My first marathon. MCM 2014

One of my goals for 2014 was to run a half marathon. I was successful in achieving this goal early in May 2014. My stretch goals for 2014 was to run a full Marathon. I had earlier submitted an application to Marine Corp Marathon and to my surprise, I was selected in the lottery. With a looming marathon in October, I decided to look for training resources.

With Conroy and Audrey

I was referred to First Time Marathon (FTM) by someone that had run marathons in the past. I applied to join this training group by writing to the coordinators, Conroy and Audrey and they accepted me in their training group. The first run for this training program was a short distance run of 7 miles! No kidding. I had to get in shape just to complete my training run!

The 12:30 Pace group

Training started in earnest on the first Sunday of May at Ken Gar Park. A lot of the folks including me saw how unfit they were. In my defense, I did try. From early April onwards, I started running 4-5 miles 3 times a week with a goal of running at least 15 miles a week. I guess it was not enough.

We were segregated into groups of varying speeds with the fastest group around 9minutes-per-mile and the slowest 13minutes-per-mile. I fell into the second slowest group 12minutes-30seconds-per-mile. Our pace group coaches were Omar and Judith. Here is a picture of the group on a trail during one of our long runs.

The training was hard with slow and steady increase in both Sunday long runs and weekly total mileage. The Wednesday speed training became a nightmare especially in August with temperatures and humidity hovering around 90. During those times, we tended to question our sanity. Instead of simply asking "Why am I running", I took to asking a simple existential question "Why".

During the training, I took part in two half marathons. I ran my first half early in May at the Delaware Marathon. The second one was a Road Runners Club sponsored run called the Parks Half. I found it very hard to run the Delaware, but the Parks Half was a walk in the (I am sorry) park.

We persevered and our long distance runs inched up to 20 miles; nearly a full marathon! As the season changed to fall, the weather slowly cooled to a point where it was now cold! We would have highs in the 30s during some of the Sunday runs in early October. No complaints; the cold was little more easier to handle than heat.

The big day dawned. J and M also came along. The run was an amazing experience. Group of marines parachuted down to the start line. Because we were with the FTM program, we started with the early crowd. And it was crowd of 20000 runners! People could barely move their elbows! With several folks in our pace group running along with me, I was never alone. I did not feel tired. I was on a high just being there. I can barely remember much of the details during the early phases.

As we were running

After a few miles, I found myself running with Kara, Na Alia, Prasanna, and Laura. Kara is good natural pacer. She maintained a steady speed and I stayed behind as I had a tendency to speed up a little more than I should. It helped me later when I grew tired. We all were wearing our FTM shirts and one of the other runners observed this and actually asked me, if I was a virgin! I kid you not.

Around 15 miles, only 3 of us were left in our group, Kara, Na Alia, and myself. Na Alia dropped behind around 17 and I stayed with Kara till mile 21 when I had to stop running. I walked a bit, ran a bit and kept this up till mile 24 when I fell in with Sridhar from the 12minutes-per-mile pace group. I  could see that he also was struggling a bit. We ran the last 2 miles together encouraging each other.  The last 100 yeards was uphill but it was a great feeling crossing the line high-fiving all the marines lined along the path.

Sri And I at the end

My time was 5 hours and 39 minutes. I had three goals for the marathon

Complete it - Done
Complete it under 6 hours - Done
Complete it under 5 hours and 30 minutes - Never mind, 2 out of three ain't so bad.

I was happy.

The Trinity Live in Brookeville

Most Hindu children are aware that the Hindu mythology includes The Trinity. This includes Brahma the creator, Vishnu the presever, and Shiva the destroyer.

I am sure it comes as a surprise that they live in our residence in Brookeville, Maryland!

Jannavi is a great cook. She is a great person to plan events with. In fact Maalini's birthday party is an event adults enjoy as much as the children. One particular one involved live reptiles include a 20 feet Boa Constrictor! Another one involved children digging for fossils in dirt that was brought from the Chesapeake Bay! Yet another one involved a lecture on various types of rocks followed by children breaking a Geode and finding an assortment of beautiful, colored crystals. She is the Brahma in our household.

