Quo Vadis?

So in April this year I planned to do the 10 km run in TWCM14 and probably loose a little weight in the process. After the TWCM I see: 1. HM in DRHM14 - Check 2. HM (trail) in CTM - Check 3. 10km in Heritage Run - Check 4. HM in TWCM14 - Check 5. Weight loss 14 kgs - Check Along the way 1. 120 kms cycle ride to Mahabalipuram & back - check 2. Lots of fun - check 3. New friends - check 4. Better eating - check I remember my first run with my running group. It was early morning on the 2 nd of April 2014 when a few runners and beginners met and set off towards the now usual route towards CSI Ewarts. It was pure murder to say the least and by the time I managed to walk, jog, run, stumble crawl back after a miserable 3 kilometre or so I thought that it was all a big mistake. For someone weighing 112 kgs it all seemed like a big mistake. I somehow managed to make it for the next run and the same story replayed again but somehow it felt just a little bit better. B...

In April 2014 I joined a group of runners with an intention of completing the 10km run in The Wipro Chennai Marathon 2014 some 8 months later. Today a day before the TWCM it all feels quite anticlimactic and strangely the excitement of the first race is no longer there. I have already completed 2 Half marathons of which 1 was a trail marathon and 1 10 km run and I am now encouraging new comers to run their first 10km race well. What is more, the group that I run with got named as Tower Twisters and is now over 100 members strong with nearly 40 runners meeting and running regularly. There are many reasons for both the developments but in hindsight I would like to think it is the selflessness of some members especially the senior members of the group who were willing to sacrifice their personal time so that a new comer could run. The term senior refers not the actual age of the member but their age with reference to their running life and some senior runners could be younger tha...

During a drive to the airport yesterday my        colleague remarked positivity works wonders. He said that he has trained himself to think “I hope it will be clear roads ahead” instead of the usual “I hope there is NO traffic ahead”. The fact that we made the 19 odd kilometres commute in under 45 minutes during the evening peak hour rush gave some credence to his statement. Later on I reflected on the excessive use of negative terms that we use daily. Red flag words like no, not, however, but, try and so many more. I call them red flag because the usage of these words triggers off a lot of unnecessary negativity in life. It does not take a lot does it to measure the words and keep them positive. A positive outlook really works wonders; the colleague said that when you are positive the universe somehow conspires to make good things happen to you. For discussion sake let us examine two words in the above list – but and try. There are no bu...

The responses to the conviction and sentencing of the former CM range from tragic to the absurd. Tragic were the lives lost either due to suicide or due to heart attacks; absurd are the various protests, unrests and damage to public properties, fasts and now forced closure of schools. A court has found an accused guilty of corruption and has awarded punishment that while eyebrow raising has its own merits with inflation among other things but instead of appealing against the verdict these senseless acts by a few are making a mockery of one of the pillars of our democracy that is the judiciary. I am still confused on the stance of these people are they claiming that their leader is not corrupt and the judge has made an error despite all the evidence to the contrary or are they feeling that corruption should not be punished selectively? My personal take is that this punishment is little too much a little too late. The case was filed on the earlier version who in her arrogance an...

The story of my second race. I completed my second half marathon yesterday. This was part of the Chennai Trail Marathon 2014 held near the Chembarambakkam lake. This event is different from other marathons because it is a trail marathon and by trail it means you run where there may be no road just a trail. Having signed up for this run, I was determined to train for it and I managed to complete a 21 two weeks before the event. As it was a LSD I was not looking at the time;  I did a strong first half and took it easy on the return, however I felt that I was in good form for CTM despite never running on the trail before. Few of the others in my team had done a practice run on the route earlier but I missed it for various reasons. Work and travel ensured that my training took a backseat and then when I least expected it I got a viral infection that forced me to rest just before the run. So on the eve of the run I was out of practice and the illness had left me drained. ...

You may have seen this badge worn by folks and you may have fallen for the weight loss product that the badge wearer is selling.  Chances are that the product may have worked a little for you; chances are that it may not have but the person who sold it to you has definitely become a little richer off you. I am no expert on these magic formulae that will guarantee that you lose weight but I do know that there is a way to lose weight and if you were to walk up to me ask me how just like the gentleman who has been noticing me for over a few months now and observing the changes in me over the past few months did today, I will be glad to share. (I guess I do look lighter than I did in March and so I guess I don’t need to wear a badge.) Weight loss is not a rocket science. It comes down to a few simple things that everyone knows and yet they tend to look for the magic formula. Weight loss happens by burning fat and by responsible eating. I have shared posts on both but sinc...

Runners are a weird breed, they do so many funny things and if you are not a runner you will find them a trifle difficult to understand. But here are some pointers to identify a runner Their day begins when the rest of the world is still in bed or at least pressing the snooze option in their alarms for another few minutes. They wear bright neon colour clothes that others would not be caught dead in and lace up shoes that will cost nearly an arm or a leg, well not so much but enough for others to arch their eyebrows sky high. Then they set out from their homes to set the roads on fire. Look out for some folks wearing bright clothes and funky shoes running in the dark. You will observe the hyperboles being thrown about quite frequently in this post but I will ask you to bear with me for with runners everything is above average. They run distances that will make others swoon in shock; distances like 21 kms, 30 kms, 50 kms are regular conversation staples and note that these d...

This post has been published as a part of 'The CBC Tablog - 2.' Read previous post by Lakshmi Venkatraman  here ... If you do not know about CBC, Chennai Bloggers Club is simply the Most Happening Blogging Community of namma Chennai. This tablog is a group blogging activity where each blogger posts on one topic and passes the tag to the next. So here goes... One aspect I want to change in Chennai? The list of changes can be long but I will stop with one phrase that should cover a few, “civic sense”. So what then is civic sense? It can be    A sense of taking pride in Chennai  and keeping it clean    A sense of awareness that spitting or defecating in public is a nuisance and can be extremely disrespectful to others    A sense of community living where sweeping ones garbage into the neighbour’s courtyard is avoided    A sense of ownership of the utilities provided for community good and protecting and preserving ...

One look at the profile pic and you will know what is to follow. However it is a story that merits a telling, so here goes… After just three months of running and a rather ambitious decision to run a half marathon I was having a lot of self- doubt s on the eve of the race. There were only two objectives for the next day:  1. To complete the race  2. To complete within three hours Simple as they may sound, for a beginner like me who had only done 17 kms as the highest distance in the three months and with no previous race experience this was a sizeable challenge. My excessive weight, weak knee, a history of a slipped disc were some of the deterrents from my running but having run for three months I wanted to challenge myself. Another minor detail was my dislike of running by the beach, in my limited experience the route by the beach tends to be more humid than the routes I am used to running regularly. However there was a bridge to be crossed and I decided to c...

“When was the last time you did something for the first time?” Simple and even silly as it may sound, pause and think -when was the last time you really did something for the first time. I noticed that these days I am doing new things and I am really happy that I could do them planned or otherwise. Having done some new things now I look forward to doing more and it all started with a head ache. Sometime in February I woke up early one morning with a splitting headache. The usual response would be to pop a pill and get back into bed but on that day I decided to go for a walk. I still am not sure why I decided to walk but that became a landmark moment. I returned after the walk with a clear head and felt very active. I started walking regularly gradually increasing the distance, and slowly started running. I was warned that with my bulk, running was best avoided yet I took small runs by myself. I came across Chennai Runners on Facebook and searched for a chapter in Anna Na...