Exercised

 

In Exercised, Harvard professor of evolutionary biology Daniel Lieberman explains that to truly understand exercise science, you must first understand something about human evolution and anthropology and how the body evolved to handle exercise. The mantra of this book is that nothing about the biology of exercise makes sense except in the light of evolution, and nothing about exercise as a behavior makes sense except in the light of anthropology.

 

That avoidance of exercise makes sense because exercise is a fundamentally strange and unusual behaviour from an evolutionary perspective. When all is said and done, exercise, despite its manifold benefits, requires overriding deep, natural instincts. So instead of shaming and blaming people who avoid exertion, we should help each other choose to exercise. But as the last few decades have shown, we won't succeed solely by medicalizing and commodifying exercise; instead, we should treat exercise the way we treat education by making it fun, social, emotionally worthwhile, and something that we willingly commit ourselves to do.

 

As Lieberman wrote, "nothing about the biology of exercise makes sense except in the light of evolution, and nothing about exercise as a behavior makes sense except in the light of anthropology." Using this evolutionary/anthropological framework, Lieberman sets out to explain how the body works when at rest (sitting and sleeping), when active (walking, running, lifting, fighting, dancing), and what this means for establishing effective exercise habits in the modern world. Along the way, he explains many of the myths associated with exercise and health. The word "myth" probably explains his take on these. Among some of the exaggerations are: is sitting as bad as smoking, do we need 8 hours of sleep each night, is the wear and tear of running bad for the knees, is a glass of red wine really as good as spending an hour at the Gym, is exercise useless for losing weight, and others.

 

 

The author used evolutionary and anthropological perspectives to explore and rethink dozens of myths about physical inactivity, activity, and exercise. Are we born to exercise? Is sitting the new smoking? Is it bad to slouch? Do you need eight hours of sleep? Are humans comparatively slow and weak?Is walking ineffective for losing weight? Does running ruin your knees? Is it normal to exercise less as we age? What is the best way to persuade people to exercise? Is there an optimal kind and amount of exercise? How much does exercise affect our vulnerability to cancer? 

 

The first thing to understand is that humans spent most of their 200,000-year evolutionary history as hunter-gatherers, with the invention of agriculture occurring only around 10,000 years ago and the modern industrial revolution beginning only about 200 years ago. The key to understanding our relationship to exercise, therefore, is found in the study of these hunter-gatherer groups.

 

Three useful definitions:

Physical activity (noun): any bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that expends energy.

Exercise (noun): voluntary physical activity that is planned, structured, repetitive, and undertaken to sustain or improve health and fitness.

Exercised (adjective): to be vexed, anxious, worried, or harassed.

 

Below are some points that I jotted down that I found interesting while reading this book.

• It behooves us, however, to remember that exercise is a truly odd sort of medicine. It is largely medicinal because the absence of physical activity is unhealthy. Further, exercise not only is an abnormal behavior from an evolutionary perspective but also never evolved to be therapeutic. Instead, we evolved to spend energy

• Make exercise necessary and fun. Do mostly cardio, but also some weights. Some is better than none. Keep it up as you age

• Eating sensibly and exercising don't guarantee long life and good health; they just decrease the risk of getting sick

• Exercise is done against one’s wishes and maintained only because the alternative is worse.

• We evolved to be physically active as we age, and in turn being active helps us age well. Further, the longer we stay active, the greater the benefit and it is almost never too late to benefit from getting fit

• "Everyone knows they should exercise, but few things are more irritating than being told to exercise, how much, and in what way. Exhorting us to "Just Do It" is about as helpful as telling a drug addict to "Just Say No."

• You use more than thirty pounds of ATP during a one-hour walk and more than your entire body weight of ATP over the course of a typical day—an obviously impossible amount to lug around in reserve.15 Consequently, the human body stores in toto only about a hundred grams of ATPs at any given moment.

• How Much and What Kind of Exercise Are Best? This one is easy: cardio is better than weights for obesity. As we will see later, weights help counteract some of the metabolic consequences of obesity, but cardio is better for preventing and reversing excess weight.

