Dilemma of a Recreational Runner

[This post is not about competitive runners and runners who want to get onto (any kind of) podium one day, in any form]

I am a recreational runner. I have been one for more than 5 years. Started with dream runs(5-7KM), 10KM runs, graduated to half-marathons (21.0975KM) and full-marathons (42.195KM) in a couple of years. I ran 15 full marathons so far, half domestic and half overseas, some at exotic locations. And, of late, I have been plagued by this dilemma - Why "What's your timing?" becomes such an important question, when runners (even hitherto strangers) meet at these events?

I did discuss this point with several runner friends, and each have their own theories. I felt like penning it down, after seeing the disappointment in a runner today at TCS 10K, because he couldn't do his PB (Personal Best in runners jargon), and a whole bunch of his friends consoled him saying things like - "Come on! It's alright. it's just not your day", "It's not the last event. You can do better in xyz run.", "You are an awesome runner. Runners never loose, losers never run" etc., All this, because he took a few more minutes than what he planned, to finish a 10K run. And, BTW, those few minutes don't take him anywhere close to the winner, and he is just a recreational runner.

Now the discussion starts. Why long distance recreational runners get so obsessed with their finishing times? The very reasons for the participation itself are different - fitness, health, travel, fun, discipline, being active etc., Will a better timing help in enjoying more of any of those? I don't think so. Then why?

A very competitive friend of mine suggests that what one does at distance runs (at anything, for that matter) is just an extension/expression of oneself. If one is passionate about things that one pursues, and is a perfectionist, one can't help NOT looking forward to improving in run after run. You can have just one personality. Same will be expressed everywhere. Work or Play. - Sounds like a fair point. But, what if we use our competitive spirit judiciously, wherever it matters? Wouldn't running be more fun! Or, is it just impossible?

   

Another couple of friends suggest, without attaching any personality traits, it's just what running fraternity has been doing for years. Boston Marathon (With the toughest entry criteria) is the holy grail for runners. For ages, runners dreamed to participate in that. Better runners inspire and motivate us to chase them. And, we just do it. - Hmm... So, we are doing it, just because that's what everyone is doing. Basically, a mindless pursuit of the unknown. Not so convincing.

Personally, I wish I had been more occupied with the scenic beauty of Niagara Falls than with the continuous calculations in my brain, with each passing kilo-meter (to determine my finish-time), during Niagara Falls Marathon. Same is true with several other runs.  A couple of my runner friends injured themselves in this pursuit of improvement in every run, and were off the roads for several months. When I tell about my runs at exotic locations like Athens/Venice, non-runners ask me more about those places and people, and runners ask about the course and weather - flat course or hilly, hot or cold, is a PB doable, and of course my timing :-)

This is no complaining. But, it's always good to sort out the priorities, once in a while.

And, if you ask me what's my best running moment - it is when that 3 year old little girl offered me an orange candy (after carefully unwrapping, so that I can enjoy it as it is), 4 KM before the finish line during Mumbai Marathon - 2011. I didn't stop and ask her name, as it would have added another few minutes to my record breaking 5:13 finish that year :-)

Book Review: Shiva Trilogy - 3: The Oath of the Vayupurtras

The Oath of the Vayuputras
-- Amish

After reading the first 2 parts (The Immortals of Meluha and The Secret of Nagas), I have been eagerly waiting for the last part of Shiva Trilogy and pre-booked it at the first opportunity. And, it doesn't disappoint.

The best part of the series is Amish's excellent narrative style. He picked up quite a few characters from Indian Mythology (maintaining similar relation among them) and created his own story around them. He dedicated significant amount of the first book to just create the stage, as the story deserves it, and exploited all that in the second book. Though I thoroughly enjoyed the third part, I felt narration of war has turned out to be a bit too long and repetitive.

A complaint that I heard from some of my friends is, the take away is not new. Well, as always, it depends on readers. If one is looking for a beautiful reading experience that keeps up one's imagination through out, one wouldn't get disappointed. Instead, if one is asking for something new, which has never been told, yes, there is not much; Except that, good and evil are just different sides of the same coin. One eventually turns into another, as it gets abused.

