Seemed like old times

It was probably 4am but I'm just guessing. I stirred drowsily and felt the ache that' been in my hips since the long run on Saturday. It was a nice 22K (and another 3K of walk for me) with Amit and Ashwin, at a pace, conversational enough to permit exchange of several jokes. I wondered if it was just muscle soreness or a specific strain. It was clear that I would not be able to run this morning and so I reached out and put off the alarm. When I woke up next, it was bright and late for a run, so I decided I'd head to the Gym.

I gathered my towel and mused about my strength training over the last few years. I thought of the good ol' days when I trained with Nihal and Mainthan. There was this one occasion when Nihal and I worked out in the Gym for 4 hrs, much to the chagrin of the owner and the wonderment of fellow "spotters". The three of us were broad chested with well formed legs and biceps, and there used to be many that would want to train with us because of our aggressive, focused and heavy-set training. I felt a touch of nostalgia and melancholy about it all. Mainthan still trains in Australia and has won a few body-building competitions, while Nihal still retains a natural physique with his propensity to burn fat, as a certified "ectomorph":)

I reached the Gym with my workout schedule written on a paper, something that I have found useful. Charged with the enthusiasm of my recent thoughts on training, I set about meticulously arranging the Barbell and weights. It helped that the Gym was not too crowded and that I had enough time on hand. I focused on each set and racked up the weights to blast my pecs, traps and delts to a burn. It wasn't long before I felt the Tee tighten around my back and chest. I smiled a faint smile as I realised that I could still have blood pump up my muscles in a few sets, a benediction afforded to few. I chose to do three sets for each muscle group, something I had not done in years and I wondered as to why I had neglected my musculature when it paid me rich dividends for very little investment in time.

When I was through with military presses, by which time my muscles were fatigued but my Tee was taut around my chest, I breathed deep and went out into the garden outside the Gym. There were a few walkers and joggers still doing the 400m loop, as I hooked my feet under the parallel bars, while wide-eyed 20 somethings saw me do "roman situps". It is one exercise that really blasts your abs. I then went on to do box jumps at a rapid pace that got a guy and a girl, as well as the trainer teaching them to do leg raises, to pause and watch me. The trainer gave me a knowing smile (he knows me since the last 10 yrs) as he realised that such plyometric strength in the achilles tendon is unusual...except in a few (possibly runners), even as he whispered in marathi, "Thoe marathon runner aahe!".

Satisfied with my whole body strength and isometric workout, I went for a "spin" into aarey with my driver, who was parked outside the Gym. I watched the last few walkers hurrying home even as the heat was out and the strays had disappeared. I cruised down the hill and looked out, and I was reminded of the strains of "Danny boy", from the CD that was recently purchased for that very reason (it figures my name:)) and which I had played last night. I leaned back and sang the song even though it seemed narcissistic to do so:), but felt reassured that I was in a position to get back some semblance of my physique; even if it meant sacrificing my runs a bit.

Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side
The summer's gone, and all the flowers are dying
'Tis you, 'tis you must go and I must bide.

But come ye back when summer's in the meadow
Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow'
Tis I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow
Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so.

Way to go.

There is no exclamation mark in the title as it is neither a shout of encouragement nor a congratulatory note. It just means there is still a while before the bubbly can be uncorked. I am refering to the 3rd full marathon in a series of 12 in 12 months planned by Amit, that was scheduled yesterday.

Due to my own foolhardy nature, I bit on more than I could chew. I did a 20 miler about 10 days after the last FM. This seemed more than I could handle, given the other stressors in my life. I came down with a throat infection and a fever, about a week ago. Hoping for the best, I popped a few capsules of antibiotic and felt about 95% recovered by Thursday. I did not dissuade Amit from postponing the event and played it by ear. I popped my last antibiotic on Thursday night, realizing that doing it a day before would surely affect my performance.

When the alarm beeped at 5am, I woke up with a lingering lung congestion, a blocked nose and a low grade fever. I shook my head at the insanity that grips me at such times. I inhaled steam, blew my nose, showered in warm water and drank a hot cuppa java. I felt better and then reached for the rucksack loaded with 6 bottles of electrolyte, meant for my run. I whispered a prayer and stepped out the door.

The run was a loop of 7K to be done 6 times. This time our angels handling the aid station were Pramila and Puneet. Roshni joined us for 21K and then assisted them, while Madhu took the trouble of preparing Idlis for us; the perfect post-run carboloading snack. Every loop completed, earned us an applause from these four angels.

The first two loops went off like a breeze. During the third loop I felt the strain of inhaling air thru' phlegm lined bronchioles. Rohit, who joined us for 28K, kidded me about always thinking like an Engineer when I complained that "gas exchange" was affected. The 4th loop brought along fatigue that caused me to trail Amit, Raj and Dr Oak, by about 50m. I soon caught up with them, or maybe they slowed down for me. I was now focusing on drawing air deep thru' deliberate diaphragmatic breathing.

