The Lazy Runner

I have always been one of the laziest guys on the block. Half-hearted attempts at any kind of fitness activity (yoga/swimming/gym) were no match for full-blown attempts to find excuses to avoid such activity.

I used to read articles about how good exercise is, over a nice Chocolate ice-cream sundae and/or a beer. Once in a while, I would get tempted by some friend’s stories or prodding to hit the pool or gym, the frequency of which would of course decline to zero pretty quickly.

And then I discovered running. Though I was terrible at most sports, I had some vague idea that I possessed decent stamina, and should try my legs at some endurance activities. After decades, that idea finally got some action when I decided to attempt a few runs. And that, along with various other motivators (see earlier posts), meant that I have stuck with running for almost 3 years now. And as much I’ve loved it, it is clear to me that fitness is not the main goal.

The thing is, I don’t really enjoy other exercise stuff. Yoga tends to be boring, gyms scare me, and I look for excuses to avoid even simple stretches (Yes, I’m also a great procrastinator).  I don’t particularly mind doing all this, but sleep, or drinking, or pretty much any other activity, usually takes priority. Running is perhaps the only thing which gives me enough motivation to roll out of bed at an (in)decent hour.

And I love eating pretty much everything. I've switched to Diet Coke, but gluten-free or vegan/veggie diets appeal to me as much as warm beer.

I see friends working out every day, sometimes multiples times a day, doing Quad and P90x+ and 5X5 routines; reading and writing blogs on the latest nutrition and fitness trends, and I admire their effort and commitment. And reading/thinking about all their exertions tires me out so much I crave either beer or bed.

Yup, I haven't had a hankering for six-pack abs and stuff (and whatever little desire I had to this end went away seeing SRK’s shirtless performance in Om Shanthi Om). Some wobbly bits aren’t too bad, what?

I love running. I also love sleeping and lazing. Of course I want to run longer, faster, more often. I also want to sleep/rest longer, more often.

The balance is, to say the least, difficult. I am trying to find activities which, for the effort, will give me the best ROI in terms of improved running performance. Preferably something that I can do sitting on a sofa with the TV on (extra points if I can keep my hands free to hold the remote/glass). 

I know I will never be a particularly good runner. My goal, if any, is become a passable runner while having my share of sloth and torpor.

My goal is also to find the Grand Unified Theory by reading Calvin & Hobbes and Facebook Posts.

Hyderabad Marathon 2012 (Or, How Queen Nature bamboozled me. Royally)

Your first marathon is always a memorable experience. You are scared, you worry about things that could go wrong, you wade into the unknown determined to overcome any monsters that might be hidden.

All that, and more, happened at Auroville on my marathon debut.

I'd been the laziest guy on the block - happy to eat, drink and sleep as much as I could. I used to bunk sports period in school, and hardly ever ventured into a sporting arena in college. If a poll was conducted in school on the person least likely to have any sporting achievement, I'd have won hands down. (I don't know if crawling to finish a marathon qualifies as a sporting achievement. If it doesn't, please don't tell me so – that’s the only one I’m capable of.)

And then, basking in the satisfaction of having tamed that course, I turned my focus to looking for my next conquest. Hyderabad it would be, I decided. Having run a half marathon last year, I knew it wasn’t an easy run. The hills would be an added challenge, I said to myself.  And I would do it in decent time, maybe a 4:30? Or less?

Hill training? Who needs that?

For variety, I tacked on to this 4 month Furman ‘Run Less’ program, consisting of 3 runs a week, 2 of which were tempo/intervals. Added on 1 day of strength training. So I still had 3 days a week to sleep late and wake up later.

Promptly after starting training, I succumbed to minor injuries – pulled groin during a weak attempt at sprints. And then a strange case of shin splints, which is supposed to be a beginner runner’s affliction. And summer had set in too. With all this, I found a sharp drop in fitness levels. I was panting at ‘easy’ paces, heart rate was shooting way up, and any sort of speedwork was about as comfortable as surfing on a Blackberry, or typing on an Iphone. But I stayed determined to keep up with the program, icing the shins after every run and reducing my pace targets.

