The Happy Gardener

So I am back. I should have written earlier, at least to say that I finished the marathon but after going over it so many times on email and phone and conversation with folks, I couldn't get myself to write it up again. I know - that probably sounds cocky but that's the truth. Suffice to say I took longer than I thought I would, the experience was different from how I thought it'd be, my injuries made a big difference and all in all, I was really glad to cross the finish line. That said, what have I been up to in the last month and more since I wrote? Nothing much really - I've been working most of the time and not working the rest of the time. I know, I know - but c'mon - it's close to midnight and this is my blog. So I really should be allowed to say anything I want to :) Jokes apart, there's been a lot of work, though. Interestingly, after grumbling abt it for a week or so, I've sort of had an enlightenment. I've realized that this is basical...

13 more days to go. I ran today after 8 days. I've been resting my shin/calf over the last week (well, not completely - I did have a dance performance last Sat'day and had a couple of practice sessions for it over the week but still) and was getting worried if I could get back to running ok. I got on the treadmill, walked for abt 10 mins and stretched a little before starting to run. The walk felt ok so I thought the run would be good too. But when I started, my shins were still stiff and sore and I felt like I was just shuffling my feet. After a couple of miles though, they felt better. But my breathing was a little out of whack and I felt pretty thirsty soon so I stopped at 4 miles ( I had planned to do 5 initially). Anyways, it felt pretty good after the run. I spent a good half hour stretching and stopped by CVS and bought a knee support(have occasional issues with the left ITB) and a re-usable ice wrap after spending another half hour poring over all the details on all the...

Every since I started running, my list of favorite things has changed: 1. Having no shin splints. 2. The sweet pain that comes when you stretch your muscles a little further than the last time. 3. Crossing the finish line 4. The deep, deep, dreamless 10 hours of sleep on the night of the long run. 5. Cool wind in my sweaty hair. 6. The disconnected conversations of the runners after a long and tiring run. None of us can concentrate long enough to say something meaningful. 7. Running on pine needles - the softest surface on earth. 8. My running shoes 9. Spending 25 minutes in the shower after the run. 10. Eating ice cream with no guilt whatsoever. 11. The 1 hour drive back home from Boston after the run. 12. Flat stretches of land. 13. Lazy and languid Sat'day aft'noons .

Last Saturday was our 21 mile run. It was to be the longest run we would do before the marathon. Interesting tidbit for the non-marathoners out there : You never run the full 26 miles while you are training for the marathon - the wisdom behind that being you don't want to run the marathon twice. I didn't know that either. When someone explained it to me, I was like "Huh, of course, it makes sense!". I mean, really, it wouldn't feel the same way when you victoriously run past the finish line in the marathon and think "yeah, it feels the same as it did the last time on the practice run", right?. Coming back from the little detour and focusing on the last run again: As I was saying, the 21 mile run was on 29 th September. I had been having issues with my shins for the past couple of runs and my legs weren't really feeling all that great. But I knew I had to do this run 'cause this was it. This was as close as it can get. So I planned to get to Davi...

I just thought I'd write another quick post abt my running over the last two days. After last Saturday's 20 mile run, my legs were in bad shape. The ITB on my left leg was acting up and my right shin hurt - it really hurt. I came home and pretty much limped around all of Sat'day and Sunday. On Monday, I got myself a calf/shin support wrap - a Velcro contraption that goes around my shin/calf and started using it right away. I also started icing my shin. And I rested. I did absolutely nothing on Monday and Tuesday except go to work, come back and do some household chores. On Wednesday, my legs were feeling better and I decided to test them out with a short run. I played it safe and decided to run on the treadmill. This way, if my legs hurt after running a couple of miles, I was not a couple of miles away from my car :) I started out a little stiff and my shins hurt a little but after a mile or so, it started getting better. At around 3.5 miles, I was warmed up and feeling...

Telugu folks are amazing. They create a website called idlebrain dedicated to T elugu cinema and all its starts. They absorb the minutiae of the lives of movie actors. They show up for the first-day-first-show of al (most)l movies - rain or shine. They follow the making of the movies, go through all the publicity/shooting photos, listen to the songs as soon as the audio is released, speculate about the movie, read the previews, read the reviews, watch the movie independent of whether the review was good or bad, then agree with the review and continue to gather further information about the movie. And get this, they actually keep track of boxes of reels/prints of the movie as it travels around the world to get a to a theater. I was supposed to watch the preview of this movie " Chirutha " tonight with a few of my friends. We got there around 9.30 pm for the 9.45 pm show only to find a little note posted at the movie hall's door saying that the movie was going to start at...

I just spent 30 uncomfortable minutes icing my right shin and my left knee. Icing is not a fun activity. Firstly there's all the mess involved in putting the ice in a plastic bag and trying to hold it steady over the injured area with one hand while trying to attach it to this area using some contraption with the other hand (in my case it was another plastic bag). It dripped - dripped on the footstool, on the couch , on the coffee table until I gave up and just let it drip over my carpet. And then there's the iceburn . They ( those very knowledgeable internet folks) tell you that the discomfort/burning sensation lasts only for a a couple of minutes and then the area becomes numb. I don't completely agree - it burns for quite a while. All in all, icing an injury is not a fun week-night activity. That done, I moved to step 2. Step 2 is applying a pain reliever/anodyne cream called " Eutheria ". My parents brought this from India and when I sprained my neck during o...

So I finally decided to get down to writing that first blog today. Having spent about 2 hours in the morning and 2.5 hours this evening fighting rush hour traffic around Boston (long story), I gave up on working out today. So I decided that I'd sit down and write that first blog. Instead, I ate cookies - multiple cookies, one after the other. Then I had to eat some Cheetos just to get the sweet taste out of my mouth. I had just decided last evening that I've been eating too much junk food over the last few weeks and that I would give up junk until I was done running my marathon at the end of October. And here I was - going through junk by the pound. Oh well, I'll just eat my way through everything that I have at home and never buy junk again and live happily ever after. Yeah right, like that's going to happen. Anyways, continuing my story: after zipping through those cookies I caught the last 10 minutes of an episode of Two and a Half Men (that's a funny show). No...