I particularly enjoyed the conversations between Shiva (the Hero) and the Vasudev pandits (his mentors). I found the conversations to be abstract, philosophical and profound.

Another thing that I liked a lot about the book (and the series, in general) is, except for the ability of Maharshi Brighu (a powerful ascetic saint, and mentor of emperor of India) to read minds of others by looking at their eyes, the author didn't need the help of super nature (and the God hypothesis :-) ) to make such a story interesting. Everything is perfectly rational. The kings and citizens do follow the rules set by Lord Rudra and Lord Ram (considered by many in India today, as 2 of tri-murti's who are responsible for Srishti-creation, Stithi-maintenance and Laya-dissolution), but, they are just great kings who lived exemplary lives, and formalized good governance and dictated rules for citizens to lead peaceful life. Nothing beyond.

I would highly recommend it for those who are looking for light reads, and craving for the reading experience (similar to http://www.chandamama.com/) that they parted ways with, since their childhood.

Book Review: God's Debris

Book Review: God's Debris - A Thought Experiment
-- Scott Adams (Yes, The Dilbert guy)

As the punchline describes it, it's not a novel, it's just a thought experiment. A very short, couple of hours read. But, it has enough stuff to keep one's brain engaged for several weekends. The author recommends that one should share it with a smart friend after reading, and discuss it over the next weekend while enjoying a 'tasty beverage'. And, I am seriously looking forward to it.

The central idea is, if God is omnipotent and omniscient, the only challenge he would have is to annihilate himself. In fact, he actually did it and that's what is Big Bang for us. What's left is just God's Debris and probability. With this as the background, let us address all the circus in the world.

There is just one condition. Explanation should be simplest possible.

If one is of the type that says, "screw your logic, rationale and all that #$%^&, there is something called faith. I just have faith. I just believe", then one should stay away from this thought experiment. Otherwise, it is thoroughly enjoyable. 

Avatar, a supposedly enlightened soul and hero of the thought experiment, smartly puts his arguments, poses simple questions that tear apart age old beliefs around God, Soul, Free Will, Religions and turns most of them into simple to understand paradoxes. 

I particularly enjoyed it, as I could relate most of the discussion with the heated debates (more often than not, accompanied by all those tasty beverages) that I was part of, over the years, with some of my friends "who has faith and who just believe" :-)

Book Review: God Does Not Play Dice

Book Review: God Does Not Play Dice
-- David A. Shiang

I picked it up thinking that it is another Stephen Hawking or Carl Sagan kind of books. The author does talk about things like Counter-factual Definiteness, Superdeterminism etc., a lot. But, the similarity ends right there.

Author is an MIT graduate and works for UCB. Though this book is about Physics (and Mathematics) and the author tries to rip of several classical mathematical theories that have been taken for granted for hundreds of years, he is a fellow in English at UCB.

One line summary of the book would be "If one can't understand or explain a particular phenomenon, one shouldn't call that random. Period." Sounds fair enough. 

But, the author doesn't stop there. He extrapolates his above wisdom and takes its aid to criticize Uncertainity Principle, Feynmenn's Nobel prize winning  Sum over Histories idea etc., Once in a while he quotes a statement by Einstein (who, apparently didn't get completely convinced by his won theory of relativity, as he was not ready to accept that "God Does Play Dice, and hence there is randomness all over") and makes fun of Richard Dawkins and Carl Sagan as they suggested that "our existence is not by design, but, due to a mere chance and evolution".