Finally, some 5 weeks before Hyderabad, I found the injury starting to let up, and fitness levels improved marginally. Managed two 30+ k runs without too much trouble. And then the realization that I had done ZERO hill training dawned. Harish reminded me of this as well. So I proposed a 21k run over a fair number of flyovers in South Chennai 2 weeks before the event. That didn't go too bad. Problem solved.  Or so I thought.

Little did I know.

After enjoying the 2 week taper period, I found myself packing for Hyderabad, 2 days before the race. Padded my 4 ½ hr playlist to 5 hours, just in case. And then off to Hyderabad, a nice carb-heavy South Indian lunch, race packet pick-up and an afternoon relaxing with a book. Went down for dinner and found a pool party going on, with a bunch of kids smoking and drinking and frolicking in the pool, amidst music which must have been audible at Gachibowli stadium, let alone our dinner venue adjacent to the party venue.

Chicken Soup and Pasta for dinner with many other runners. Service was terrible, but the two consultants at our table managed to get the bill waived. (No, they haven’t sent me an invoice for their services. Yet). And that music had stopped. So far, so good.

Decent enough sleep, vague dreams about the run. Woke up at some unearthly hour to join the other runners at the lobby. Ramesh looked happy as a clam, having had his peanut butter sandwich for breakfast. Preeti was looking good for podium, which she missed by a whisker. Had I known she’d finish at 4^th place, I’d have tripped one of the first 3 at the start. Harish seemed nervous but confident for his marathon debut, and Krishna and Shankar were cool as ever. Walked 10 mins to the start line, and was happy to see many more known faces. After half a banana and a Gu, felt all set. The countdown started, the balloons went up. And off we went.

The first bit, around the lake was deceptively flat. Kept an easy pace along with Harish and Anil, another Chennai Runner. The weather was more humid than expected, but nothing a Chennai-ite could complain about. At 9 k, we passed the start point again where the Half Marathoners were lined up for their run. Just after that, the first flyover came, and that was when the Half Marathoners started, all full of vim. Hordes of people were overtaking us, and I was happy to let them pass, content with my 6:20/k pace. And the string of flyovers and hills had also begun.

While slowing down somewhat, I was fairly comfortable handling them, energy levels were fine and heart rate was unexceptional. Passed the 50% mark at 2:13, at which point I realized a 4:30 would be tough; but I could live with finishing a few minutes off. Stayed easy, running up inclines with small steps, and bounding down the declines, feeling pretty good. Was even able to do a small jig when a loud volunteer bus passed by, just before the killer Gachibowli flyover started. Struggled up it, and met a few Half Marathoners who were by now nearing the end of the course, and looking forward to the finish line. We of course had miles to go. At around 28k, our paths diverged. Courtesy last year’s Half, it had been a familiar route till then. I was hoping the rest of the course would be flatter, and I knew there weren’t any more flyovers. But then Nature had other plans. Immediately after the turn, she threw up a steep and endless hill, and then a sharp descent till the 31.1 (almost 75%) point, which I passed with 3:21 on the clock. Ok, it’ll be flat from now, I hoped. If I maintained a 7 min/k pace, I was looking at a 4:38 finish. That’s not too bad, I thought.

And then up it went again. Was starting to feel some tingling in my right quad by now. Cramps coming up, they seemed to be telling me. I’d never had cramps during a run before, and hence no idea how to handle them. Stopped briefly for some stretches, cut down the pace and kept running. But the hills showed no sign of ending. There was a turn around 35k onto a small road, full of cows and a rural vibe. And still uphill. At this point, I saw Ramesh who was moving well but also struggling with the inclines. Then a young lady in a yellow tee bounded by untroubled by all this, frustrating us further. Kept with Ramesh for a couple of Ks as the legs were getting more and more uncomfortable forcing me to cut the pace heavily. And then we saw another incline at 36-odd k. “Are you f***ing kidding me?”, I had to blurt out. Ramesh the consultant said pretty much the same thing, only it was more like “In a resource-thin situation, unfavorable environment changes may need a paradigm shift with the end-goal in mind to make the deliverable actionable”. And he shifted and kept moving.

