Man on the Run.....

Bachao Mujhe!!!!! [ I love you all ]

2005-07-13T22:23:00.000-07:00

5 ways by which you can help me

5. BELIEF - Believe that it is indeed me who is running the marathon. Most of my friends don't associate running with me. They associate Home run, Touchdown, Dunks, Potato and the couch with me. But I have decided to get up from the couch for the sole reason that there is a huge hole in it because of extreme usage.

4. GENEROSITY - The next time I visit your house, please make sure you give me ample food. Non-Greasy and carbohydrate rich foods are absolutely fine which means I can eat a three course meal with Sambar, Rasam and Buttermilk without feeling guility of being a sloth.

3. SUPPORT - I hate the Lakers but I watch all the Lakers games because of those *hawt* women in the sidelines. According to me, the fans and the supporters are a vital component of the participant's achievements. So, please cheer for me in spirit while I am running the full marathon in Chicago. If you cannot be in Chicago, atleast hire some Chic (for) go and fly her down to Chicago to cheer for me. It is all about motivation.

2. WISHES - Please wish me good luck in my efforts. I need a lot of wishes. Atleast 100 for every mile. So if you happen to read this post, please drop in a line for me in the comments section and also let five of your best friends know about my efforts. If you don't do so, then you will grow bald in five days. If you do so, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie will split and one of them will walk into your life depending on your preference.

1. CONTRIBUTE - Almost everyone of us want kids to go to school. I am running this Marathon to support educational infrastructure in Nalbari District of Assam. Just like Rome was not built in a day, social development is a metamorphosis and this metamorphosis needs many many catalysts like you. So, please contribute towards my marathon and tell the world that "ILLITERACY AND IGNORANCE HAS NO PLACE HERE".

It would be great if you could contribute $1 or $2 for every mile of the 26.2 miles in the Marathon. To make a contribution, please click here

PS: A friend told me the only way he can help me in this marathon training is by taking me to a psychiatrist to check whether I have gone mad.

Running a Marathon

2005-07-13T22:10:00.000-07:00

"Runnning Shoes - $100
Fuel Belt - $36
Massage Roller - $15
Running a Marathon- "

I would have say that priceless until I saw this

Now I am rethinking my punch line....

RUNNING A MARATHON - MORE PRICELESS THAN RED SOX WINNING THE WORLD SERIES

Still Haven't found What I am looking for....

2005-07-11T17:11:00.000-07:00

It is a strange feeling that I was humming

"I have climbed highest mountain
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you
I have run
I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with you
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for "

while I was doing my hill running this morning. It is a similar feeling to those NBA champiionship advertisements where Duncan, Iverson, Payton, Kidd all profess their love for the prize they covet most - The NBA championships.

11 Miles on Saturday - July 2nd 2005

2005-07-05T16:52:00.000-07:00

We ran at Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge last week. 11 miles was the target. I ran it in two hours and twenty minutes. I was slowed down by Side Stitches and there were some steep gradients as well in the running course . I hope to get maintain a 11:30 to 12:00 minutes per mile pace for the Marathon and I have been consistently hitting this mark in all my practice sessions.

The one thing that I noticed in while I am doing these long runs is that water has never tasted so sweet. Especially, when you run the final stretch and your tongue is parched dry, you just run for the water. The tingling feeling that hits you when the water wets your tongue is something I would call "divine"....

10 mile barrier!!!!!

2005-06-25T20:26:00.000-07:00

My shoe hits the road and my body locks up into this symmetric motion with my hands and legs. Oh! the human body is so beautifuuly designed to run and be mobile. As it trudges through the trail, a pearls of sweat make an appareance on my face and before I could wipe it, a gentle breeze blows across to dry it and the cool feeling I get is never matched by an airconditioner. This can be aptly be termed as the joy of running.

I ran ten miles this morning. It is definitely a personal milestone in my training for this marathon. Few months back, even I wouldn't have believed I could run 10 miles non-stop on a windy and chill morning. The trail was Sawyer Camp Trail and the views of the lake below is heavenly.

Crowding thoughts

2005-06-23T22:34:00.000-07:00

Training for a marathon is a very different experience. You are not trying to be quick. You are trying to fight the distance and not the time. The only way you can fight the distance is through practice. So, the training has one really long run by the end of whic you will drop dead, two weekly runs by the end of which you want to get into an Indian restaurant and hog as if you just walked all alone through the Sahara desert and one track workout, after which you feel like slaughtering the Pheidippides. [ For non hisotry majors, The marathon race commemorates the run of the soldier
Pheidippides from a battlefield near Marathon, Greece, to Athens in 490 B.C., bringing news of a Greek victory over the Persians. Pheidippides collapsed and died at the end of his historic run]. My only question to Pheidippides before gullitoning him mercilessly would be why didn't he fall dead a little earlier than 26 miles.