Now all this planning and creativity leaves loose ends. The house is usually in a mess. To the rescue comes yours truly. I like cleaning the kitchen after folks have had their meals. I like the process of loading a dishwasher and seeing the sink all clean. I like sweeping the floor of crumbs after a meal. I also like to ensure that bad plans do not take shape. I make sure that expensive plans are vetoed before they become a reality. In short I represent the Vishnu of my household.

This leads to a short para on how all stories end in our house. Once upon a time there was an IPod. It was nice, It worked well. It was well used by J, D, and I. It attracted the attention of Maalini. She took it. The end! The end of the IPod!

As you can see, M represents the Shiva of our household. She has to come near something for that to stop working or worse, break. And she always says "but it was an accident"!

The Hindu mythology includes the most powerful goddess Shakti that literally means power. She is so powerful; the mythology speaks of her being all of the above, creator as mother, Preserver, and Destroyer as Kali. And that is my older daughter, Devi, which everyone knows means Goddess!

Resolutions for 2015

Achievable goals

1. Learn Sanskrit.
2. Learn JavaScript (is this a work goal?).
3. Run a Srinivasan Family Relay Marathon in May 2015, in Delaware.
4. Get below 170lb
5. Stay Tobacco free
6. Drink on an average no more than 1 glass of wine a day, and no more than 2 on any given day!

Stretch Goal

1. Learn Tamil
2. Speak German fluently

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.

Listen to your better half. Always!

My niece had graduated from high school and my sister-in-law (we will call her J) was throwing a party to celebrate this event. My other sister-in-law (we will call her H) came to town as a surprise along with her two sons and I was tasked with picking them up from the airport.

Much earlier in the day, I was deep at work when Jannavi told me several things; she told me to cook, clean, eat, shower, take care of our younger daughter besides going to the airport to pick H and kids up. Then she gave me various details such as the airline (American), time of arrival (10:25), and the gate (8) they would walk out of. She then told me the various dishes she had cooked for dinner. How she and the kids had finished the dinner, how all the various items are on the dining table, how once I am done, she would appreciate if I put them in the fridge, and finally would really consider it a great favor if I cleaned the table and loaded the dishes. By this time I was tired of the monologue and had tuned out!

Big mistake.

I left the house at 9:35PM expecting to arrive in time at Dulles airport as I expected light traffic late at night. As soon as I was close to the terminal I heard from H that she was waiting for me. I looked for gate 8 and did not find it! The last exit gate was #7! I thought she had gone to the upper level (which was meant for departure) and looked for her there and did not find her there. We spent two minutes talking in circles how I was waiting for her and she spent some time explaining where she was that she saw no signs of my car when a blinding thought pierced my brain.

Could I be in the wrong airport?

If you do not pay attention to what your wife says, then definitely the answer to the question is a resounding yes! H's flight had arrived at Reagan airport whereas I was looking for them at Dulles. So I decided to drive to Reagan.

First problem; my gas tank was empty, I had planned on filling it up after picking them up. Now I was not sure I would be able to get to Reagan. So I made a detour to fill up gas. Then I took the connector from Toll Road to I66.

Second problem; there was both an accident and heavy construction as part of the new metro line they are building. So what was a 30 minute trip turned out to be a 90 minute trip. By the time I picked them up at Reagan, it was past midnight and when we pulled into my garage it was well past 1AM in the morning.

Moral - Read the headline; again.

You like me? Why?

Recently thanks to Netflix, I have been on a marathon, watching House M.D. A very short synopsis without going into details about the show; House is this genius doctor, but an ass of a person and almost no one likes him. Cameron is this pretty doctor that has a crush on House for a few episodes. In one particular episode one of their conversations goes somewhat I like this.

House - You like me?
Cameron - Yes.
House - Why?
Cameron - That is a sad question

House was of course serious as he could not see any logic in her liking him. In that sense, he has no illusions about himself.

I burst out laughing at this exchange.

Most of my life I lived without any self examination. A whole lot of things happened a decade ago and a whole lot of feedback was received that fell in fertile parts of my brain and prodded me to introspect. Having spent no time in introspection in past, I seem to spend a better part of my time in soul searching. Being better acquainted with myself, I must admit I have felt like House a lot the past decade. The result of self-analysis culminated in one simple question.

Would I want myself as a friend?

The answer is a No and that is very lowering thought.