I struggled on and turned into the university where the road went – you guessed it - up. That’s when my legs started seizing. The left quad had joined the party by now, and the hams were sending threatening signals as well. ‘We told you to get more hill practice’, they seemed to be mocking. Tried some weird stretches which had no impact, nor did Volini spray. Ramesh was still with me here, and suggested backward walking, which didn’t do too much to me, other than attract weird looks from passersby. Was able to jog + walk with some occasional stretches for the next 2-3 k, and realized the jog parts were getting shorter and shorter, and my net pace was only marginally better than fast walking. 

Finally gave up at 40k and decided to just walk it back. Other runners were passing by, and there was nothing I could do about it.  They say a marathon is mostly mental, but at this point it was purely physical. The mind was willing, the heart was in it, but the legs had their own plans. Any attempt at running, and they would promptly protest by buckling. As I entered the stadium, I saw Mani, looking concerned seeing me walking, trying to spur me on. I kept enough reserve to start jogging as I entered the stadium track, and there was Bala, pulling and prodding me on to the finish line. Crossed it just before my playlist ran out, comfortable but disappointed.

‘Let’s come back and crack it next year’ Ramesh said later. ‘Never again’, I promised.

Yes, promises you have no intention of keeping are the best kind.

Playbook OS 2 release crashes servers, ‘Proves Success’ claims CEO

The release of Blackberry OS 2, claimed by the company to be their biggest update ever, lead to its servers in India crashing yesterday.

According to reports, five users tried to download the update for the Blackberry Playbook the same evening overloading its computers for several hours, and Blackberry services slowing to a crawl.

‘We didn’t think anyone would notice this update was out’, Sunil Dutt, Head of BB India said. ‘However, I took the precaution of hosting the 500MB file in my home PC, just in case. But with so much demand, my 256 Kbps connection couldn’t handle the load, and the link dropped frequently. I should have listened to my friends and taken an Airtel broadband connection instead of BSNL.' He added, 'The way Blackberry demand is going, we were planning to run the Blackberry email service globally from my computer, but I will now ensure I upgrade my internet plan before we do that’.

Praising the India chief, Thorstein Heins, Blackberry ‘s new CEO said ‘ Sunil showed great resourcefulness in overruling the advice of his marketing team. In fact, the sales guys were trying to convince our development team not to bother with all this work and just put out the original OS and claim it was a major update.’ "No one will notice", they claimed.'

A marketing executive who did not wish to be named said ‘ The Playbook was released last year, but most customers and BB employees still have no idea what it is supposed to do.’ When asked why these buyers didn’t complain, he said ‘Most of our sales were from an enterprising Mumbai reseller who stuck the Apple logo on the front and back of the device. Of course no one complains about an Apple product, however crappy it is – it just isn’t done’.

Mr. Heins responded ‘Last evening’s outstanding success, which saw almost 10% of our Playbook buyers attempt to download this update on the first day of its release shows that we still have active users of our device. While it may be true that the occasional buyer may have mistaken this for the Playstation Portable or a chopping board, we congratulate the people who actually managed to use it’.

Ex-CEOs Mike Lazardis and Jim Balsillie deferred comments, claiming the Downtown Ontario McDonald’s was unusually busy today. ‘These burgers aren’t gonna flip themselves’, Lazardis muttered, as Balsillie was spotted trying to fix a broken potato fryer.

My First Marathon

I had never, ever, even remotely, been considered an athlete, least of all by myself. At school, I used to be the first one to bunk sports class. And I hated waking up early to be dragged to PT class in the cold (OK, that was true of almost everyone in class!). My 8 hour sleep was always a prized possession I rarely compromised on. Till recently, my fitness routine consisted of hogging desserts, chugging beers and dragging myself to the gym/pool perhaps once a month to assuage occasional feelings of guilt about all that beer/dessert.

This changed when I started running from end-2009 (see earlier post).

Now, while I'm not as mad a runner as many in this group, I see myself happily getting up at (to me) unearthly hours 3 days a week, head out and run, leading up to my first Auroville run, also my first marathon.

