100 miles – Yup, I did it

It was sometime in October that I decided to run a total of 100 miles before my birthday on Christmas Eve. At the time my decision was just a way of getting back into the routine of running and averaged to about a little less than 1.25 miles each day.


There were a lot of things going on in October, including performing on stage twice which also required stage practice on each occasion, Navratri (9 day festival to celebrate goddess of Power and I fast for 8 of the 9 days), Diwali, Mum- Dad’s return from Seattle and a few other things. All the busy-ness boiled down to a whooping single digit, 2 miles total run for the October month.

November was a little less busy but hectic nonetheless. After Mum-Dad left for India, our friends from Colorado visited us for a few days, after that I seriously started the running ritual. I ran as often as the juggle called life permitted and just added 35+ miles to my record.

Before I go on with my saga, this chart will explain how challenges motivate and me and while it was a hard target to meet, I managed to beat it by a day.

When December rolled in and I was still 60+ miles away from my goal, a part of my brain felt that I can probably not make it and automatically assigned a few extra days by increasing the deadline to New Year’s Eve. Here’s where the fascinating facet of human nature shines through and I have yet to fully understand it but there was another part of my brain that took it as a challenge and refused to accept any excuses. I think it was this particular part of the brain that helped me finish my 5K early in May as I said in this post: Thankful for you, my body

I love challenges and it was amazing to see two parts of my brain fighting against each other. Actually only one was fighting; the other just extended the deadline and lay passive. I told a few people about my goal and also mention it here on my blog but there was no one that would care to remember it let alone hold me accountable, so slipping was easy. My passive brain kept telling me that it’s okay to take a little extra time as long as you get to your target that what matters in the end anyways. And against the gentlest persuasion of my passive brain, my body ran and ran.

Most runs were acceptable and mostly ran to the beat of 'podrunner podcast' but there were some awfully slow on extremely tired days and my ears pressed against the distraction of an Audio book or eyes peeled to bollywood movie, I kept on marching and to the end I have come. I am proud of myself for taking on the challenge and meeting it too… I managed a few slow 10Ks which is my goal for next year but it was good to get a head start on it this year and I can now improve upon my speed as the New Year rolls in.

Happy and Content…

Podrunner Podcast

Like I have said before, I am an incidental runner, didn’t plan to be one but I needed to rattle my thoughts within my brain and be out in the nature which contributed to my running. To this day I hesitate calling myself a runner especially because I am surrounded by co-workers who have run marathons and sneeze 5Ks routinely. I never received any training, never join any running club, never had a steady running partner, all I had was a print out that claimed to take me from couch to 5K in 12 weeks and I thought good for me, at least I am not on the couch….

The first few 5Ks that I did came because I steadily increased my running time and to my surprise one day, the pedometer app on the iPod claimed that I ran 4.8 miles and I thought to myself hurrah… Then came a season when getting out of the house to run wasn’t as easy and I started losing my muscles, sure enough it wasn’t long after that that half an hour of huffing and puffing and my pedometer barely registers two miles. No, it’s not my pedometer that’s broken it’s me; and trust me it took a lot of courage to admit that to myself. When the stomach is hurting and breathes making a constant wheezing sound and the heart is leaping to find a way out of the body, it’s tough to say to yourself that you didn’t try enough or that the body is not strong enough.

Well, coming to the point, after a few episodes like that I knew I needed help and I knew I cannot commit to the confines of a gym routine and I was too hesitant to expose myself to a running club or a running coach. That’s when pod-runner podcast made a re-entry in my life. I say re-entry because I had heard about it a year ago at a beginners running brown-bag that my friend had organized but at that time I was doing okay as a runner and never paid attention to it.

Fast forward to April this year, a few weeks before my first 5K of 2011, I was not as prepared as I wanted to be and was scrambling to put together a playlist of high energy and high beat songs that can carry me through. And out of the blue, I landed on this free exercise podcast again, I downloaded it to my computer and then to my Philips MP3 player that I am now using for my runs cause the iPod touch seems too delicate if it ever slips off my pocket while running and breaks. Besides the podcast I also uploaded some high intensity bollywood songs that ended up saving me during the Susan G Komen 5K as I had mentioned.

After the race I have been diligently working with the pod-runner podcast and since I haven’t yet found a routine that I can stick to, I keep flipping between week 1 music to week 5 music, depending upon how I am feeling that particular moment but the goal is that with this steady and sometimes not so steady practice by Fall sometime I should be able to run 5K at a desirable speed and hopefully graduate to an 8K at an average speed. The podcast is a series of remixed songs and are split into slow beats and fast beats to indicate the walking/running interval. That’s the goal anyways and I like it because even though I can’t run a 5K at a desirable speed I know the 2.5 miles that I ran with intervals is close to my aim. Besides I don’t end up with a pain in my liver and constantly out of breathe instead I slow down before I hit the peak as suggested by the music beats and end up working my leg muscles and not taxing my lungs.

