Month end musings August 2010

August has been a mixed bag. Started the month with the 'Mega' cycle ride to Nandi Hills on 1st August that I enjoyed tremendously. The following weekend , that is, 6th through 8th August I spent in Sankarnagar in Tirunelveli district in Tamil Nadu. During this weekend the Lucozade Urban Stampede was held - the 3rd edition of the event was a great success with participaton from 294 teams from 81 companies and 22 non-corporate teams. Once again Toyota bagged the top two positions. See here for all winners of this edition. Three teams from my company Mformation participated in this years and all the runners had a great time with many of them doing their personal best times. Having been involved in conceptualising and sponsoring the 1st edition of Urban Stampede it is a pleasure to see the event grow in size and stature.

Though I had a couple of very enjoyable runs at Sankarnagar soon after return I started suffering from a niggle in my left quads. Despite the pain the left quads I ran a decent 27K on 15th August at EGL. However, towards the end of that week the quads started to hurt quite a bit. Therefore after consulting with sports-physio Preeti, I decided to skip the RFL Nandi hills run on 22nd August. It turned out to be a great run based on reports and pictures from fellow runners who participated. I can imagine how it must have been - having experienced it myself 3 years ago- the only time I have run up and down Nandi hills. Well, it looks like forgoing the Nandi hills run and a forced lay-off from running and cycling is the price I have to pay for the Nandi Hills cycling during which period I ran 70Km and cycled 150Kms in a space of 8 days. At least that is what I think caused the stress in the quads. The only other possiblity is my shoes. I have over-used my current pair and am trying to break into a new pair - this transition could have also caused the stress. I have stayed with Addidas Super Nova cushion ever since I started long distance running 9 years ago. This model has now been replaced by Addidas Glide. Since I have not had any issue with the Super Nova cushion I assume the likelyhood of the shoe being responsible for the quads strain is low. Ofcourse, one can never tell.

Anyway, for 7 days from 20th to 26th August I stayed off running and cycling - my longest involuntary lay-off since the knee injury of 2003. I do consider myself fortunate to have stayed injury free for an extended period of time and hope that I have the good fortunate to stay with similar frequency of injury related lay-off(which is part and parcel of a runners life!). Forced lay-offs are never fun for a runner - it always makes me feel miserable and low on enthusiasm and energy. One gets the feeling during this period that one is likely to put on weight. Even my truncated strengthening sessions at Manipal did not got too well.

After nearly two weeks I ran a slow 21K today - my left leg (quads and toes) did not feel too good towards the end. Feel very worried and apprehensive about the upcoming Kaveri Trail Marathon and the 2010-11 running season. I had planned the following over the next 6 months:

• 
  
  Kaveri Trail Marathon(KTM) on Sept 19th
• Globeracers Bhati Lakes 100 miler on Oct 17th - 50 miles (tentative)
• Bangalore Ultra on November 14th - 50K if I do 50 miles above or else 75K if I skip the above
• Bangalore Midnight marathon Mid-December - probably a fast HM
• Mumbai marathon - January 16th 2011
• Auroville marathon - Feb 20th 2011

Now, I will  tune the above depending on how my left leg takes the full marathon at KTM. As of today it looks like I will have to skip the 50 miles at Bhati Lakes 100 miler and do the usual 50K at the bangalore ultra. Will know by this time in 3 weeks!

More on the 1st August Nandi Hills Cycle ride

Group photo before leaving Cubbon Park;Courtesy Prabhakar of GGI

I left home in Domlur Layout a few minutes before 530 am and covered the 7.2Km to Cubbon Park in about 31 minutes at an easy speed of 14Km/hour. I met another rider Jayant coming in from Banarghatta road at the St. Marks Road/MG road intersection. When we reached the assembly point at the Seshadhri library circle there were a few cyclists already  there and more cyclists were arriving from differents parts of the city. Around 615 am we started off after a few group pictures. I rode mostly alone (though I chatted with several cyclists along the way including a few from GGI ) covering the 9.1Km to Columbia Asia hospital after the Hebbal flyover in 26 minutes. While having Lucozade from a  bottle  handed out by a volunteer from Tandem trails I noticed messages and missed call from Vasu.  He was a few hundred metres ahead and decided to wait for me to catch up with him which I did in a few minutes. I learnt that Chandra had dropped out at the last minute. We  rode on together  for about 29Kms in just under 90 minutes till the turn off point from Airport Road towards Nandi hills. En route we took a comfort break when we also refueled ouselves. During this stretch Yogesh Rao of BBC - one of the main organisers of this ride - joined us from behind and after checking that we were doing fine took off at a very high speed. We were quite amazed at the power he was able to generate on his hybrid bike. The ride was generally  comfortable with sporadic traffic - we rode on the shoulder most of the time.

