Swiss Odyssey: MOMO-Part-10

San Francisco-2010 (US) -> Athens-2010 (Greece) -> Berlin-2011 (Germany) -> Niagara Falls-2011 (US/Canada) -> Singapore-2011 -> Kuala Lumpur-2012 (Malaysia) -> Venice-2012 (Italy) -> Phuket-2013 (Thailand) -> Mt.Fuji-2013 (Japan) -> Zurich-2014 (Switzerland)

My Overseas Marathon Odyssey (MOMO) - Part 10 - Zurich Marathon

It all started when I was conducting my ritual search for the next destination in Europe. I was considering Vienna Marathon, Austria and Prague Marathon, Czech Republic. As my budget is always very limited, I usually check for the airfares to different places first and then select a Marathon. Vienna and Prague were both looking good. Around the same time, I happened to talk to Pravin, a friend of mine living in Zurich, Switzerland and also found that Zurich Marathon fits the bill well, and others fell off the radar.

Zurich Marathon turned out to be a very low profile event (relative to the other European Marathons that I had done). Though it's low profile in terms of its popularity outside Switzerland and in terms of the number of runners (just a few hundred), it was organized impeccably. The Swiss ingenuity could be seen everywhere. Printing a free Zurich public transport ticket, with 24 hour validity on the Marathon day, behind the Marathon bib is just a sample of it. Aid stations at every 3.5 KM were well-stocked and well-manned. There were pacers from 3 hr to 5 hr 30 min at 15 min increments. As the total number is very small, there were hardly any runners who were not following the pacers. So, after a few KM, the entire course looked like bursts of runners with a 15 min gap in between. I didn't go with any pacer and ran at 6:20 min/km initially and averaged to 6:50 by the end to finish in 4 hr 52 min. It was 12°C in the beginning (pretty cold for a South-Indian) and went up to a comfortable 18°C towards the end.

When I did my first European Marathon in 2010 in Athens, Greece (the birthplace of Marathon), I didn't quite have this MOMO plan in my mind. So, I did quite a lot of sight seeing and traveling with in Europe for the next couple of weeks. But, as this has become a regular affair now, my trips have become shorter and shorter. This is the shortest trip, with just a couple of days planned after the run. 

I visited Interlaken, a small town between two large lakes, Thun & Brienz, the most popular tourist destination in Switzerland and the gateway to several mountains and lakes in that region, the following day. Though there are some great cycling trails, and a bunch of adventure sports options, this being the day right after a Marathon, I had not planned any activities and just walked around the lakes whole day. The best part of the visit was getting in and out of Interlaken. Interlaken could be reached from Zurich through two different routes. One is shorter, more expensive, less scenic route (via Bern, the Swiss capital) and the other is a bit longer, cheaper and insanely scenic (via Lucerne). I chose the later in the onward journey and the former to return. The scenic route via Lucerne is just picture perfect in its every frame. It's a heaven for photographers and a feast to eyes. Icing on the cake would be the extremely efficient, comfortable and luxury trains.

The following day was for Baden-Baden, Germany. A 3 hour train ride from Zurich took me to this small German spa town at the foothills of Black Forest. Baden means 'bathing' in German. It's popular due to its natural thermal springs and their therapeutic effects, discovered by ancient Romans, thousands of years back. I heard about it from Dilip, another friend of mine, when we planned our 2010 trip. There are two popular spas, Caracalla-Spa and Friedrichsbad. The former is a modern spa with modern construction and luxury facilities. The later one is older (opened in 1877) and wilder (clothes are off for a full 3 1/2 hours), with its 17 stages that give one a glimpse of Roman bathing culture combined with Irish hot-air baths. I, obviously, chose the later and I don't regret. Some of the stages are hot air sauna rooms and some are pools at different temperatures, heated using only natural thermal springs, with a couple of short massages in between. Though the relaxation was quite comparable to the Onsen that I tried in Tokyo, Japan, the process and the aura were much more exotic.

That brings an end to the short & sweet Swiss Odyssey.

Driving Rashly is Not Macho, for God's Sake!

Heard this disturbing news over the weekend.

A friend of mine was out for a team-lunch on last Friday. While returning from lunch, while he was waiting on his bike with a colleague on the pillion, by the side of a road in Bangalore, well within city, a speeding truck ran over them. Both of them are no more.

