1. On level ground:
Lihas and I are level. In a show of solidarity (I suspect) Lihas has got wounds on his legs too. What's good about this? Both of us have made the full use of Wednesday to rest our feet. While the wounds are not serious, the rest has certainly has had an effect. Our run was much better, much more relaxed and we managed a higher average speed. The speed profile too was steady which means the average speed had not been spiced up by running faster in fits and starts more times.
2. It's a Thursday:
Thursday is a day we look forward to for two reasons. One, we get to run with the usual runners' group. It's a nice group and even though the run is short (ranging between 7 and 10kms depending on which Thursday of the month it is) it is a pleasure running with these people. Quite a few of them now seem to be geared up to participate in the Airtel Delhi Half Marathon (scheduled for 20th November, 2010, if sources are to be believed). The second reason is that we get to run a completely different route which breaks the monotony of the Mansi 4 Rasta-Keshavbaug-Shyamal 4 Rasta-RTO-Keshavbaug-Mansi 4 Rasta routine.
3. The Ahmedabad Mirror Angle:
Wednesday afternoon saw Lihas and I meeting Mr. Pankaj Upadhyay, Editor, Ahmedabad Mirror. We were all set to pitch our pitch about how we wanted more and more Amdavadis to run. And Pankaj's question floored us. "Why shouldn't Ahmedabad have its own Marathon? This city is on its own feet as far as other activities are concerned. It even has its own International Film Festival. So why not a Marathon?" And we were assured that Ahmedabad Mirror would be there to take this up in a big way. I shall leave the details for Ahmedabad Mirror to publish - I am looking forward to the Ahmedabad Mirror of 4th June, 2010. (I shall post the link in my subsequent posts.)
4. Cross Training:
After a lot of debates, we've decided. Finally. That we'll cross train. And we've also decided what to do. Finally. For now. Till the next debate comes up. We're going to be going to be going swimming. At least twice a week. The forms have been filled in; all we now need to do is go to the swimming pool and jump off the deep end and swim towards the shallow end to prove that we're there there to swim and not to attempt/commit suicide. Both, Lihas and I feel it might be more prudent to wait till the wounds have dried up before entering the water.
5. Training School Children:
There seems to be some ray of hope here. Lihas and I both got into distance running on our own. This potential was not spotted when we were young. The training program that we now follow has been self developed by trial and error. Twenty years on and more, the scene hasn't hasn't changed much. Atheletic children are the ones who can run a 100 mts dash the fastest. But what about those who don't run fast, but run and run and run and run and run? They, very unfortunately, get ignored. A couple of weeks back, I had tried contacting the trustee of one of the reputed schools of Ahmedabad to propose that we would like to voluntarily train children so that this potential can be exploited. The response from the office of this trustee, a page 3 regular, was downright insulting. It should not come as any wonder that I did not try any other school again. But Lihas did. And there has been an encouraging response. We're hoping this will work out.
And now, to come to the run, we (given our injuries) had decided to do a little less today. However, we started out at 5:10am and went up to S. G. Road, turned right and right again at the lane just after Rajpath Club. Back at Mansi, we started to gather pace as we moved towards Tap Fountain, Law Garden. By 6:02 am, we were at Tap Fountain. Unfortunately, none of the other Thursday Running Group members were to be seen. We took a round of Law Garden and returned back to Tap Fountain. Still no sign.
Lihas and I continued our run. Traversing CG Road, we reached Stadium Circle from where we headed towards Commerce 6 Rasta. By this time we were running really fast. We were trying to catch up with our regular Thursday Running Group if they had gone ahead of us. We ran upto the PRL/ATIRA gate while co-ordinating with Mr. Jignesh Vora, our photographer for the scheduled photo shoot. Photo shoot? Yes. For an idea, return to point 3. The Ahmedabad Mirror Angle. Or await the details in Ahmedabad Mirror of 4th June, 2010 (hopefully).
Slowly and silently, there has been a small but growing group of runners who have shown interest in running. They have just recently begun training and are aiming for either the Airtel Delhi Half Marathon and/or the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon. This group met us at the PRL/ATIRA gate. After a couple of photographs we continued our run (and Jignesh continued to click away) and touched the 132' Ring Road, turning left, reached the Andhjan Mandal Crossroads and took another left there to end in front of IIM. Jignesh continued to click even as we cooled down and did our post run stretches. Finally satisfied with the photographs, Jignesh left. And we ended our routine with some lovely tea. Unfortunately, it was too early so the vendor wasn't there; a maskabun with extra butter would really have topped off the finish.
And as we finished our tea, Lihas realized and informed us that to our dismay, Ahmedabad had a better and smarter runner. Someone had flicked his phone and run away.
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