• Aging is inexorable, but senescence, the deterioration of function associated with advancing years, correlates much less strongly with age. Instead, senescence is also influenced strongly by environmental factors like diet, physical activity, or radiation, and thus can be slowed, sometimes prevented, and even partly reversed. The distinction between aging and senescence may seem obvious, but the two processes are frequently confused.

 

 The bottom line is:

We didn’t evolve to run marathons, play tennis, go jogging etc. Nor did we evolve to sit around all day.

Move often. Eat fresh food. The cardio is good. Cardio with some strength training is better. Just pumping weights is not as good as cardio. Walk sometimes. Jog sometimes. Go hard sometimes. You don’t stop moving because you get old. You get old because you stop moving.

The body keeps the score

 

The Body Keeps the Score.

The Body Keeps the Score is a non-fiction book about how the body stores trauma and what you can do about it.

My most distressing takeaway from this book was how common trauma is. Author Bessel van der Kolk discusses how people from all walks of life suffer from trauma.

I finally wrote a review on this book, a bit longer than expected, but I think it’s worth reading if you haven’t already read it.

Discussions of PTSD still tend to focus on recently returned soldiers, victims of terrorist bombings, or survivors of terrible accidents. But trauma remains a much larger public health issue, arguably the greatest threat to any country’s national health, and it’s a hidden pandemic.

One can see the awareness programmes on diseases like cancer, AIDS, etc. But we seem too embarrassed or discouraged to mount a massive effort to help children and adults learn to deal with the fear, rage, and collapse—the predictable consequences of having been traumatised.

In today’s world, your ZIP code, even more than your genetic code, determines whether you will lead a safe and healthy life. People’s income, family, structure, housing, employment, and educational opportunities affect not only the risk of developing traumatic stress but also their access to help address it. Poverty, unemployment, inferior schools, social isolation, and the widespread availability of guns are breeding grounds for trauma.

Trauma breeds further trauma; hurt people hurt other people. 

We are fundamentally social creatures; our brains are wired to foster working and playing together. Trauma devastates the social engagement system and interferes with cooperation, nurturing, and the ability to function as productive members of a clan.

In this book, I have learned how many mental health problems, from drug addiction to self-injurious behaviour, start off as attempts to cope with emotions that became unbearable because of a lack of adequate human contact and support.

People can learn to control and change their behaviour, but only if they feel safe enough to experiment with new solutions. 

The body keeps the score: if trauma is encoded in heartbreak and wrenching sensations, then our first priority is to help people move out of flight or fight states, re-organise their perception of danger, and manage relationships. Where traumatised children are concerned, we should place more focus on the chorus, physical education, recess, and anything else that involves movement, play, or other forms of joyful engagement.

All of us, but especially children, need the kind of confidence that others affirm and cherish. Without that, we can’t develop a sense of agency that will enable us to assert: "That is what I believe in; that is what I stand for; that is what I will devote myself to." As long as we feel safely held in the hearts and minds of the people who love us, we will climb mountains, cross deserts, and stay up all night to finish projects. Children and adults will do anything for people they trust and whose opinions they value.

But if you feel abandoned, worthless, or invisible, nothing seems to matter. Fear destroys curiosity and playfulness. There can be no growth without curiosity, and no adaptability without being able to explore through trial and error.

Resilience is the product of agency—knowing that what you can do can make a difference. Many of us remember what playing team sports, singing in the school choir, or playing in the marching band meant to us, especially if we had coaches who believed in us, pushed us to excel, and taught us we could be better than we thought was possible.

Trauma constantly confronts us with our fragility and with man’s inhumanity to man but also with our extraordinary resilience.

He also has an entire chapter on alternative therapies such as mindfulness, meditation, breathing exercises, and yoga. He stresses the importance of becoming aware of one’s own body, and not just in the sense of noticing when you are hyperventilating or your heart is jumping out of your chest—although these are good things to notice too—but also where memories feel like they are stored in your body. You know where it is uncomfortable to be touched or, in yoga, which positions make you feel vulnerable and why that might be.