Even a million 'deepest condolences' or 'may his soul rest in peace' messages will do nothing for his young wife, and she will have to go through the devastation on her own. I can't imagine the condition of his colleagues who saw this happening, from a car. He was not my close friend. But, I just dropped by, a few months back during a cycle ride, along with a few others, and had breakfast at his house. He had spent significant amount of time to design each room of his house on his own, and got the interiors done beautifully.

The least, I feel I should do is, request every reader of this to share this incident with every speeding driver, be it your colleague or drivers of auto or taxi to the Airport or an office cab. I found even the rudest of the drivers are not inherently bad. I had seen an auto driver, who refused to accept meter fare and demanded exorbitant fare, was the first one to jump out of his auto and help a couple who fell on road from a bike. I was also helped by a truck driver on a highway when my Bullet skidded and I landed on the middle of the road.

I don't know what must have been going through this particular truck driver. He might be drunk, negligent or indifferent. I am more worried about people who are just indifferent. Because, there are just too many of them. Everyone seem to be in a hurry on road, all the time, for no apparent reason. I get yelled at almost everyday, for stopping at red signal, while riding my cycle at 6:30 AM. I haven't seen the owners of cars or employees getting to work in cabs objecting their drivers breaking signals or driving rash.

There are enough ways to get life snuffed out of us. Let's get rid of at least a few. Let's educate everyone that driving rashly is not a macho thing!

Book Review: Everything That Remains

Everything That Remains - A Memoir by the Minimalists

- Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus

A couple of youngsters (in their late 20s), while successfully chasing their American Dream, come across this philosophy called Minimalism. Minimalism, on the face of it, may sound like being ascetic and getting rid of all material things and living life of monks. But, for these guys, it's slightly different. They have their own elevator pitch about their minimalism, which goes as follows:

"Minimalism is a lifestyle that helps people question what things add value to their lives. By clearing the clutter from life’s path, we can all make room for the most important aspects of life: health, relationships, passion, growth, and contribution."

While exploring minimalism more, they discover that the clutter of their material possessions is blindfolding them from seeing the world around them. To the extent that, they really don't know which of those possessions they really love to have, and which of them they can get rid of. That's when they consider organizing their possessions and unclutter their surroundings, and soon realize that organizing is nothing more than well-planned hoarding, but, hoarding nevertheless. This realization makes them get rid of most of their possessions.

Merely getting rid of things didn't make them contended. With the weight off their shoulders, they started asking fundamental questions. What's truly important in life? Why am i discontented? Who is the person that I want to become? etc., That led them to the next phase of minimalism. The Why behind de-cluttering. They find travel & writing as answers to their Why.

They start traveling and blogging their explorations. They currently have a couple of million readers. They also published 4 books and speak at events while traveling. All of that can be found at: http://www.theminimalists.com

Auroville Marathon - 2014

Auroville: Auroville wants to be a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realise human unity.

Auroville Vision: Humanity is not the last rung of the terrestrial creation. Evolution continues and man will be surpassed.

Auroville Marathon is organized in Auroville, Pondicherry, on 2nd Sunday of Feb. I did fall in love with the rustic surroundings inside Auroville, a 659 acre self-sustainable township, during a half-marathon that I attempted in 2010. The not-so-even course is entirely on dirt roads through narrow pathways, so narrow at some places that runners have to run in a single file, at times. By that description, it should be evident that the course would be a put-off to finish-time conscious runners and automatically a turn-on for me :-) And, here I am, just back from my 5th consecutive Auroville Marathon (2 half and 3 full) over the weekend.

This has turned out to be a special one on many counts. Traveled from Bangalore to Pondicherry and back with our Runners For Ever gang and a few others. These guys kept me so engaged for a full 60 hours, that I couldn't take out my brand new Kindle-PaperWhite and read even a single page of a very interesting book that I started reading about minimalism.

Having just run Mumbai Marathon 3 weeks back and nothing left to prove, even the craziest finish-time conscious runners will not care much about their timing in Auroville Marathon. I decided not to carry my Garmin, phone and not even a watch. I just wanted to run and reach the finish line, while enjoying the serene rustic beauty of Auroville. Started the run along with a non-regular and out-of-form friend of mine, whom I advised to follow my 9:1 (9 minute run + 1 minute walk) routine, so that he can touch the finish line strong. I wanted to do a random run as I did have no way to keep track of time. My friend soon pulled out his mobile and started keeping track of time :-) We reached 32 KM in that mode and he hit the wall (Marathon parlance), where he gave up and was in no mood to do even 1:1. With walking as the only option left, we walked the rest (10 KM) and touched the finish line in 6 hours. My longest finish-time in 3 years. But, one of the most enjoyable runs.