A stretch to the base of Nandi Hills

We ran into a large  bunch of cyclists, including Yogesh Rao, at the turn off point from Airport road. Many cyclists were having breakfast here. Vasu and I decided to press on without  breakfast at this time - I had a bite of the energy bar that I was carrying. The next lap of  13.5 Kms to the base of Nandi was covered in about 50 minutes. The weather continued to be fantastic and with very little traffic this was the best stretch of the ride so far. We encountered a short stretch of gradient which gave us taste of the hill climb that awaited us. We passed the 2nd idly point and reached the base of Nandi hills. At the base of Nandi Hills we saw several cyclists including Shreyas eating breakfast after having done the ride up the hill.  Vasu and I refueled ourselves with water and some Kit-Kats and started the climb up around 9:20am - after about 3 hours since I left Cubbon Park. At the first climb Vasu hit a wall(he had run 27Kms the previous day!) and slowed down quite a bit. On his urging I pressed on. It was quite tough and challenging and I quickly shifted the gears to 1 and 2. For the next 50 minutes or so I alternated between 1 and 2 and 1 and 1 going up at the speed up between 5Km/hr and 10 Km/hr. There was a light mist and intermittant drizzle and the scenary looked even better than normal . Saw several cyclists speeding downhill. While car traffic was low there were quite a few motor bikers going in both directions. Though I felt tired and sore I did not stop even once - however at the last steep turn just as the arch was in sight I took a narrow turn, my cycle slowed down too much and I lost balance and fell. Fortunately for me I got a foothold and avoided rolling down and did not get hurt. Picking myself up immediately I crossed the arch to reach the 'lower top' in about 53 minutes of cycling from the bottom. Drank more than half a bottle of Lucozade and on hearing that hot breakfast and tea was being served on the top I started cycling again after a couple of minutes break. Another cyclist,Upendra(?), gave me company during this stretch. We reached the top in about 10 minutes of real hard  cycling as the muscles were quite stiff and sore by now and the seat was also beginning to hurt a bit. We were directed to the government bungalow for breakfast by some volunteers. While heading towards that a couple of people(Deepak and MJV) recognised me and were kind of surprised to see me as they normally associate me with long distance running and not cycling.

Hot upma and lemon rice was being served in a hall which was filled with cyclists who had conquered the hill that morning. Bhaskar Rao , the transport commissioner of Bangalore and an avid cyclist himself was there chatting with cyclists and ensuring that everyone was being served. In the breakfast room Manjula shouted out to me and cheered the fact that I had done it. It is thanks to Manjula's encouragement that I got the confidence to attempt this. After having some excellent upma and chatting briefly with a few cyclists I decided to start the return leg. I tried to check where Vasu was but could not reach his phone.

The ride downhill, ofcourse, was much easier - I was on gears 2 and 6 most of the time. I moderated my pace and did not go down too fast- never went to 3 and 8 as many cyclists did. On the way down I stopped briefly and chatted with Yogesh - checking whether he knew where Vasu was. I did not time myself downhill very accurately - I probably took around 20 minutes to reach the base. When I found that Vasu was just leaving the top I decided to continue my return journey. However, soon I realised that it did not make sense to make the long trip(which usually seems even longer on the return leg) alone. So I decided to stop and wait for Vasu  a few Kms from the base. We then cycled the return leg together till Mekhri circle. Despite the headwinds , high traffic, a couple of voluntary stops to rest and refuel and a few forced stops due to traffic lights we made steady progress at about 17 Kmph. I was extremely glad that we decided to ride back together. It would have been boring and more painful ride if I had ended up doing it alone. Vasu's company was simply fabulous and we chatted about a number of different topics during the 6 hours or so that we cycled together. We split around 2:15 PM when we reached Mekhri circle. I reached home just after 3PM after  stopping at 5 traffic lights enroute - fatigued but happy with the great experience of  having cycled  133Kms in 8 hrs 15 minutes of cycling time in a total of 9 and a half hours of elapsed time door to door!! 