The idea of doing a marathon had of course been on my mind, but it was a daunting prospect and I kept putting it off, sticking to the way less taxing half marathons, which I could manage without a strict training routine. Bit the bullet and signed up for Auroville encouraged by Krishna doing the same, after the IIT half. Now, for my first full, I had to figure out a program which would get the job done, but not tax lazy me too much. Like I said, sleep was a priority for me, so were a couple of late nights out per week, and I didn't really enjoy any fitness activity other than running. But I knew I needed to do some strengthening and stuff, so figured a 3 day running, 1 day strengh+core routine per week would be doable. And if I felt like it, I could do a short strength routine once in a way (of course I hardly ever felt like it).

So it was a simple schedule with a progressively long run on Sunday (increasing from 20k to 36k @ 2-3k each time, cutting back the distance every 3rd or 4th week), a 10k or so run on Tuesday, strength/core on Wednesday, 10-15k on Thursday. Threw in some speedwork into one of the weekday runs to keep it interesting, but didn't get to do any hill runs.

Anyway, come Feb 12th, I figured I'd done a decent job following my modest schedule, though it was a very comfortable routine compared to the hardcore ones recommended by many experts which go up to 60+ miles/week with lots more strength training and stuff.

Landed up at the run start point on Sunday morning and the race got off bang on time. My goal was to run continuously (no walk breaks) and finish comfortably, and had dreams off finishing near 4:30. The strategy was to keep a steady pace of 6:20-6:30 and hope for an even split.

The first loop was run with some trepidation, having heard stories of many runners who fell and injured themselves last year. Kept it slow and was concentrating on not losing my way or my footing. The trail was also undulating, and with my lack of experience on inclines, found my HR shooting up way over normal. So I kept to the lower end of the target pace band. Then the day started lighting up, and by 6.10 I'd ditched my dorky head lamp and was really enjoying the run. The second loop was of course the best, the sun kept low and the weather stayed comfortable. Volunteer support was excellent, especially at the superb and frequent aid stations. Maintained the same pace and, other than a bunch of us losing our way in the middle, the miles went by pretty uneventfully and I completed 21.1 at 2:15 hrs and kept on. 4:30 was looking like a distant possibility at this time.

Cue to 33-34k and I was maintaining the same pace but the sun had really started to show its fury and rapidly sap whatever energy stores I had left. During training, I had finished a 33k and a 36k comfortably at this pace, so hoped I could manage the additional 6k. But then, those runs had been on flat roads when Chennai was at its coolest, and the last part of these runs were inside the well-shaded Anna University so I hardly experienced more than brief moments under the sun. I was starting to realize how much of a difference the tough trail and weather could make.

And then, I misread a sign and took a wrong turn again. Made it back after a while and ran on, but when the 35k marker came up, found my Garmin showing 36.5k, thanks to the missed turns and an overall longer route, and realized I would have to run close to 44k to finish this. That was not the best news at a time when the miles were becoming longer and longer. Marathoners must have discovered that space and time are not absolute, much before Einstein. Having run without a break at an average pace around 6:30/k, my enthusiasm and energy started to flag at this point when I discovered there were over 7 kms to go and the sun had become, to me, a full-blown monster.

The mental game was well under way now. Stopped and took walk breaks at the next couple of aid stations (walking at aid stations didn't violate my continuous running plan, right?!) , which were thankfully not too far apart. It's a bit of a blur, but the walk breaks became longer and managed to jog till the last aid station close to the 40k mark and I was almost all tapped out. Having run pretty much alone most of the race, I was very happy to see Bala and Vilva literally chilling out there. Bala offered me some water to wash myself and then we proceeded to amble/walk towards the finish. With all the obvious exhaustion, Bala's enthu had not flagged a bit and he kept commanding us to giddy-up and run. My Garmin ticked past 42.2k at around 4:38 . And then, some 1k from the finish, we saw a fresh-as-dew Manivannan, presumably having not had enough with his awesome 4.07 hr run, coming back to drag us stragglers in. I huffed and puffed with him till I saw the 42k mark at the distance.