Thanks to another runner friend who has club-mahindra membership, we all could enjoy the beautiful resort with a beach-front for 2 days. Unlike other marathons, we were not picky about food (again, as nothing was left to prove so soon after Mumbai Marathon) and just hogged on lavish buffet, before and after the marathon.

A routine weekend trip to run a Marathon couldn't have been more satiating. And, my friends couldn't have made yours truly hate his erstwhile antisocial self more! :-)

Mumbai Marathon - 2014

I have been running Mumbai Marathon for the last 9 years, in some form or the other. Started with 6-7 KM dream runs, did a couple of half-marathons and graduated to full-marathon in 2010. Mumbai never disappoints me. This year is no different.

Left for Mumbai on Saturday, the 18th morning with a group of runner friends (We call ourselves - Runners For Ever, RFE), experiencing a bunch of pleasant surprises en route. Indigo Airlines pilot welcomed the runners aboard (more than half of the passengers were runners), gave an exclusive weather update for runners before landing and wished each runner personally while disembarking in Mumbai. Startbucks at the Mumbai airport wished me while handing the coffee. How do they know! Our T-Shirts speak a lot. :-)

We, the RFE, spent rest of the day ultra cautiously, eating very selectively and making sure that we are completely relaxed by the end of the day. Our menu typically swings between extremes during those 2 days.  The day before the run, we are ambassadors of Saatvic Diet. After the run, non-vegetarians among us don't allow anything vegetarian close to their plates :-)

Sunday, the 19th started at 3 AM with a quick and light breakfast. We were at azad maidan by 5 AM. Each of us got into our favorite routines before the run. Some do warm-up run, some stretch and some do aerobics. I got into my usual one. Just stare at others, let the mood take me over and wait for the gates to open at 5:40 AM.

I started the run with my usual run-walk-run mode with 9:1 splits (repeat of 9 minute run + 1 minute walk) at an average pace of 6:30 minutes per KM, which works out to  9.2 KMPH. Sustained the same pace till 34 KM. Dropped my pace slightly at the killer hill on Peddar road at 35 KM and maintained the same for rest of the run, finishing 42.195 KM in 4 hr 42 minutes. But for the 7-8 KM stretch of Bandra-Worli sea-link, entire course had cheering crowds offering drinks and snacks. Such support is nowhere to be seen in rest of India, and is not so common even outside India (Among the runs that I did, only Berlin Marathon comes somewhere close to it). So far, my best Marathon moment had been that little girl offering candy at 38 KM in 2011.  I got a candy this time too, around the same place, but from a 10 year old girl. Apparently, she has grown up a bit too fast :-)

A day after returning to Bangalore, I read a not-so-pleasant experience of one of the most seasoned runners from Bangalore. He pushed himself a bit too much in Mumbai and almost lost consciousness at a stone's throw from the finish line. But, somehow crossed the finish line, only to land on stretcher a moment later. Fortunately, everything seems to be alright after the timely medical aid. The more saddening part of this story is, reading comments of several recreational runners about this incident. Almost all of them claim to be inspired by his performance in Mumbai. I, as usual, fail to get the point. With all due respect to his indomitable spirit and his achievements, I claim that this incident reinforced the concerns that I expressed in my write up: Dilemma of a Recreational Runner.

I can't thank my RFE gang more for making these runs and trips extremely pleasant and totally worth looking forward to. We already have lined up the next in Pondicherry, Auroville Marathon on 9th Feb. Just a couple of more weeks to go!

Book Review: Swaraj by Arvind Kejriwal

Swaraj

- Arvind Kejriwal

Came across this book, while checking one of those million facebook updates from friends, mostly gunning for Arvind Kejriwal's blood. He is called more left than leftists, said to be trying failed socialism and some even say that he doesn't have a clue about what to do, and is just drifting aimlessly.

But, if one has patience to read this book (just 74 pages), one can easily say he is anything but the above said things. He had traveled length and breadth of the country, analyzed problems at grass-root level, compared the existing systems with several other successful systems aorund the world and proposed solutions.

The theme is Swaraj, self governance, a participatory democracy. He argues how the current system is not democracy at all. In the current system, a village can't decide what it needs, but, state and central governments decide a set of schemes sitting in the capitals, and uniformly apply them on thousands of villages. When thousands of such schemes fail to do the magic, there is not even a feedback loop. Same goes with the cities as well. A tax-payer has no direct say on how that money should be spent. All one does and can do is elect a representative and pray.

