong. For eg. What if I do not reach the venue on time and they disqualify me. Such positive thinking makes me full of nerves. I am *this* short of outbirsts.
vi. Travel. Travel. Travel.
vii. Meet friends to keep mind off d-day. If possible shop, eat out.
viii. Try to get minimum 6 hours of sleep. Though my brain clock wakes me up at ungodly hours like 2.30 am, 3.30 am and then finally 4.30 am.

Till now (this was my 4th half marathon), I have not missed out on showing up at any event. Things haven't gone as worse as I play the what-if scenarios in my head. But all this has somewhere made me a better human being. 
I look at the positives. I make plan A-G to be executed during any run. My failover scenarios are ready. And I feel as if I am raring to go. Exactly 2 years ago when I started running, I would not have been able to say a single word about all this, of course for lack of experience. These stretch-your-limits experiences have taught me to be prepared and not prepared for elements of life. I am also not sure if I am conveying any meaning out of the words I just typed. 

Anywho, the point is this is my way of tackling pointlessness which loves making its presence felt in my head from time to time. After every race pointlessness takes a backseat and I gain one point. You see the point I am making ?

So if you are a runner in India then SCMM marks the official end of running season here. Its one of the oldest, well organized and prestigious events here! 
I signed up for SCMM to nicely seal off my training plan for the year and later to serve as a marker to analyze running performance over the year. I had a good amount of rest in the race week, showed up well before flag off at start point, clicked selfies with friends, ate almonds, calmed my nerves by remembering favorite bollywood songs. Somewhere I was not feeling that strong, but I had following goals laid out :
A. Target the 2.15 hour bus, wherever the pacers were. Run my own race as all the 5 pacers of the 2.15 bus had weird pacing strategies. If I finished 9.5 km in one hour then I would be able to finish in 2.15 hours by staying strong in the last segment i.e. post 18km.
B. Do a personal best.
C. Run my own race. Did I say this already ?

I started really slow as planned, gained pace over the majestic worli sea link, got steady with every passing kilometer. Surprisingly, I did not have to take a single walking break till 17th km, even for drinking water. Even during the infamous steep Pedder Road incline. *humble brag* I could not run a single kilometer without walking breaks 2 years ago and in my last half marathon I took 10 seconds walking breaks just to gulp water. A huge shoutout to RP and their training!

I was taking 2-3 sips of water every 5-7 minutes to compensate for the humidity in Mumbai. My body showed first sign of weakness in the form of salt loss at 16 km with cramps in lower left abdomen. I immediately switched to sipping enerzal from a nearby aid station. They went away fairly quickly. The next event happened post 17km. Lower right abdomen started cramping. This time I walked for 10 seconds, sipped good amount of enerzal and water. Willed it to go away. Bugger did not. It kept on making its presence felt even if my body took a slight bend or tried to do something different to steer my brain away from the pain. I let the body take over the brain which was in such a good controlling position till now. In a way I knew my race was over specially goal A. I walked a bit more. Let time slip by. Post the 18th km marker, I decided I would walk every 20 seconds. But. But. But. The mumbai crowd and excellent support system in the form of bands playing live music, dance troupes, motivational songs, showed up. Damn! How could I even imagine to walk when so many unknown faces were cheering all of us weirdos for no particular reason to keep going. So I kept going. At a slow and steady pace. The pain went away. I crossed the finish line with a timing of 2:21:25. And fainted. This is what real electrolyte loss feels like, I told myself. I steadied and made way to the amazing and special recovery area for women athletes (if I may call myself so without any pretense). 

#scmm2015 memories

SCMM is a really well organized event. Water and aid stations are plenty and well placed. If you have studied your race route well, you would find water/aid stations exactly where you were supposed to find them. In addition locals setup stalls to help poor, thirsty and hungry runners. 
But this year's race felt too crowded for my taste. There was not a stretch where you could have the patch of a street to yourself. That's my only grouch. I can imagine how tough it can be to organize an event on such a massive scale so my only plea to the organizers is to cut down on entries. Pretty please!

So what am I up to now ?
I am still recovering from the race. I have showed up at work. I have achieved my personal best timing. And I have learnt to run my own race and enjoy what I can by planning what I can plan for during a run. I am also grateful to the support my friends and family give and sometimes plan their life around my running schedule. I am now going through marathon events in India this year and listing down interesting ones. I'll plan a part of my year around them. Because as I mentioned at the beginning, in my perfect world I would never register for or run races.

Satara hill marathon 2014

I can see this blog is slowly becoming a place to document running events. But as long as I keep on writing here, no one's loss right ?