On the 5th loop, Raj, who had started about 30 mins earlier with the intention of doing 50K, sped ahead since he found our pace "easy":) He also wanted to add about 3K more, inorder to reach that target and hence his haste:) Amit, Dr Oak and I contented ourselves with a steady pace that would surely bring us in, in about 5 hrs. My fatigue had not gotten worse but I dreaded the 6th loop.

The blazing sun sapped us and it is only the frequent aid stations, which were placed such that we could drink up once every 25 mins, that saved us from severe dehydration. I found Amit and Dr Oak were still maintaining pace but I was particularly fatigued and distressed by now. Not wanting to have people wait for me to finish, I forced the pace on myself and realized that Amit gave me a sidelong glance, concerned at my labored breathing.

The final 2K was all that was left and I hung in there. I have often opined that people reveal their true nature thru' small events, words or attitude. Suffice it to say that I again appreciated Amit' selfless offer to "finish together", whereas he could easily have paced Dr Oak, who had zipped ahead. The run was done and I high-fived Amit for getting this one too in the bag.

The post run carboloading was taken up with gusto and excited banter on the whole event. Meanwhile, Raj came in and had his "touch down" for an easy 51K. He deserved all the plaudits that were heaped on him. His commitment, dedication and hardwork had paid off and his endurance has shot thru' the roof. As for lesser mortals and an "also ran" like me, I felt a sense of relief for having managed to finish a FM with a less than perfect condition. That' three in the bag and....well...way to go! At least I can pat myself on the back:)

Late Sunday evening, Amit, Raj, Srinivas and I shared a bottle of Talisker that was tabled by Srinivas as a token of gratitude for my having helped him in a small way towards his fantastic sub 4 in the HK marathon. The three of them seemed to focus on what they alluded to as my latent potential for better times in the FM. "Maybe," I said as I shrugged, hoping that I would get the time to train for it some day soon, and prove them right.

Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Imagine

I woke up early this morning and the eerie illuminated dial of my digital watch told me it was 4:18am. Try as I could, I was unable to go back to sleep. I stared like an owl into the darkness outside my bedroom window and soon heard the distant call for "Aazaan" at a nearby mosque. My immediate reaction was a flood of thoughts on the tense and precarious situation in the middle-east, with governments being overthrown and the global economic climate bracing for another salvo of fiscal mayhem.

I went back a few decades in time and remembered the Iran revolution and the rise of Khomeini. I was at St Xaviers College then and my very best friend Haji Ghulam Reza (I was impressed that he shared the same last name as the over-thrown Shah of iran) was concerned for his friends and family back in Tehran. My nostalgia of our puerile antics in college and the blatant flirting episodes, was interrupted by the soft-footed trot of Dojo' paws as he came over for a snuggle. I hugged him with relief realizing that there are but a few things in life that are immutable; and one of them is the love exuded by a pet, especially a dog, like our adorable Daschund.

My alarm went off and I rose quickly to set the coffee maker for my very own concoction of "Cafe Mocha". I felt the caffeine kick in and kick out the last vestige of sleep-deficit-filled fatigue. It is amazing how someone stumbled upon coffee and beer, two ambrosias that are part of a large spectrum of cannabinoids. I pulled on my running shoes and went out to meet up with a rather small group that was turning up for our weekend run. These are runs that provide spice and solace to an otherwise stressful and bland existence.

The run itself was very refreshing and it was one of those days when I finished feeling "comfortably tired" as Arthur Lydiard puts it in his training manual. However, for good measure and since I had a half hour in hand I went off on my own to skirt a loop around a dried up pond. It was on this brief sojourn that I remembered John Lennon and how utopian his dream was, when he put together the words of "Imagine";

Imagine there's no countries,
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You...you may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You...you may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will live as one

What a wonderful world

I have been slacking on my runs and taking it too easy since the last few weeks (baring the recent full marathon run). I seem to enjoy lying in bed long after my alarm has gone off; and surprisingly, I am able to go back to sleep! I told myself last night, that I've about had it with this tryst with sloth and that I need to call on my "other self"; the Sergeant (Pepper) that barks at dawn saying, "Wake ye, wake ye, you good for nothin' bums - and line up for parade with your shoes shined enough, to reflect your clean shaven face!"

And so it happened that my alarm beeped this morning and got me rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, still contemplating some ridiculous excuse such as "tomorrow I'll run twice as long!". I sighed and dragged myself to the kitchen, wondering whether age was catching up with me. The aroma of coffee, as always awakened my senses, and it was while sipping the scalding java that I thought of a plan to re-ignite my senses to the power of my inner GPS (my "Rating of Perceived Exertion") and do a run that would last as long as I want it to, with nary a physiological indication of distress.

