Of masters runners and failed time trials

Last week was a stacked schedule for me, with travel and commitments to Bryan and NRC. I was compelled to treat it as a "recovery" week on the running front. I was able to squeeze in some gentle 6Ks and thought I'd do a 10K time trial on Friday evening, in Coimbatore. Friday, because I wanted to have this run in place before the tippling sessions begin with my sales group.

I dressed for my run and stepped out of the Coimbatore Cosmopolitan Club, onto the "race course" (a 2.5K track thoughtfully provided by the municipal corp) to do a brief warm up. I am not sure whether the warm up was inadequate or whether my legs were still in recovery mode, but I found that as I zipped off, my legs suddenly started going dead. I held on to the scorcing 10K pace but had to ease off after just 1 km, throwing in the towel. I didn't allow myself to feel too bad about it as I told myself that this was recovery week, afterall. I just cruised thru' a gentle 5K and went to a sand pit where some local guys do strength training.

I met an old gentleman, who I recalled maybe touching 65 now. He and another guy are regulars and I have known them to be fighting fit even at this age. In fact they participate in the national masters athletics. The ol' chap came over and spoke in broken english monosyllables. He indicated his knees and said, "pain!" and grimaced. I asked him whether it was just one knee to which he replied in the affirmative. I realised it was ITBS and asked him to do a stretch which would confirm my suspicions. He winced as he felt the expected shooting pain as he did the stretch and smiled in amazement. I then gave him some strength and stretch routines to rehab the injury. He must have felt better because he pumped my hand and spoke some Tamil words. I think I just made him my "student":-))

On Sunday, the NRC had organized a press meet and it was kinda intimidating to address so many journalists. This was at the request of Nike because they wanted me to talk technical on the subject, although the lead coach, Melvin, is trained by NIS, but probably not articulate enough. Bryan watched on the sidelines in silent wonder and had a shy smile when he had his pic taken while doing some stretch routines, for a photo op. We enjoyed the experience and returned home to well-earned double half-fried eggs:-)