But, it is really intresting and intriguing the kind of thoughts that crowd my mind while I am training....

- The breakfast menu at Komala Vilas
- Vital stats of Maliika Sherawat, who I think is the biggest four letter S word that ends with T and the middle two letters are the first two letters of a tiny country in Europe. If you want to know the middle two letters, donate for my marathon.
- Whether the warning about the mountain lions and rattle snake in this trail might come true.
- What would be the half time score at the basketball game?
- When will I have six pack like Peter Andre?
- When can I have my next six pack of Corona?
- When is the next water stop?
- When will this trail end?
- What would Michael Jackson be doing at six in the morning?
- What would be the best punishment for Bradd Pitt and Angelina Jolie for torturing me with a movie like Mr. and Mr.s Smith?
- Why in the damn hell is my test not working?
- Pray that Australia beats England. One of the coaches is a Brit:-)

My mind is amazing. It never concentrates on the job on hand.

Wallace Falls this week

2005-06-22T13:10:00.000-07:00

I was in Seattle last week and I couldn't do the long run. It was a cool off week before we start doing the higher mileage again. Vani and I hiked the Wallace Falls trails. It was about 5 miles to and from the falls. It was picturesque and the falls were nestled in a dense forest. We even saw a small reptile on the trail which prompted a frightend response from the lady.

Which Marathon???

2005-06-16T14:27:00.000-07:00

After much consternation about the gradient in San Francisco and constipation about the lack of support in Silicon valley, I have decided to run the "Chicago Marathon". The rendezvous with 26.2 miles and painful limbs is set for Oct 9, 2005. I am training with this group of tireless and enthusiastic runners called Team ASHA . I am into my 12th week of training....

Yet Another Top 10 Reasons

2005-04-30T15:06:00.000-07:00

I have a cheap and still elusive thrill in my life - To read the top 10 lists at least once in the David Letterman show before Mr. Letterman kicks the bucket. Here is yet another top 10 but this time it is top 10 reasons behind me running the Marathon

10. I have always wanted to live in San Francisco city. If I have to live in the city and still use my abolutely horrible "engineering" skills to make a living, then all my earnings will end up with Chevron and hence I want to see whether I can run from the city to work. 26.2 miles and more....

9. "Momma always told me that life is like a box of choclates. You never know what you will get" said one of my all time favorite movie characters, Forrest Gump. I cannot become a running back like him or fight a war or play ping pong, but I can run like him. Hence I started to run....

8. To bolster my ego and wear the "Chicago Marathon: Finisher" T Shirt even during my sleep. Vanity, definitely is my favorite sin.

7. Gandhi walked even at his age. So, im age I have decided to run.

6. "Rome wasn't burned in a day and so are the calories in your body." I am running to look tummy-less in my wedding as the groom needs to be a half naked topless supermodel posing for photographs in iyengar weddings.

5. "An entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables: slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing car and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy sh** we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man--no purpose or place. We have no great war. No great depression. Our great war's a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars . . . but we won't. We are not our job. We're not how much money we have in the bank. We're not the car we drive. We are not the contents of our wallet" Then who are we??? We are how many miles we run :-)

4. "And the battle's just begun, There's many lost, but tell me who has won?
The trenches dug within our hearts, And mothers, children, brothers, sisters torn apart". I am running for peace in this world - anywhere and everywhere.

3. Everytime I do these practice runs, a thought has always crossed my mind about something that I have read and seen a lot of movies about in the last one year- "Bhopal Gas Tragedy". Many a times, it has crossed my mind how the people affected by the tragedy would have run when the gas leaked. There are people who are still feeling the ill effects of the disaster.

2. "We dont need no thought control, No dark sarcasm in the classroom, Teachers leave them kids alone" . I am running for education without thought control and teacher sarcasm. I am running for socio economic change in India.

1. "You wake up at Seatac, SFO, LAX. You wake up at O'Hare, Dallas-Fort Worth, BWI. Pacific, mountain, central. Lose an hour, gain an hour. This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time." - Hence I wanna live life to the fullest and follow my heart to do things I want to do.

A New Novel Attempt

2005-04-30T15:03:00.000-07:00

I created this blog initially for writing my first novel. But I botched it due to a clear constipation of thoughts. So, I am into documenting yet another first experience of mine - Running a Marathon...

Follow me in this blog as I continue to post stuff about my training and my fundraising efforts for AID and ASHA