He doesn't propose a completely different alternative. What he proposes is a decentralized and participatory democracy, which can be achieved even without any constitutional amendment. He discusses the problems with corruption at different levels, accountability in governance, land acquisition by corporates, random mine allocation,  usage of water resources  etc., which are some of the burning and fundamental issues. He proposes Swaraj (self governance), which needs citizen participation at every level as the solution for all. He cites examples from USA, Brazil and Switzerland where it worked. Swiss constitution seems to have a provision where a proposal signed by 100,000 citizens automatically becomes a bill for discussion in parliament. Brazil seems to have tried having preliminary budget discussion on roads. And, they work.

His ideas are consistent with 'Grama Swaraj', attributed to Gandhi.

He doesn't talk high of right people getting into assemblies and parliament solving things. Probably, he had written this before the formation of AAP :-)

The book is available online for free and in pdf form in Hindi and English

My 555 FB freinds classified into 10 classes

I noticed today that I have 555 friends on Facebook. During dinner at a function yesterday, I finally had that dreaded encounter. One of those 555 had asked me what my name was. A bit of consoling thing is, she could recall my last-name, when I said my first-name and also said that we were Facebook friends. No offense, though :-)

Just for fun, I attempted to classify my 555 friends into 10 classes. This is not to criticize any of them, as it is their own wall, and they have every right to post anything they want. It's for me to choose whether to read those or even allow them in my feed.

1. Push agenda at all costs

We have a clear agenda. Most of the stuff that we share, comment and like would be to push that. More often than not, you find us annoying, as we are hardly unbiased. 

2. What we read is what we believe

Most naive set. We behave, as if we believe every word that's ever written on the Internet, and totally miss out on using the same Internet to verify stuff. 

3. Just can't make things simpler

We are the intellectual breed or at least trying hard to be one. We just don't like anything simple. Compulsive theorists. Would love to identify patterns and weave things. Fun reads, as long as we don't belong to Class-1 also :-)
 

4. We just love this world

We are the God sent for those loners and 'like' seekers. You post it. We like it. As simple as that.

 
5. We live on Facebook

Sun just can't set without seeing a couple of our posts of the day. We put painstaking efforts to ensure that, and we don't even worry about being dumb, at times.

 
6. In pursuit of replacing wikiquote.org, one day

We are a bunch of wannabe Socrates. Our wall looks almost like a page on wikiquote.org. One can see, a passionate lover with a heartburn to a philosopher working his way to change this world, in each one of us.

 
 7. Foul is the word

No post of ours can go without a tinge of filth. Our larger intentions are still good. But, we just can't help with the words. We are hot-blooded, you know.

 
8. Me, my spouse and my children

That's all I have. My children wake up, they dress up, they eat, they play and they go to bed. We go places and yes, we do come back. And, you would know that all!

 
9. The world is all about that sport

What else is there to talk or share? Players, their records, statistics, our expert predictions, abuses, disappointments.

 
10. No traces whatsoever

We follow each and everything that's happening on Facebook. But, we take extreme caution to make our presence *not* felt. No shares, no likes, no comments. We inherited this habit from paperback book readers, who keep their books clean.

Some of my friends, of course, fall in hybrid classes that are a combination of these.

Book Review: Why I Failed

Why I Failed
- Shweta Punj

4 years back, I wrote a blog about my partner search and observed in the beginning, why one should listen to losers (like me) and how it helps. I got a chance now to read about some very high profile losers (not in the end, but at some point of time) and what did they do when they were lost.

Why I failed is a compilation of stories of 16 prominent Indians (mostly business persons, some from sports, cinema and fashion industries). Unlike Rashmi Bansal's Connecting the Dots and Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish, this one talks only about loosing and fighting back aspects of their careers. 

Some were ahead of their times with their ideas, some couldn't get others buy their vision, some were so obsessed with their ideas and utopian in their outlook that they never thought plan-B would ever be required, and some aspired for wrong things. What makes it a fascinating read is, how they handled their failure and bounced back.

The persons being high profile, so were their failures. So, I felt, at times, I couldn't connect much. That's partially due to the 30000 ft view presented by the author and her pace. But, for those who enjoy powerful quotes and philosophical verses, it's a feast. They are aplenty.