At this stage, I should of course have sensibly continued the slow jog/walk. But, having watched too many masala movies where the hero, beaten black and blue to within an inch of his life, suddenly comes up with one last flourish to put down all the baddies in one fell sweep, I had to see if there was something left in me. Picked up the pace just before the 42k sign (around 43.6 in my Garmin). Even with the space-time continuum substantially distorted at this stage, it took me a while to see the 100m mark and then a long time again to see the finish line. I am fairly sure Balaji and the other route organizers, with their ever-present sense of humor, decided to make the last '200m' more like 400m, just for fun! Crossed the finish line as exhausted as I've ever been. The happiness and sense of fulfillment took a while to sink in. It was 44.09k and 4:53 minutes by my watch.

It truly was the last part of the race, gritting your way through sapped energy reserves, fighting a losing battle with the sun, dragging yourself on, which makes you dig in deep and bring out all that you got. In the process, you understand your limits, and how much you can push those limits. There is no short-cut to a marathon.

Thanks to the team for a great course and fabulously organized run. Congrats to all the finishers, whatever the distance, especially those who dragged themselves through pain, exhaustion and doubt to complete the run. Like Karthik said, the feats of runners who push their limits to finish are probably more inspirational than those who breeze through these runs at incredible speeds.

On Running (Written in Sept 2010)

I'd been a poor morning person for as long as I can remember. Fitness was something I read about and figured it wasn't worth the sweat and stink.

Tried my hands (and feet) at swimming once in a way, but each time I was looking for excuses not to get into the pool ('Too cold' or 'Too hot' the easiest).

And I read more and more inspirational posts from friends who were completing Half-Marathons and Marathons and stuff. This sounded more interesting. The only problem was, in Chennai, running outdoors had to be an early morning activity, before too many people like me decided they need to go out and get in other people’s way

And one day it struck me – I didn’t HAVE to stay up late. Somehow that had become so much of a habit that I couldn’t even think of going to bed long before midnight. I could, I realized, go to sleep at 10. Or 9. And wake up at 6. Or 5 (But yes, I needed my 8 hours). Great plan. .

So I flicked my brother’s ancient and long-ago-consigned-to-the-bin Ipod Nano 1G. Then I dug out my shoes. And ran. Not much at first. It felt good. Was fun. But I realized I needed a target and a routine and more motivation to keep this up.

So, around the start of 2010 I decided I would run a half-marathon this year. I didn’t deceive myself – I wasn’t ever going to be a run fanatic. I wouldn’t skip social outings for running. Or cut down on my sleep. So I would be happy if I did 2 runs a week, very happy if I did 3. Great.

And then it got better. I learnt about the endless gadgets available for the runner.

So I did what a man has to occasionally do. I went shopping. Having very little knowledge on what I really needed, I was the advertiser’s dream. The first thing a runner is supposed to have is a good pair of shoes. So I decided, being an engineer and all, that I would do this very scientifically. Yes, I started looking at ad taglines. I hadn’t heard of Asics and Saucony and stuff then, so the choices were limited to :

‘The Road comes free. Run’ (Reebok)

‘Impossible is Nothing’ (Adidas)

‘Actually, it IS Rocket Science’ (Nike – Lunarglide)

No prizes for guessing which one appealed most to the tech-geek in me. So I went to the Nike store. Found a pair of Nike Lunarglide+ shoes on sale. Score!

Then I discovered a red ‘Nike +’ logo on the shoe. Went and looked up info on the Nike+ kit online. Couldn’t stop drooling when I read about all the awesome stuff it promised to do. So I had to go shopping again. It’s a bit of a blur, but I’m fairly sure I managed to drive to the Nike store without knocking over too many pedestrians. Picked up the gear. Got back home. Couldn’t wait for the next morning. Ran. It just worked – it was an Apple product and all, but didn’t expect it to be so cool! Speed. Check. Distance. Check. Lance Armstrong chiming in with encouraging words. Check. I don’t know if I lost more water through sweat or drool that run.

And then I ran more. Longer. Joined the Chennai Runners mail group and thought about how nice it would be to run with others. But the group seemed to consist of sleep mutants who didn’t need their zzzz. These chaps run at 5 am every morning. Hmmm, I could manage to drag myself up early once in a while, but would be groggy at work through the day. Unless I didn’t have to work. So Sunday runs could work.