If he had limited himself to criticizing Nobel prize winning theories that explain super-complex cosmological phenomenon, people like me would have just turned pages and left intrigued. But, he gets to much more basic stuff and calls probability a farce, proposes a difference between 'probability' and 'frequency'. According to him, when a fair coin is tossed, there is no 50-50 chance of seeing a head. It would either be a head or tail. We just don't know. So, there is some design that we don't understand. So, we shouldn't call it random. What we call 'chance' is in fact 'frequency' of seeing heads, when the experiment (tossing the coin) is repeated for a long time. And, that frequency has nothing to do with the outcome of a single experiment. Sounds right, but, if one has the question, "Probability was never intended to answer the outcome of a single experiment with 100% certainty. So what's your point ?", he doesn't explain any further. He just takes the universal escape route, "there 'may' be an intelligent designer behind all these. We are incapable of understanding. So, let's not call it random".

As per this logic, everything is predetermined. We just don't know. And, he uses this theory as answer to the free will problem as well. He brings retrospective perspective into everything that he discusses, and claims that there indeed is no freewill.

At the end of it, I am not convinced about anything that he talks. But, lot of points to ponder and it makes a good philosophical discussion rather than a scientific breakthrough, contrary to his claims.

Moving on for the next lap: Blue Coat to ...

It is just 2 years since I left ProCurve Networking by Hewlett-Packard and joined Blue Coat. But, Blue Coat decides to call it a day for their Bangalore operations, and I am on my next lap of the journey from next week.

These 2 years have been anything but a roller coaster ride. The domain was something that's close to my forte. Frequent organizational changes kept me constantly in a ramp up phase, and that involved travel and several months of transition time in US/Canada. If it was only about the present, I did enjoy all that and had a great time. But, if it was about delivering something and moving up, there was nothing too significant to cherish. That's indeed a little disappointing.

The best take away would be the opportunity that I got to work with some interesting people. I worked with some people in my earlier work places, who were technologically equally stronger and had better foundations. But, what I could learn from this new set is their attitude. And, they don't stop at arm-chair commentary. Each has an impressive track record. They helped in diffusion of some of the myths that I used to subscribe to, and subtly remind me to get rid of inertia, that's not always apparent. Hopefully, I will put some of that learning in practice, soon enough.

The next lap... will write in another post in a couple of weeks. For now, that would be along with a subset of that new set :)

A Visit to Cambodia

Cambodia ? Where is that ?

Oh ! Africa, this time !

One more Marathon ?

Do you want to loose a limb by stepping on a land-mine ?

Wow ! Will you be visiting Angkor Wat ? Awesome !

Stay only in 5 star hotels, if you don't want to get stranded in an alien country without passport and credit cards.

These are some of the reactions of my friends and colleagues, when I told them about my upcoming visit to Cambodia. Dilip and Mani planned this trip long back and lured me in (with almost no effort) when they got to know that I was fired and jobless.

It was a short 3 day visit to one of the most unglamorous sounding places on earth, Siem Reap, Cambodia, an under developed South East Asian country, located between Thailand and Vietnam. Cambodia has several old Hindu temples in ruins, discovered over a period of time, built between 8th and 12th century. Apparently, Cambodia was used as source of slaves by neighbors for 100s of years (after 12th century) till the French invaded and colonized in 19th century. That explains the sorry state of majestic Hindu/Buddhist temples.

We could visit Angkor Wat, the largest Hindu temple in the world with Ramayana and Ksheera Sagara Manthanam carved on walls along its infinite corridors, Bayon, a temple that's a mix of Hindu and Buddhist traditions with 216 faces carved on its majestic towers, Ta Prohm and Beng Mealea, some of the temples that were left as they were found with huge banyan trees grown randomly all over the place as a result of centuries of neglect. Tomb Raider used Ta Prohm as one of the locations. An interesting thing among several others that we could see was a carving on the walls of Ta Prohm that resembles a Stegosaurus, a type of dinosaur lived 150 million years ago in North America and Europe. Several countries, including India, are extending their help to restore some of these temples. It seems, it takes 3 full days to just visit all the major temples in Siem Reap area.

We concluded the first day with a visit to a Fishermen's village that apparently floats on water from Tonle Sap and attached to a mangrove forest. Tonle Sap is the largest fresh water lake in South East Asia with a size varying between 2700 sq. KM to 16000 sq. KM depending on the season. When our boat took us suddenly from a narrow canal into Tonle Sap, we couldn't believe that it's just a lake and not sea, as we couldn't see the other end in any of the 3 directions.