While it took me about 53 minutes to cover the 7.4Kms from the base to the arch several experienced cyclists did this in amazing timings with the top three doing it in less than 25 minutes. Also once cyclist, Prakash S, did the climb three times in incredible timings of 35 m, 42m , and 37m respectively !

Quick update on the 'Mega' Nandi ride on 1st August

Just after a hot breakfast on the top; Photo courtesy Manjula Sridhar

The  longest ever cycle ride that I have done was fantastic. From home-to-home I cycled about 133 Kms in 8 hrs 15 minutes of cycling time on Sunday 1st August including the climb up the hill which took me over 53 minutes. With over 120 cyclists on the road to Nandi ,fantastic support from Brigadier Vijay's army truck as well as folks from Tandem Trails, great encouragement from Yogesh and other cyclists from BBC  and Vasu of BHUKMP for company it was a truly memorable experience! I plan to write more details of the experience in my next post hopefully before the end of next week. Meanwhile, take a look at this post with photos from GGI  - another fantastic cycling group that I got introduced to on Sunday!. Check this for the hill climb timings of some truly amazing cyclists.

Random July end musings

It has been over a month since my last post. I have been meaning to write every weekend but have not been able to make the time to do so. Finally I decided that I cannot let the whole month of July go by without a single post and decided to combine a number of thoughts into a signle post.

The running has been going well. In preparation for the upcoming marathon season I have managed to do two good 30Km+ runs on consecutive Sundays. Did a 3:20/32Km on 18th July with Rishi,Nari, Amrita, Chandra etc of the BHUKMP gang at GKVK . Running in GKVK after nearly 8 months was a great experience. And of course the weather was fantastic. This was folllowed by a 3:47/35Km run as part of the RFL long run at EGL on 25th July - just a day before completion of one year since my milestone of twelve marathons in tweleve months . I again had the pleasure of the company of several of the BHUKMP runners who made 26th July 2009 truly memorable.  These runners also encouraged me in all my marathons and ran several of them with me. Looking back I am glad I set myself that goal and  managed to achieve it. It has certainly made me a better, stronger and confident runner and strengthened my friendship with numerous runners.

My next 35Km+  run will hopefully be the Nandi hills RFL run on 22nd August. Meanwhile I have registered for the 4rth edition of KTM on 19th September which will be my first marathon of this season. Registrations for Mumbai marathon - SCMM 2011 opened on 22nd July. There are a few changes this year including a new website for registration. See the website or the press release from the event launch for details of changes. Thouh I had a few initial hiccups I completed the registration for SCMM 2011 on 22nd July evening itself.

After running the Urban Stampede in 2008 and 2009 I will be missing the event this year as I will be out of town the weekend of 7th/8th August. With over 230 teams already registered the Lucozade Urban Stampede on 8th August will surely be the largest RFL event ever and could see close to a thousand runners. It will definitely be a great occassion - I wish all the participants including the 3 teams from Mformation all the very best!

23rd June was the the 98th birthday of Alan Turing - a poineering mathematician, philosopher and computer scientist of the 20th century. Through an alert on google related to martahon running I learnt that day he was also an accomplished long distance runner who ran a full marathon in 1947 in an amazing 2 hours, 46 minutes, 3 seconds! See this scrapbook page for more details of Turing as a runner.  Of course, today we know of several celebrities who are also marathon runners. Among these are :   Oprah Winfrey, 1994 Marine Corps Marathon (4:29:15), Sarah Palin, 2005 Humpy's Marathon (3:59:36),George W. Bush, 1993 Houston Marathon (3:44:52) ,Lance Armstrong, 2006 (2:59:36) and 2007 (2:46:43) New York City Marathon and Al Gore, 1997 Marine Corps Marathon (4:54:25)!!

Finally, tomorrow, 1st August 2010 I am planning to go on  a cycle ride to Nandi hills as part of the July month end ride of BBC(Bangalore Bikers Club). With over 130 cyclists registered to participate  - many of them experienced cyclists this should be good fun. Of course, I am a bit apprehensive as I have not cycled more than 55Km in a day before and that was 3 years ago. I am banking on the strength of my running form and also that I have been cycling 30Kms+ per week regularly. I also hope to get support and tips from the other experienced cyclists!!