1 book please - with no sugar?

Click here and amuse yourself with the state of things to come

Sunday Washing, Abida Parveen and Amir Khusrau

I was in a fitful mood (which is almost impossible after running a half, but then I am an addict too far down the road, so my quantity for a fix is higher) with a mash of depressing thoughts ranging from the state of the country and hence my desire to leave, to the impending washing - when to my surprise, FM played Abida Parveen singing Mosey Naina Milaike written by Amir Khusrau. While I must admit I barely get the lyrics, the voice of Abida Parveen* did more than its bit to banish all the gloom. God bless her and Amir Khusrau.

Now I am ready to take on Jalgaon. Ha!


* like that of any outstanding singer - Nusrat is one, Grace Slick in Somebody to Love by Jefferson Airplane, Eddie Vedder, Robert Plant, ...

Run Log*

Ran 6 miles y'day in my old pair of NB in about 51 min. Not bad since I did the 1st loop of Shivaji Park in a deliberately slow 6.5 mins. The knee bogey has begun raising its head.

Ran a good half this morn in about 2:11, some part of it above 6 min/mile pace since I had to wait for a friend. But honestly, with the heat and humidity I may have gone slower if not for him ;)
My right knee is acting weird, but I will kick it soon with some improvised strength building at home. Ran using the new NB. Feels terrific but very dehydrating. My throat is still dry and I stopped running over 4 hours ago!

* I need to come up with a better title but I am too tired to think and the clothes need washing...

Ande ka funda

From the pan into the fire

Am leaving Delhi tonight and heading to Jalgaon of all places...

Someone mentioned Jalgaon is famous for bananas. Lets see.

Getting all hot under the collar...

Am spending my 6th week in Gurgaon and not liking it one bit, mostly due to the heat.

Also some irritating repetitive work with the govt...

It has been sometime since I missed running so much.

Managed a miserable 5 km last evening. My face was burning in the evening heat!

2010 Mileage and all training has gone into the bin :( Still those NB shoes which are being used less and less...

But am building some muscle. Should know in some 3 months.

F*

Legendary Oxford Cambridge Boat Race

Click here for the link

As the commentator says, how can you talk about losing after a race like that?!
hat tip to the brilliant folks at www.SportsScientists.com
And brothers against each other and all that...

D+

Breakfast Bakasura

1 slice of some special bread with raisins
1 muffin
1 bagel
2 croissants
1 doughnut
1 bowl of muesli with cold milk
1 glass of grape juice
1 glass of water melon juice
1 hash and corn
3 waffles with maple syrup
2 bowls of fruit salad (ok the 2nd one exited in a surprise cough, but I did try to stuff it in!)
1 milk shake with mango and some stuff I don't know!

were all consumed in 1 mad attempt at a heavy breakfast at the All American Diner at India Habitat Centre to take on their Gluttons at the Table offer ;)

Wonder how much more I can eat if I go there after a marathon or an ultra given that I ran only a half today.

They did try their best to dissuade me saying I was late and then by saying that I didn't have a table. I broke thru all these hurdles...

They seem to have taken the coffee off the offer. I do remember having coffee earlier on the same offer. Not many seem to know of this offer...

They do have some express breakfast for about 1/3 the price, but believe me, the hash and corn alone is worth it.

My stomach deserves a big pat* especially since I felt hungry (!) after an hour or so while I lay on the lawns waiting for my cab to arrive...

*save for that mishap with the papayas

Run log

4 km on Sat (I know, sissy... but I woke up late :( )
21km today :) in the sun...with sun tan and all...

As Deepika says in her ad, 1 hour in the sun sets your complexion back by 8 weeks...

All said and done, I got to run my first half marathon in Apr.
Also ran with Rahul and rest of the folks at Running & Living for about 10 km...

Pursuit of easy money

Is it some wicked twist of fate or my stupidity that within a few mins of my getting some part of my bonus for the year, I blew a not so tiny amount on playing Bollywood Tambola on NDTV Imagine...