We spent one full day doing Dirt Biking in the Cambodian country side with Hidden Cambodia Tours. Though we had done lot of long bike rides earlier, Dirt Bikes were new to all of us. So, we started the ride a bit carefully. But, soon enough we discovered the fun of high raised and fully suspended Dirt Bikes and the way they love uneven roads and sandy stretches. We were ecstatic by the end of the day and Mani could end the ride only with a promise to come back and do at least a 5 day ride. The good part of Cambodia is except for one main road, every other road is a dirt trail and that makes it a great place for such rides.

We spent the evenings in pub street in old market area of Siem Reap city. Old Market area stands out of place with western styled pubs and restaurants to entertain tourists. Night life of Pub Street in particular is comparable to any happening European city, except that it goes very light on one's pocket. The area has a lot of massage parlors mimicking the popular massage culture of neighboring Thailand. But, we found that they are just poor mimics.

Though several friends and colleagues warned us about the safety of the place, it turned out to be quite a safe place. We could roam around on our own, even late in the nights, after finding several tourists from the west doing the same confidently. We stayed at Sam So Guest House, close to old market area, at a throw away price of 54 USD for 3 people for 3 nights that includes a good breakfast, airport pickup, excellent Wi-Fi and air-conditioning. Sam So couple routinely go out of their way to make their guests feel at home.

As I posted earlier, it turned out to be more than just an interesting visit, after visiting a lot of pompous west. Thanks to Dilip and Mani for the excellent company and  not giving up when I first said no to the trip :-)


 Photos...

Year 2011 - Fun Continues

The fun and travel legacy carried forward from 2010 has been taken care of well by 2011, and is being forwarded to its successor in a much better shape.

As usual, the year started with a fantastic run at Mumbai Marathon, where I could clock my personal best. And, the year ended with 3 more Marathons in 3 Months in 3 different Continents (Berlin/Europe, Niagara Falls/North America, Singapore/Asia). Though I couldn't improve much in terms of pace, I could sustain higher frequency.

As far as travel is concerned, this year is the best so far. Spent a month in California and planned every weekend in advance and executed the plan perfectly. Drove 5000 KM in 4 weekends, which include drives to Yosemite, Tahoe/Reno, Pacific Coast and Las Vegas. Visit to the Grand Canyons during the Las Vegas visit left me wanting, and Grand Canyons got added to the to-do list. Late in the year, traveled to Germany for Berlin Marathon. After the run, spent a week visiting Berlin, Amsterdam and Brussels. Just a couple of weeks after that, work took me to Canada and I spent a month there. I could manage to do a very long drive to New York, besides the Marathon at Niagara Falls, during that month. Another coupe of weeks later, spent a few days in Singapore. Last quarter of the year has been hectic with lots of travel and runs.

This year has been better with Bike too. No, not cycle, its about the Bullet. Riding started with a trip to Pondicherry in February and ended only on 31st December with a 5 day long ride to west coast covering Gokarna, Murudeshwar and Jog Falls. With a great gang of friends, did a couple of memorable rides to Coorg and Chikmagalur. Besides those, did a solo ride to Ooty with just Bullet and Kindle.

Cycling took a hit this year with absolutely no cycling outside cycle-to-work, which will also be ending right from the first day of 2012, as I am shifting to a house which is around 200 meters away from office, and I will be doing walk-to-work. But, that gives me a lot of time and I can renew my pleasure rides. BTW, I just finished 4 years of cycle-to-work and people at work refer to me as Cycle-Srini :)


Lastly, about work... I am at a kind of cross roads in my career. Nothing significant happened by the end of this year and am looking forward to next year for something interesting. Nevertheless, I achieved something. When they had a chance to say something about me, my team said, "Whatever the quirks, we all love our Cycle-Srini". And, that indeed is significant.