 When people think about trauma, they generally think of it as a historical event that happened some time ago. Trauma is actually the residue of the past as it settles into your body. It’s located inside your own skin. When people are traumatised, they become afraid of their physical sensations; their breathing becomes shallow; and they become uptight and frightened about what they’re feeling inside. When you slow down your breathing with yoga, you can increase your heart rate variability, and that decreases stress. Yoga opens you up to feeling every aspect of your body’s sensations. It’s a gentle, safe way for people to befriend their bodies, where the trauma of the past is stored. Studies show that yoga is equally as beneficial—or more beneficial—than the best possible medications in alleviating traumatic stress symptoms.

And last, but not least, most great instigators of social change have intimate personal knowledge of trauma. That brings to mind Maya, Angelou, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King.

More than just O-rings.

 

More than just O-rings. 

When the space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after launch on 28th Jan 1986, killing all the seven people onboard, a Presidential Commission was formed to investigate the disaster, it was headed Neil Armstrong, Sally Ride (The first woman in space), and none other than Richard Feynman (Nobel prize winner physicist).

The Challenger exploded because of a leak from one of the solid rocket boosters. Each weighed around 500 tonnes, used metal as fuel: they burned aluminum.

Once the fuel was spent at an altitude of over 40 kilometers, boosters got jettisoned by the shuttle and eventually deployed a parachute so they would splash down the Atlantic Ocean. Re-use was the name of the shuttle game, So NASA would send boats out to collect the boosters and take them off to be reconditioned and refueled for the next take-off. 

As the booster slammed into the ocean, the boosters were basically empty tubes. They were built with a perfectly CIRCULAR cross-section, but the impact could distort them slightly and added stress during the transportation. They were dismantled into four sections, checked to see how distorted they were, reshaped into perfect circles, and put back together. Rubber gaskets called O-rings were placed between the sections to provide a tight seal (we have the same gaskets in LPG cylinders).

It was these O-rings that failed during the launch of Challenger, allowing hot gases to escape from the boosters and start the chain of events that lead to that disaster. 

Famously, during the investigation, Richard Feynman demonstrated how the O-rings lost their elasticity at low temperatures. But Feynman also uncovered a second problem with the seals between the booster sections. Checking if a cross-section of a cylinder is still circular is not that easy. For the boosters, the procedure for doing this was to measure the diameter in three different places and make sure that all three were equal. But Feynman realized that this was not sufficient. 

Feynman recalled as a child seeing in a museum ‘non-circular, funny-looking, crazy-shaped gears’ which remained at the same height as they rotated. Despite not being circles, they always have the same-sized diameter from any direction you wish to measure it. You could make thousands of diametric measurements of a shape of constant widths, such as a Reuleaux triangle, they would all come out exactly the same, despite the shape being very much not circular.

So, if a booster had been distorted into a Reuleaux triangle cross-section, then the engineers would have been able to spot this easily, it might not be visible to the naked eye but still, be enough of distortion to change the shape of the seal. 

The final report bears that performance of the rubber O-rings was definitely the primary cause of the accident. But there was a recommendation and 'finding #5': by investigating the team for how the NASA engineering and management team missed a ‘Significant out-of-round conditions existed between the two segments’. 

NASA undone by simple geometry. 

Feynman's shape with three identical diameters next to a shape of infinitely many identical diameters. Both are obviously not circles.

Kennedy Space Center, Florida - Space Shuttle Challenger launches from launchpad.
Pic courtesy - Wikipeida.org.

Space Shuttle Challenger explodes shortly after take-off.

Pic courtesy - Wikipeida.org.

This blog is written based on a chapter from the book "Humble Pi: A Comedy of Maths Errors

Book by Matt Parker"

Book's link - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39074550-humble-pi

Perspective

 perspective 

 

As mum had to be admitted at the heights of the lockdown during the Covid-19 Pandemic, that week in intensive care was a bit of a rollercoaster ride, with doctors and nurses needing to keep a close eye on her vitals, and her life was under the support of BiPAP (Non-invasive ventilation), meanwhile, her Covid-19 test result was awaited, a Positive result in the covid test could have opened another Pandora box. 

The oxygen level reached worrying lows, thanks to those God's sent nurses, who would let me see her through video calls, My worry about mum stripped everything else away.

