Auroville

So another tick mark last weekend. The carbloaders were at Auroville, often considered as the south india's goa when it comes to the beaches and south india's Osho resort when it comes to matri mandir.

The first time i had to get into Osho's ashram, i had to take refusals from 2 loud mouthed indians who unabashedly claimed that the resort was not meant for indians. I got in only because i was causing them more embarassment at the entrance. But i swear to god, the mandatory HIV test, the stupid maroon robes and the silly meditations were completely worth the unisex changing rooms.

Anyways coming back to topic at hand, Auroville has none of that. Sure it has a beautiful dome shaped structure called matri mandir (which the cynic in me is pretty sure shielding a scam of some kind), acres of beautiful forest, lovely evening breezes and great continental cuisine(if you are willing to ignore the flies). But none of that makes up for when the administration tells you that they will have to give the last seats of the meditation session to a blonde because it would be difficult for her to make it back.

Ok so now coming back to the real topic at hand which is the 21K run. The trail was absolutely stunning, the DJ was funny, the women were hot and the cakes given at the 17km mark were delicious! All in all atleast twice as good as the Mumbai marathon. Its relatively easier to run this because there are no big flyovers and the weather is much cooler. We lived up to our name and loaded on the carbs before after and in my case even during the half marathon. There were 9 meals in 2 days with short breaks of 2 hours between to sleep and laze around at the beach.

Laks got injured with a knee sprain. This happens when your thigh muscles do not take up the strain and your knee takes up the beating instead. Do a lot of squats to keep your thighs in good shape and fit enough to take up the load of the run.

ps: if only the blondes in the ashram were at the beach and the riff raff crowd on the beach was in the ashram for meditation, the experience would have been so much better!

pps: 3 cheers to shonali gupta who completed her very first 5 km run and also posted the first comment on this blog.

My preparation for a run

This week in Pondicherry i will be attempting my 4th half marathon. Frankly there is just one thing that motivates me to travel a 1000 kms and spend 10k to run 15 km and walk about 6, i.e the company of likeminded fools.

Everyone has their own reasons to run. For most people its the thrill of going beyond what they thought was possible for them to accomplish. Everyone has atleast one story in their lives where someone pushed them beyond their mind instructed limits.

I had a cricket coach called Kiran Ashar. An ex-ranji player, he was one of the best coaches i have ever seen. He was a thorough task master from the old school.

His pet exercise was spot jumping. Its a simple technique, simply start jumping wherever you are not too high, about the same height you would if you were skipping. Do not try any variations such as spot jogging on skipping on one knee. They simply distribute the strain on different muscles. Just make sure that you land on both your feet at the same time and your knees are slightly bent.

Try doing this for 5 minutes on day 1 and 15 minutes on day 2 , 30 minutes by week 2 and 1 hour by week 3. Practise this on alternate days. Trust me on this its much tougher than it appears. When you start doing this in the beginning, your mind starts playing games with you. A sudden itch in the head, the desire to go to the loo. A pain in the knee that seems to disappear every time you ignore it. Very similar to what you go through while running on marathon day.

It is said Pete Sampras during his playing days would do this before he begins his exercise. Its an amazing technique to strengthen your calves and eliminate the chance of injury. On a long run the first muscle that begins to give way is the calves and this exercise would ensure that your run would atleast not be halted due to lack of calf power.

I still do this as a substitute for real marathon training. A week before the run just ensure that your legs are fit enough to take the punishment on the run. Here's to you Kiran Sir. Thanks for tolerating me for those 2 years!

Roger Bannister

"Every morning in Africa a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must move faster than the fastest lion or it will not survive. Every morning a lion wakes up and it knows it must move faster than the slowest gazelle or it will starve. It doesn't matter if you are the lion or the gazelle, when the sun comes up, you better be running." - Roger Bannister "

Running with the celebs...

(<-Gul Panag working hard)





(Challa trying to catch up->)

Mediocre running techniques 1 : Interval training

Disclaimer : I actually have no idea what Interval training means. Someone mentioned it as a running strategy and what follows is my own interpretation...

So you can't run 5 km at one go? Guess what? - nobody can! The first step to confidence as a runner is to ignore all these Kenyans and other athletes. This is hard to do in Mumbai when you run right alongside (for a few seconds) and the Kenyans are on their way to finishing a full marathon before you complete a half-er. But that's like imagining Michael Chang chasing down Kim Clijsters' powerful groundstrokes - it's just not a fair comparison.
Making the small psychological leap from couch potato to mediocre runner is not easy. Interval training should get you there faster and easier.
The technique involves running fast and stopping when you are out of breath. If you are doing this right, you would have run about 40 metres in the first burst. Now comes the 'interval' which gives this technique its name. If you are measuring your run with that Nike-plus stopwatch/wristband, then this is the point where you press 'hold'. You don't want these intervals to affect your average pace, do you? If you've picked a good location for your run, this would be chai/juice time and some runners go as far as snacks/lunch/dinner. Once you are completely certain you've digested all this stuff and are also back to a normal heartbeat, however long that takes, sprint again. The extra load might mean you'd do something like 10-15 metres this time around before your lungs stop you. Interval 2 beckons. You could repeat these interval-run cycles for as many times as you like till the sprint length becomes something like 1-2 metres. That would be a good time to call it a day and head to more carb-replenishment.
The advantages of using this technique vis-a-vis jogging steadily, are many - it's less boring, for one. Also if you have some niggles you don't even know about, the short sprints would ensure these come out in the open as full-fledged injuries so you can treat them. The third advantage is that onlookers, after a few strange looks at the start, give way for you to run while joggers don't get this sort of awe-filled respect ever.

carbloading at Pondicherry

this is my first post on this blog that laks, challa and i thought of starting exactly 1 year ago. the responsibilities for the blog are allocated between us according to our key competencies. laks brings in the humor, challa brings in the motivation and i bring in the carbs.

The reason for choosing the name carbloading is actually very deep. The act of loading carbs before a marathon (and in our case after the marathon) is actually more enjoyable than running itself.

Maybe the reason is not so deep. Anyways the carbloaders are going be there at Pondicherry for the marathon on 13th.

so keep watching this space for more nonsense..

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

"I'm often asked what I think about as I run. Usually the people who ask this have never run long distances themselves. I always ponder the question. What exactly do I think about when I'm running? I don't have a clue." — Haruki Murakami (What I Talk About When I Talk About Running)

"The most important thing we ever learn at school is the fact that the most important things can't be learned at school." — Haruki Murakami (What I Talk About When I Talk About Running)

"Of course it was painful, and there were times when, emotionally, I just wanted to chuck it all. But pain seems to be a precondition for this kind of sport. If pain weren't involved, who in the world would ever go to the trouble of taking part in sports like the triathlon or the marathon, which demand such an investment of time and energy? It's precisely because of the pain, precisely because we want to overcome that pain, that we can get the feeling, through this process, of really being alive--or at least a partial sense of it. Your quality of experience is based not on standards such as time or ranking, but on finally awakening to an awareness of the fluidity within action itself." — Murakami

"When I'm running I don't have to talk to anybody and don't have to listen to anybody. This is a part of my day I can't do without." — Haruki Murakami (What I Talk About When I Talk About Running)

"The thoughts that occur to me while I’m running are like clouds in the sky. Clouds of all different sizes. They come and they go, while the sky remains the same sky always. The clouds are mere guests in the sky that pass away and vanish, leaving behind the sky." — Haruki Murakami