The Satara Hill Marathon is an elite ultra marathon event in Maharashtra, which only in its 3rd year has already become famous for some superlative arrangements for runners and gorgeous and tough route. I ran the 10 k race there yesterday and immediately made a plan to run the half marathon next year.

I and P reached Satara, (1.5 hours drive, 2 hours by bus and 3 hours by train, away from Pune) a day before, collected* our stuff (kit consisting of bib, running tee, route map and other goodies)  from the expo and set about exploring Satara. 
* Great story about the managing team here: They sent a wrong text message regarding the bib number and race category to a bunch of participants. I was one of them. My immediate thought was to get this resolved at the expo itself. To my surprise, I received an email the next day, where they admitted their mistake and gave instructions about what should be done by these participants. I think this was a pretty good corrective measure in what could have been a management disaster, where I could picture participants arguing and fighting with the marathon staff.

Satara has a distinct small town feel to it. There is not much to do in the city itself, except some amazing foodie treats. But around the city are some great escapades like, Sajjangad, thoseghar falls, kass valley (smaller version of valley of flowers) which are 30-40 minutes drive away from the city. So if you are the adventurous kind and would not mind exploring these instead of resting it off, these are a must visit. Of course, we did not do any of this as we were quite anxious about the run the next day.

We hit the sack early and got up at 4.30 am on race day. Owing to the fact that our hotel had some cleanliness and water issues. Runner tip: If possible get an idea about where you will be staying in advance to avoid such issues.

We reached the start point when the half marathon was about to start. After cheering the amazing elite and non elite runners for the half marathon and some warm up, we queued up for the 10k race. The 10 k race, starts in the city, takes one to the sahyadri ghaats upto 5km and then one returns to the start point having gained an elevation of 2034 ft. 
I clicked this picture during one of the water breaks -> 

<3

Needless to say I had not run on a route which is outside the city limits and is surrounded by luscious green hills. I was mesmerized by the views on my way upto the 5k mark. The return was even more beautiful with view of Satara city covered by fog and mist in the early morning hours and the sun penetrating the cover. I did not click any pictures on the way down from the ghaats as I was busy capturing the beauty for my own sake. I will go back to these images in my head over and over, is the only thing I can say right now.

The live traditional dhol-tutari played by local troupes welcomed the runners back in the arena on completion. That along with some astounding ground support all along the route made this one of the most well managed events I have attended since I started running.

I wish to come back over and over again to this wonderful city and these amazing people, just to run with nature and take it all in. If you are a runner anywhere and reading this, then I also urge you to visit the Satar Hill Marathon. You will not be disappointed!

The merit of lists

I have a brain, I do not need lists. Thought going through my head at the sheer mention of making a list. I don't think arrogance but laziness in general.

So I did a home experiment last year. It was a game of sorts.
For grocery lists to be specific.
Rules:
1. Make a list of grocery items to be bought at the end of every month.
2. Go grocery shopping in the first week of every month.
3. Stick to the grocery list.
P.S. no vegetables or fruits are to be included in this list.

As a disclaimer, I am not a serial grocery shopper, neither do we (I and brother) need a lot of grocery every month. But I do love grocery shopping and the need to have all the different containers in the house packed with attractive stuff. I  just wanted to fall into healthier, controlled shopping habits and needed to see if it affected how and what I bought. Here are my observations.

1. I started noting prices of goods.
2. I actually started noticing changes in the prices. Big deal!
3. Within 2 months, the lists made me have an estimate of the amount of money I would need to set aside for grocery shopping. That just made planning my finances a LOT easier.
4. In the 7th month ie July, I did not have to buy any extra grocery item apart from wheat flour, rice, lentils. That gave me immense happiness and an opportunity to indulge. I experimented with brands that month. I also bought things I thought I would never buy earlier (like this brand of room freshener which is a bit expensive and this masala which is hyped to be multipurpose)
5. I used only card (debit/credit) to make these purchases, so keeping track became simple.
6. My spending chart shows steady increase toward the end of the year, making it pretty obvious that as the party/birthday season approaches, my spending goes up. Also talks a lot about inflation and how the cost to pay for the same products has gone up. The month of July was all experimental shopping. Forgot to add one of my cousins started living with us from October hence the rise in the curve.

statistics obsession

7. I made only one round to the grocery mall every month. No middle of the month/week trips post that one carefully-drafted-list round!
8. I never had to complain about things getting over before the month ended or the next grocery shopping turn came. Of course there were incidents when some masala/cereal would be over 2 days before the grocery shopping day. But I made it a point to add such things to the list promptly and get them during the allotted turn.
9. I never thought of grocery shopping post that one day of visit to the mall. I can only tell the relief of getting a huge task done at the beginning of every month and then not worry about it at all.