I started out hesistantly with nothing more than a shuffle, ready to walk in case my ventilatory threshold went over the brink. But lo and behold, I had soon made the transition to a canter and then I had to hold my horses, or I would have galloped:). It must be the two days of high quality plyometrics, I thought. What else could be the reason for my being able to float and glide along so easily in the rich green forest that I had now entered. For once, I was not looking at the road blurring past, but up at a beautiful sunrise, blue skies, wispy white clouds and dense undergrowth of tree branches dried to tinder. I felt happy that I had dispersed the clouds of slumber, in whose comfort I had been sinking for a while. I felt the rich guttural strains of Louis Armstrongs' classic fill my senses, even as a beatific smile graced my countenance.

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

The colours of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shakin' hands, sayin' "How do you do?"
They're really saying "I love you"

I hear babies cryin', I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll ever know
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world
Yes, I think to myself, what a wonderful world

Four rode out

My father was not an educated man, couldn't speak a word of English and understood very little. Despite this, he used to take my brother and me out for English movies. He wanted us to learn and understand the ways of the world beyond our tiny abode in Dhobitalao, South Bombay. I remember him sitting in the cinema hall watching the images flash on the screen, trying to work out some logic to the audio-visual. I felt close to him at such moments and I guess this is why I spend more time teaching Bryan about life. "Four rode out" was one such movie that my father took me to and it revolved around four cowboys that rode out into the desert and suffered fatigue and dehydration.

When Amit proposed that we do 12 marathons in 12 months and the second of this series was scheduled last Saturday, I thought I was gripped by a wave of lunacy to agree to it. I woke up at 4:50am to a quiet, dark and wintry (yes, it is still quite cold) dawn. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee pervaded the room seeping its opiate into a sluggish brain, unwilling to address the exhausting task awaiting me. I savored every sip of the hot java, while I brooded on how best to tackle the full monty - a distance of 42.195 kms.

Amit and I began at 6:30 even while runners were arriving, some of them with an objective of calorie surplus (not deficit) because they were going to gorge on a veritable breakfast buffet laid out by Roshni, it being her birthday. After about 3K, we were joined by Raj and Mahesh, the eager beavers that can reel out a marathon, at the drop of a hat. We did a loop of another 10K and by then there were about 30 runners that were assembled for the grand celebration. The cake cut, an off key rendition of "Happy Birthday", wishes, a slice of eggless cake (Roshni is our very own PETA fundamentalist:)) and we were off - to taste the sweat from our brow.

A centrally located aid station by way of a car with water, Gatorade and biscuits was manned by two angels; Madhumita and Puneet. So selfless was their sacrifice on a Saturday, that they hung around for 5 hrs waiting for us to complete, while taking our pics and handing out electrolyte to us - instead of spending quality time with their own family. The sun came out with its usual vengeance dispersing the last traces of the cool caress of breeze. The four of us ran as a group, tacitly acknowledging the laboured breathing of each, as the miles swept by. The pace was deliberately nudged up by me to ensure there was no slack for comfort zones. I can be deliberate in eliciting pain in a venture such as the full monty, once I am in my elements; and I certainly was. The faint fatigue on waking up was long forgotten and I wondered as to why in God' name, I was even contemplating doing less than the scheduled distance.

There was a pipeline that had burst and it was spewing cool water at high pressure into a rutted grass filled furrow. It was not something we were going to ignore. The child in us surfaced as we stuck out a foot on the torrent spurting from the burst mains and sent the ice cold spray all over each other. The shock of cold water revived us enough to race along at a pace that is considered "killer" by us. We finished 38K and staggered to the aid station with hope and anticipation writ large on our face. Amit and I set out to bag this one and while were at it, I must admit that we were reduced to a shuffle. I was wheezing and in the last 800m I felt my calves seizing up in a cramp. I was reduced to a painful hobble and felt camaraderie with Amit as he announced to me, "We are going to finish this together". I respected him for that remark. And finish it we did, heaving a sigh of relief and diving into the spray of water, my tee off and my cap used as a "Lowta" to pour water on my head.

Post run hydrating and carbo-loading was underway for both of us, as Raj and Mahesh came in for their own finish. A can of beer was opened as we took grateful but token sips to mark the occasion. There were lots of idlis and cake remaining for us and having just completed a full monty we were famished and thirsty. The idlis and chutney seemed to be fast disappearing as we wolfed them down gratefully. The 2 out of 12 marathon was done and in the bag; 10 more to go guys!

