Parks Half Marathon

I had been training for the past 6 months to run the Marine Corp Marathon 2014. I took part in it successfully today. More on that later.

As part of the marathon training program I ran two 1/2 marathons; one at the beginning of my training, in early May, and the other in September. I wrote about how I fared in my first one, in Delaware, here. I was disappointed with my time which was nearly 2 hours and 50 minutes! But poor results told me something, unequivocally. I was not ready.

The second race was at the tail end of our training in September and it was a local race sponsored by the club I run with The Montgomery County Road Runners Club or the MCRRC. It was the Parks Half Marathon.

The weather was cool and stayed cool the whole time. It started near Rockville metro and ended near Bethesda metro station, while traversing some of the most beautiful trails in Washington DC area. Our pace group coaches told us to run our best. This was in opposition to the advice given by the marathon coordinators! The coordinators wanted us to run at the slower pace we train in. They were afraid that we would suffer some injury or ailment that would prevent us from training to run a marathon. In their opinion that was the purpose of the rigorous training. On the other hand our coaches were of the opinion that running well would show us how far we had come in our training and motivate us to train better.

Omar, one of my two coaches, set the tone early by leaving me in the dust. Typically we run a tortoise-like 12 minute 30 second per mile pace. But as the course was mostly downhill during the first few miles, I found myself running at about 30-45 seconds faster than my usual pace. Around 4 miles I met up with Sri my brother-in-law who typically run at 12 minute per mile pace and we fell into a easy conversation. Sri recounted so many comic incidents during his travels that the time just flew. Around 10 mile mark we stepped up the pace even faster than the pace we were running. We were now running nearly 2 minutes faster than my typical pace. We both finished with a time of around 2 hours and 30 minutes. I personally shaved almost 20 minutes from our earlier pace, surely a result of the hard work I had put into this. I was happy! To see complete results click here (I am number 903).

Raag in the middle flanked by his coaches at the end of Parks Half

A Union and a Reunion

During my four years at Delhi College of Engineering nearly thirty years ago, I was part of group of five students. Because we hung out together, we were teased a lot and called the Panch Pandavs. Once we graduated, we went our separate ways; got jobs, changed jobs, got married, and raised families. As a group, we were unable to meet. I used to work in Lucknow and Rajdev was in Kanpur. Then I moved to the US and soon thereafter so did Rajdev. Goel went work for the police force; Suresh worked at various technology firms in India and Sanjay ended up being the only person to use the degree we earned, a EE degree.

During the first twenty years, Rajdev and I would go periodically back to India, but we never thought about coordinating our trips. Our India trips never seemed to be about meeting our friends. It was not that we did not meet our friends; we met them, but we were never more than four during these reunions, as at least one of us, Rajdev or I were always missing. We were never the Pandavs. Around the 25th anniversary of our graduation, something prompted me to try and make this happen. I reached out to Rajdev to see if we can make a trip to India together. After 25 years, I realized something.

He is very similar temperamentally to my wife. Both of them are very obdurate while having built this enviable reputation of being the most easy going people!

I also learned something else about Rajdev. He hates the cold, so he would not go between December and February. He also hated the heat, so he would not visit India between April and October. That basically gave me only two months November and March to make a reunion happen! Again like Jannavi, he says this with such sweetness, that you nod with him and agree that it is very reasonable. How I envy the two of them! Here is a guy that spent his first 21 years under hot conditions that would be considered cruel to animals much less humans in this country, and he no longer has the ability to go back 10 out of the 12 months in a year!

I am sure you have heard of the adage, "If the mountain won't come to Muhammad then Muhammad must go to the mountain". So I decided to go to India in the month of March as well.

Fortunately for me there was a marriage in my family; my cousin's only daughter was getting married during a week in March. I ensured that Rajdev did not plan anything during that week. I purchased my tickets and made sure Rajdev did too.

I had a lot of fun at the marriage. I met so many of my aunts, uncles, and cousins whom I would not normally see.

Aunt, Uncles, and Cousins

After the marriage, I went to Delhi and stayed with Rajdev at his parent's house. They are as simple as they were. Time and their children's affluence had not touched them. They treated me like I was their fourth child.

Pandavs at Ghalib's house

Pandavs at DCE

The Pandavs were together again. We spent 2 days wandering around New Delhi. Our first meeting was at the old DCE campus in Kashmiri Gate. The area has changed very little. It was hard for the five of us not to wallow in nostalgia, but not half as hard as leaving the campus where we had spent 4 years. We finally left and went to Chandni Chowk where walked up to Ghalib's house. I was surprised to see how well maintained it was! From there we went to Red Fort and had dinner at Chor Bizzare where we met with another classmate, Praveen. Praveen was brilliant as a student and is now a successful entrepreneur.

Pandavs with Praveen at Chor Bizarre

On the last day of my trip, we all went to Gurgaon. Suresh's wife has started a new venture called Samvedna Senior Care. I really like their motto "Defining dignity, respect and compassion for our senior citizens". The sheer number of NRI's whose parents are alone in these large cities makes me sure that she is onto something very promising. Afterwards we all met at a trendy bar, The Beer Cafe at the Ambience Mall in Gurgaon where I was introduced to Stella Artois by Suresh and Sandeep. Sanjay C, another classmate of ours, joined us and we had a great time.

Pandavs with Sanjay C at Ambience Mall

The clock was ticking and and it was time to go home. With promises not to wait 25 more years for all five to meet again we parted ways. It was hard but we made some good memories.