The next problem – Saturday evenings! Unfortunately the usual choice for drinking and late nights. Try as I might, I couldn’t convince myself that drinking till late and running early the next morning were a good match. And I didn’t want to choose between running and a reasonable social life with people who woke up (and often slept) later than 4 am. So I ended up politely sipping one beer through most sat. night dos I went to. And felt pretty good most Sunday mornings.

Somehow I managed to be the laziest runner in the group, and still get a fair bit of miles under my feet. My longest run length increased from 5 to 8 to 12 kms. And then 15k on a muggy summer Sunday morning with the Chennai Runners. I would have given up that day, but I was on an unfamiliar route and didn’t want to lose sight of the last of the runners straggling along some distance ahead of me. I kept up and finished. Almost collapsed at the end. But the thing about running is, however much a run takes out of you, you get it back and more soon after. And, soon after, I felt great. Did a few more 15k runs.

And I registered for the Chennai Half-Marathon (Aug 29), ECR Half Marathon (Oct 3) and Mumbai Half (Jan 16). All seemed to go well till the end of July, and it seemed unreal that I was actually getting close to completing a New Year resolution, and with months to go.

4 weeks to go for Chennai. Hadn’t run longer than 10 miles and that had to change over the next 2 weeks. Then I pulled something on my right leg. A normal day, a normal run, but ended up feeling a little funny. The next day I was hobbling. I decided to take a break for a few days, then had to travel a bit, and then came down with a cold. So no running for 2 weeks.

Felt better eventually and decided to try a small run on the treadmill. The pain came up again. The doc gave me a bunch of medicines and asked me to take a break from running for 2 weeks. A week later, I decided to ignore his advice and restart training with the 6k Terry Fox run at IIT Chennai. Some pain, but felt better as the run progressed, and ended up running with the US Consul-General Andrew Simkin for most part of the run. Not the whole run though – the old man pulled ahead at the end!

Came back home. Pain again. A week to go and my training was shot and my leg in bad shape. And I had to travel on an important business trip to Europe right after the Chennai event. Every logical thought process said I should give up, try as I might to come up with an alternative conclusion. One more short run to see how I hold up, I thought. So I ran with 3 days to go. Still painful, but I managed to convince myself I was better.

Forward to August 29, Sunday morning. I landed up at 5.30 am at the venue with little training and a lot of trepidation and a bunch of enthusiastic runners from the Chennai Runners team. The bad news was I had forgotten my ipod at home. So no Lady Gaga/Lance Armstrong for motivation. Anyway, thought I would start running and see what happened. If I felt too bad, I would drop out. So planning, I set out on the 2 km walk from the parking lot to the starting point. Being Chennai, of course the event didn’t start on schedule. After endless announcements and the obligatory VIP speeches, the starting whistle blew at 6.30, just as it started to drizzle.

I started jogging apprehensively for the first few kms. The rain went away and it continued to be cloudy, but the humidity was oppressive. Took stock after 30 mins. Strangely, my legs felt fine. No pain. But I soon realized the month-long layoff had affected my fitness. My run pace was a good 10% off normal and the heart rate was shooting up. Decided to keep my pace easy and forget any timing targets. The faster runners were on their way back, well into their second half of the run. Reached the halfway point at 1:14. 7 mins off target pace. I shouldn’t be thinking of the pace, I told myself. It was getting warmer but the sun stayed helpfully hidden. And it was getting tiring. I trudged on. And on. Don’t be stupid enough to give up so close to the finish, I heard another runner telling his friend. I thought of breaking for a walk – but I knew it’d then be too difficult to start running again. Kept on, brushed past the finish mat in 2:33.45.

The pain came back, but I felt the best I had in ages. Fulfilled. More complete somehow, though my legs were by now threatening to split and go their own way. Kept walking and stretching as much as I could lest my legs locked up and I had to ask to be carried to my car. Limped back to the car, got home, ate and slept.

Still limping a bit a week after the event, but I’ll be fine. I’ll restart running from tomorrow. And I wouldn’t have given up on the experience for all this pain and more.