I wanted to document my new efforts and perhaps share it with a newbie runner who is hesitant like me…

Thankful for you, my body

Sometimes you are too heavy, sometimes too curvy, and sometimes too slow. There have been times when you bleed a lot and other time you bleed at the wrong time. Your weight and fat percentage is totally off balance and the dimpled thighs are ugly. Sometimes you are so needy; you need sleep when my mind wants to go on and when I push you, through you I feel aches and pains.


I can go on about all those things are not perfect with you but at the same time I am thankful for you because despite my constant criticism, you have provided me a beautiful home and let me experience pain and pleasure. It is through you that I express myself and feel my existence; you have given me a definition. You are so adjusting, you expand to accommodate my indulgences and you toughen up to meet my desire to go faster. You let me hold and nurture my babies for nine months and you let me squeeze them now to spill off my love that cannot be contained in my heart. When I abuse you, you let me know but then heal yourself. You run around like a headless chicken trying to keep up with my fervent mind and then when you can’t any more, all you ask for is a little rest and don’t quit on me.

I know that I can fill reams of virtual paper to tell you how important you are to me and how I would just have been an anonymous soul without you here to contain me and define me. But yesterday as I crossed the finish line at this season’s first 5K (Race for Cure at MOA on Mothers’ Day), I was filled with special gratitude because you carried me through when my mind told you to take it slow as it thought that if it push you any longer, your lungs would burst, you continued on. You weren’t fully prepared for it and you happen to be getting over a fight with cold from last week and happen to be bleeding (of course, at the wrong time. Okay, I am sorry I shouldn’t say this cause if you stop bleeding, I’ll go into a panic attack) yet when my brain was slowing you down, your hand plugged it with some music and distracted it and you kept going on. Thank you.

You have perfectly functioning ears and through the mouth that is actually a part of you, I’ll tell everyone that ‘my’ timing was bad and I didn’t do as well as last year or as well as I’d like to imagine myself doing but please don’t take it personally, I know you won’t but just to clarify. And about that rolls of indulgences that would show on my midriff when I am on stage in couple of weeks, it’s not your fault but we’ll work on it together. I know you don’t care about appearances; you are just very honest about who I am but I don’t want to display the uncontrolled side of mind and accept that I am not perfect or do indeed have weaknesses so you’ll have to once again take this journey with me as through you I’ll display a perfection that only exist in my mind.

Thank you for containing me, in every sense of the word…

Running solo...

Now that I have worked my way back up to be able to run 5Ks (though not at a desired speed), I think I can talk about my last year's race. It was a 5K for CRY (Child's Rights and You), an India based NGO. It was a horrible race on a very personal level, my iPod had a hitch and I lost my music for some reason, it was a very hot mid-morning, I was running solo... I can keep writing excuses about my performance that didn't match up against my expectations but the fact remains that after that race, I gave up. I tried to register for races but it was for the sake of fitness, not because I wanted to run. I had placed myself into the categories of 'Runners' and my performance was not worthy of 'Runners' World'. 

And then by late fall I realized that I had lost all the stamina and I couldn't run my usual 3-4 miles anymore. It was again one of those 'eureka' moment, I was missing it because I had lost it. Why do we have to loose something before we know its importance? 

I came across a few quotes in Runner's World magazine that I noted in my quotes book and referred to at times, these became my motivation:

1)  Running is a free-form activity; we alone determine how fast, how far, and how long we run. The empowerment of running is open to anyone, at any speed. Your definition of "slow" may change as your grow more fit, and will change again as you grow older.

2)  At some point, all new runners realize that they are capable of tackling just about anything - whether its hills, speedwork, long runs, or even races. The fact that you are attempting such a range of runs marks a major accomplishment. 

As, I am trying to work on my speed for the mothers' Day 5K, I look at these pictures and say to myself, 'you have done it before and you'll do it again'... They were taken at the CRY 5K 2010.

What is important?

Something that gives you happiness, fills you with gladness, adrenaline rush, pink sweaty cheeks, pounding heart, a smile so big that even a grin cannot contain. If one knew the sure shot secret formula to achieve it each and every time wouldn’t they want to do it over and over again?

Often when my school friends with young kids just like mine complain about not finding enough time to reply emails or read books, I rebut by saying don’t use your kids as an excuse just admit it’s not a priority for you.
So the same applies to me, if I know the formula and supposedly my ‘Happiness’ should be a priority for me then why don’t I do it. I am talking about training/running for a cause, not a Marathon but just a 5K. I know it gives me pleasure, instant as well as long term, but I am failing to stick to it. What is my excuse?

We are in our third month of the New Year and so far I have not achieved an inch of ‘simplification’ in my life. The only thing that is working is meal plans for the week. I make a menu on Saturday for the following week and shop according to my plan and that has made dinners and weekend groceries so much simpler but other than that it’s all up in the air. I used to have a work plan for cyclic chores in my old house but since the square footage increased my plan needed a re-vamp and I haven’t gotten around to it yet.