Speedy Gonzales

A while before the alarm beep went off, I was roused from my sleep by a disturbing dream. I had lost my Laptop while on a bus and had lost everything: my credit card, my cheque books, driving licence, Pan Card - the whole lot. Even as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, I was cheered by the sight of the faint outline of my Laptop sitting on the table. So, I hadn't lost any of it afterall! But the dream had set the tone for my gloom.

I sat in the dark, looking out at a dark sky, waiting for the grey glimmer of dawn to show up. Finally, I stirred myself to prepare the most delicious capuccino that I have gotten used to whipping up for myself since the last 2 months. The aroma of fresh arabica coffee wafts thru' the house getting Dojo' canine nose to twitch and Minoti to stir as if Dojo' olfactory response is somehow wired to her own. I sit and brood over my coffee and realize that somehow, in the blink of an eye, 11 years have gone by and Bryan is now giving his 10th Std prelims. I went over memories of standing in the queue to pay up his fees at kindergarten, while he went wandering around, squeezing himself past people' legs, looking out for strays - his favorite pastime then. And then I was humming Don Maclean' tune as if to give identity to my pensive reflection.

Starry, starry night.
Paint your palette blue and grey,
Look out on a summer's day,
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul.
Shadows on the hills,
Sketch the trees and the daffodils,
Catch the breeze and the winter chills,
In colors on the snowy linen land.

The coffee dregs drained to the last drop, I slapped my thighs and said, "Show time, Dan", as if to pep myself for the blitzkrieg of a tempo run I was scheduled to unleash by way of a catharsis for my solitude. My running shoes tied up, I stepped out on the road for a gradual warm up (something I'd recently learned in my course on fitness, is essential). I reached my favorite point for doing speedwork loops. There were two other walkers on a bench close by, that nodded greeting. I set my beeper on the watch and took off in the first light of dawn, the ground a blur as I felt my feet ploughing thru the asphalt, willing my heels to reach my butt, which in turn would get me to stride faster. Soon my exertions sent a buzz in my ears but I was not to be detered from cleansing my melancholy soul with a rush of endorphins. Thru' the wheezing and burning lungs, I sighted Mahesh in a haze and felt elation. I waved him to join me and motioned the loop. Delighted, he rushed and was soon alongside me but the pace was merely a canter for him.

Mahesh looked at my grim features and knew it was serious speedwork time. He asked, "Kya pace karna hai" and I could barely manage, "four - - fifty - - two" between breaths. We hit the first loop at 4:49 and as we coasted thru' 4 loops, I could see Mahesh focussed on ensuring that blood lactate was building up to give me the burn I needed to incinerate my fears. On the 5th loop, I was singing Speedy Gonzales, the exhilaration of hitting the pace was clearing showing;

La - la.....la - la - la....
Your doggy's gonna have a puppy
And we're runnin' outta coke
No enchiladas in the icebox
And the television's broke
I saw some lipstick on your sweatshirt
I smelled some perfume in your ear
Well if you're gonna keep on messin'
Don't bring your business back a-here

Mmm, Speedy Gonzales, why dontcha come home?
Speedy Gonzales, how come ya leave me all alone?

Some people create with words, or with music, or with a brush and paints. I like to make something beautiful when I run.

Run out!

Thats right; I've been run out - I mean literally. I have spent the entire year in shoring up flagging spirits of runners, advising them, posting articles on motivation and training, answering queries on injuries, organizing group runs,drawing up programs on training and making race plans for many. All of this obviously involves a substantial investment of my time. But then I do this as a passion and as a running evangelist. Everyone has been having a fine time on RFL.

A bright idea was proposed; that we hand out awards to BEST RUNNER OF THE YEAR MALE & FEMALE at a "Runners' bash". I was of the opinion that if we do this, we ought to draw up criteria for such an award, so that people are guided to vote for their choice. The idea was to encourage newbies with such an award. Such a suggestion did not find merit and maybe there were "foregone conclusions" on the winners and I was perhaps blissfully unaware of it all. The choice was announced and guess what, I just about made it to that list! Or did you Dan? - not that I wanted to or expected it. Some consolation that! I am to share third place! What is worse is that even my close friends didn't seem to think I was handed a raw deal - which is too bad. It doesn't feel nice to be hit below the belt.

Look at the bright side. I have several runners that genuinely come up to me and thank me for having touched their lives. Then there is their recent success in tackling the race at SCMM and the effusive gratitude for my help, posted by many on our page. There is the National Park group that bought me a Gym bag as a token of their gratitude for taking their running level to new heights; and most recently, there is dear Francis, who could not run even 500m a while back, and at age 61, has creamed the half marathon at SCMM. Francis handed me a beautiful hand crafted bag filled with some of the most delicious home-made chocolates. I do remember him telling me his sister made the bag and the chocolates. My eyes welled up as I accepted this beautiful "award". What more can I ask for?