This year I plan to deviate a little and allot a budget of 200 Rs. every month for experimental items. To include that brand of pasta or that brand of cereal or that brand of shampoo. This may just add fun to the game and may be test my control.

Do you indulge in any home experiments ? I would be thrilled to hear and maybe include it in my lifestyle :)

of books and reading challenge

Last year I kept track of what books I read. Considering I was jobless for a whole quarter, whatever I read played a huge role in keeping me motivated about a tangible goal i.e. finishing the book. Also by the end of the year I had read a good 35 books. And I maintain numbers do not matter. But I had become a regular sincere reader and I did not rather do not want to lose that.


Hence I took up a challenge of reading 60 books this year. Why 60 because 50 is boring and 70 too much :P
Anyway so the plan was, rather is to read 5 books per month, spread over 12 months. Which makes it a pretty comfortable journey. But I have fallen behind by 5 books already. And its only halfway! hmmpf!


So to motivate myself to get rid of the lethargy, I am doing a review of the stuff I read/am reading over the past 6 (almost!) months!


* I have become a huge fan of Neil Gaiman. Finished reading American Gods. Loved how it made me think about America from a totally quirky perspective. Love his writing and imagination overall. Period.
* I read Milan Kundera's 'the unbearable lightness of being'. Philosophy cannot get any more trickier. Also a friend says he is the only Indian sounding guy in the writing world! ;-)
* I read Jaya by Devdutt Pattanik! And I loved it!
* I also read Stephen Hawking's 'A brief history of time'. Felt like a wide eyed little girl who was learning about the fascinating cosmos.
* Ernesto Che Guevera's 'Motorcycle diaries'. I have a totally different perspective about South America now. And I want to travel there!
* I also read Kathryn Stockett's 'The help', Emma Donoghue's 'Room' and Margaret Atwood's 'Bodily Harm'. Got introduced to a few Atwood fans and on their recommendation am going to read more of her work.
* Read Meenaxi Madhavan Reddy's 'You are here'. Learnt the most awesome recipe for achari potato and some kickass cocktails. ;-)
* Apart from Asimov I have not read much serious science fiction. So started reading Kim Stanley Robinson's 'Red Mars'. Astounding details. Much better than many sci-fi movies I have watched.
* Last year I also got drawn to Rumi and his poetry. So after gifting KT one poetry book, I could hardly resist the temptation. So bought myself a copy of Essential Rumi. Have not managed to assimilate a lot, but whatever I have read has been very evocative!
* And have ordered Ashok Banker's 'Prince of Ayodhya' from library. So with some good old Indian mythology hopefully the reading pace will be back.


Also read a few crappy books which I will not mention here.
I very badly want to read Teju Cole's 'Open City', Jonathan Safran Foer's 'Everything is illuminated', Patrick Rothfuss's 'Kingkiller Chronicles' and Haruki Murakami's '1Q84'.


To improve on the serious reading time, I have decided to let go of some clutter in the form of random links I end up clicking on twitter. Though most are knowledgeable, after serious consideration I am going to dedicate 30-45 minutes everyday to go through zite or flipboard. And not fall for anything outside that.
Also I have stopped reading on bus journey to and from work. I am going to try to dedicate one hour before sleep everyday. Lets see how that works.


Wow doing such self assessment is a feel good and motivation booster!
So even if I may not finish 60 books by the year end, I will know how much I tried.


What are you reading btw ?
Recommendations welcome :)


~nightflier

The year in books

2011 was more or less the year of books for me!
And since I needed a challenge to keep going, I thought 'lets try to read 50 books this year'. Well, I finished 35 (honestly, I did not read last 30 pages of 'The Difficulty of being good'. Too much that book was!)


Here's a break down of the challenge, which I could not complete :D (this year onward, the challenge will be realistic :P)


Total books read - 35
Number of pages read - 12488
Top 5 books -   1. The book thief
                       2. Steve Jobs (biography)
                       3. Love in the time of cholera
                       4. The Pregnant King
                       5. Palace of Illusions and Storm of Swords
Honorable mentions - Open, The Time Traveler's wife, The wind up bird chronicle, The Hobbit, 100 years of solitude, the 4 hour workweek
Most boring read of the year (*drumroll*) - The difficulty of being good. Caused many headaches. too much!
The book which made me LOL a lot - God save the dork by Sidin
The book I badly wanted to finish but could not - Fooled by randomness by Nassim Taleb
Library reads - 6
Personal buys - 11
E-books - 4

being obsessive :D

I have a much lengthy and ever expanding reading list for this year.
Recos are always welcome!


The reading for this year has already begun.
Talk about being obsessive :D


Anywho, here's wishing y'all an year filled with peace, joy, fun, laughter and sunshine :)


-nightflier