Batteesi...

A long while ago, I landed my first job a few months after I had turned 21. That day marked a major milestone as far as my parents were concerned. From that day till date, they have searched fairly enthusiastically for someone for me to get married to. Initially, I was flattered by the sheer number of women who seemed to be in a wild hurry to get married to me, going by the no. of proposals my parents received. While I have come pretty close on more than one occasion to getting hitched to someone they found, there has always been some derailer in the matter. While my parents have shown incredible resilience in the exercise, I have demonstrated a somewhat stubborn attachment to some of my criteria for selecting a life partner, which has somewhat complicated my matrimonial hunt.

I have as I like to say two basic criteria -
one: the person I expect to spend the majority of my life with, must be a strict vegetarian (No! make that militant vegetarian)
two: the person who meets criterion one above, be educated enough to make a decent living for themself.

Surprisingly, criterion one has been the bottleneck so far. I have met a bunch of charming women over the years, nearly all of whom have carried the 'curse' of being non vegetarian and nearly all of them of them were so by choice, leaving me severely heartbroken.

While the above two criteria were fairly explicit, there are other implicit ones to check out when one actually meets the person one is 'checking' out. I did write about some of this, but then, I am sort that feels that once you decide you like someone for whatever they are, the rest can be sorted out. So for ex., while I average almost 1000-1200 miles a year of running, I don't care if my partner ran a mile in the entire year or not. In fact I couldn't care less if the person had no interest in running. However I would hope that such a woman would also be conscious about staying healthy. So I have gone ahead and met several women over the years, once they seemed to meet the above two criteria.

Some have fallen away at this juncture too. Of course, I have encountered 'rejection' at various other steps according to the evaluation criteria of various other women I have met in this regard. The reasons have varied from my 'social' drinking to the fact that someone felt that my harmless enquiring about their apparent reticence was impolite! I found it amusing to see people devote so much attention to the fact that I drink on perhaps less than half a dozen occasions in a year and admit myself a 'social' drinker, but I guess the same could be said about my obsession for vegetarianism.

The title of this blog post is a mock grin at all this. But you know ... ;)

p.s. Hat tip to Skimpy for the solidly entertaining series of posts he has written in the recent past about his own assorted real life experiences, which sort of inspired this post

Terrors of the Table by Walter Gratzer

I have not encountered a more concise but extremely entertaining account of the way our eating habits have evolved. The book is appropriately subtitled "A Curious History of Nutrition"

The book's last chapter in particular is a welcome warning to people who crave after supplements and diets, not to mention processed foods.

There are certain parts particularly when the author refers to vegetarianism when you feel the author could have been more generous, but the book is a great read nevertheless.

Strongly recommended especially for those curious about how we came to eat what we eat - including some moving stories of how some landmark discoveries were made on each of the vital constituents of our diet - carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins, fats and minerals.

Runs on Long Weekend

Friday
1.2 km in 6:02
4.8 km in 22:27 (yeah, that's me!)

Saturday
6 km (untimed)

Sunday
11.35 km in a little over an hour.
primary achievement was holding HR below 170 for almost the entire hour, a fairly unusual occurrence in my running, since I rarely do short runs at slow pace.

And all of these were run using my new NB shoes. So they were made to feel they belong, after a month of being stranded in Bombay...

And yes, it feels lovely to be back in my adopted city although I must leave it t'row morning. C'est la vie

The Crow that laid Green Eggs

The one above is from yday.


The crow has been busy...I wonder how many there will be when I come back. Too bad my camera has conked off and I need to make do with my phone camera which is vintage VGA...

Returning to the Nest

I have been away from my home in Bombay for almost a month.

The significance of the time period was driven home by the appearance of a crow's nest in my window grill.

It gave me cheap thrills to note that crow's eggs are bluish green in colour