So coming back to what is important, if there is something that makes me happy I’d do it over and over and if there is something that makes me sad I’d avoid it but it’s not happening that way.

Are my priorities screwed up? Why can I not make time for running, dance practice, painting, haircut, manicure, sleeping, leisure bath…?

My first 5K

I have run 5K on my treadmill and around the neighborhood many times since last September but there was some anticipation in doing it so with thousands of other people.
I first started to train with the goal of Reindeer Run sponsored by Lifetime fitness in December but it fell on the same day as Somu’s fifth birthday party so I let it pass. This year as spring was approaching and I needed a goal to get me back on track and keep me motivated. I was a little hesitant but then I saw this email from a co-worker who was organizing a team to run together at the Susan G. Komen 5K and I knew it a sign… I believe big time in signs, everything happens for a reason. So, I registered as a part of capital co-worker’s team.
I trained mostly at work and on tread mill, I think I just one run per week that was outside of the house and my cellphone gauge said that I was doing alright but I did not know how I would perform at an organized event and with other people around, if I’d slow down or start walking, I couldn’t recall how I did when I ran alone and the uncertainty about my own capabilities helped me set a modest goal; I just want to run all the way.
I didn’t have a stop watch but my watch with needles suggests that I took about 34-35 minutes to finish it, a lousy number by a runners account but I am still proud that I did it and when I was done I wasn’t falling apart, I had plenty of reserve left and happy.

It was in high thirties when I left home that morning, I dressed in layers. It was my first time running in that low a temperature. I wanted to eat an egg and toast before I left but didn’t have enough time so I ended adding a scoop of protein powder to my morning milk coffee. I ran pretty okay, at about 2.5 miles I was ready to slow down but the cheer group said only half mile to go and that motivated me. The other reason that I kept me going was a new friend that I made that morning, her name is Jennifer. She was used to running much faster and shorter distances so her goal was to pace the race to last the entire distance. We started running together and I didn’t wanna loose myself in the midst of as sea of people so I kept up with her. After I was done with the race we stood in line for water before heading over to the gathering point to meet with the rest of our team.

We all did something new that day, some ran fast, some ran slow, some took longer strides and some didn’t need to use their Asthma puffs; It was amazing to see those sea of people and their supports, people raising awareness by wearing bra on top of their clothes, some survivors who had to get their breasts removed hung milk bottles around their neck to make a mockery the over-rated organ and to laugh in the face of life… it was eye-opening.
I guess when you suffer the pain you lose many inhibitions, like my friend from Congo was telling about a girl who managed to climb over a 12ft wall topped with broken glass all naked just so that she is not mutilated and raped by the militia. It is scary the kind of pain that humans are capable of inflicting on each other but it’s amazing to witness the resilience of the human race at an event like this, it reinforces the inherit belief in the goodness of human soul.

I went home and made pancakes with the girls but then right after the shower I was hit with my usual terrible migraine headache and I spent the rest of the day in bed. It wasn’t until 5 in the evening that I could keep the food down and during the pains I kept praying, God if you don’t want me to go to the art museum with the kids I will not go but please take the pain away. Now that I look back I think it was good that I spent that day in bed and sleeping and I also know that I would have been able to relax if I didn’t have that headache I would have ended up working on one thing or the other so that horrible pain was what God had to give me to pin me to bed… and I am thankful for that too.

More Later…

I am not a Runner

I have 5 friends, one of them is my boss, who run marathons and I don’t run as much or as fast as them hence the qualifying statement that I am not a runner…

I picked up on this ‘hobby’ last September during our Hawaii trip, since DH was on a business trip and I was solely responsible for taking care of the little ones, I needed a little ‘me’ time and it came every morning at 4:30 am when I walked up to the fitness room overlooking the beach. I knew I will not be able to limit my time to half hour if I walked/ran on the beach so watching the ocean from the tread mill seemed like a very good alternative.
I used to run on treadmills before but they were mostly for exercising purposes I never felt running before but since I came back from Hawaii, I started running outdoors and I love the feel of it, the entire process from getting ready to run, to choosing the music, the breathlessness, the cool down and the leisure shower… but most of all, I like the chance that I get to rattle my thoughts and ideas without speaking a word. If you know me personally, you know it’s impossible for me to keep quiet when I have ideas to share and you absolutely cannot talk when you run and so going back and forth within my thoughts and working my brain cells is the most favorite part of my run… Every time I come back from the run, even before I take my shoes off, I sit in the kitchen with my grocery list pad and write down a bunch of thoughts and more often that not they prove to be very intuitive thoughts…

I don’t run a lot, the entire path is about 1.5 miles and I usually don’t take any detours but it’s a change that I noticed in me recently when running has changed from being a mode of exercise to a means of relaxation and sort of meditation and I wanted to share that…