I didn't care about any urgent emails or the calls, I hadn't gotten back to. I didn't have the temptation to check anything which was a periodic task until she was admitted. Even the world news seemed so irrelevant when you are sitting outside the door of an intensive care unit hearing the wails of grief and those ICUs are full of activity and its disturbing noises of equipment beeping, the commotion of nurses and doctors inside the intensive care, raised my heartbeat. 

Intensive care units are bleak places, sometimes, but those sterile rooms full of health care people alight between life and death can be also hopeful ones. The nurses and doctors were my inspiration in the time of darkness. 

The ignominy of this event, I suppose that it takes us such a major event in our lives or the people we love, for perspective to arrive. invariably we take things for granted. I imagined that I could keep hold of this perspective, I would always keep my priorities right, even during good and happy times. I imagined if we could always think of our loved ones the way we think of them when they are in a critical condition. If we always keep the love for them, Love that is always there... So close to the surface, I imagined the love of life and gratitude towards life. 

Well, I am trying now, when my life gets too jam-packed with redundant and stressful junk. I remember that room in the hospital. Where mum was thankful to have a view out of the window or a momentary video call,  I was giving her assurance, everything will be alright mum, you will be fine. 

A marathon without Garmin

A marathon without Garmin

It was just a few weeks ago, I had deactivated my social media accounts (Facebook/Instagram) to use the time more productively elsewhere. The goal was to remain gadget-free as much as possible, I know it's easier said than done, and I slowly started achieving the same, Fiddling with mobile phone reduced drastically. God granted my wish to go gadget-free to an extra level, I ended up running a  Marathon without Garmin (Initially not planned), and I thank God for this blessing in disguise. So here is the story and learnings of this experience of running a marathon without Garmin.


I had signed up for the Auroville marathon at the last moment, post canceling my plans to run the IDBI Delhi marathon, reason, as I had no intention to run a race for timing for now. I just want to enjoy my running and with no race or timing target pressures.

So at the start line of the Auroville Marathon around 4 Am, when I tried to switch on my Garmin watch, it gave a weird display that to save a workout of 90km, I remain puzzled for some time as that how did this happen! As the start timing was approaching fast, I didn't think much and tried to discard the workout of 90km, to my shock Garmin battery drained out, I tried everything to revive the watch without any success. It was not a situation that a runner wants to be in before a race. I had charged it to 100% before embarking on my journey from Bangalore, I without thinking too much went to the baggage counter and kept the watch inside my bag, as it's no point to wear a drained watch.

And I made a decision to run a marathon without a watch for the first time ever.

Just before the start, I saw Anuradha and the gang arrived for their Half marathon, which was supposed to start 1 hour after us at 6 AM. When I told her that my Garmin went bonkers, she offered me her new Garmin watch, which she was herself yet to wear in a race. I declined her offer gracefully, however, I was touched by her gesture. And I thought about her during the run.

I realized quickly there is no need to cry about something which is not in my hand and rather use this opportunity to get a whole new experience, and there is one race where I can actually try this was the Auroville, where you run for the joy for running, literally. So the race started at 5 am, I had decided to run this race by feel and take it easy. With no watch in my wrist, to be honest, it was like I was missing something in my body and it took my mind some time to understand, I brought my wrist in front of the face to check pace only to see an empty wrist, you see, how much a slave we become to it. My subconscious mind was not ready to accept it.

After 15-20 minutes into the race, I started listening to my breathing; I felt the rhythm in my legs, the motion of the arms. Overall, It leads to a refined sense of pace and effort. Racing is a skill that might take years to acquire with or without the watch, however, the more experienced you are, the less you rely on the watch. I started enjoying the race more than ever, this was my 4th Auroville Marathon. The first 1 hour we run in complete darkness, Auroville narrow trail with so many markings for turnings, one need to be extra careful in the narrow trail, many sections where only one person can run at a time., you can easily get lost or go in the wrong trail if you miss the markings. With all these things that need to take care you anyway don't have much attention left to check miles marker along the route.

With no watch strapped, I had no idea which Mile of the race I was into and what time was it. I started enjoying the trail. I met few debut marathoners in the trail, I met a young Doctor (25 years) who was running his first marathon there, obviously with no experience, he was running too fast, he ran with me for the first 1 hour or so, we had some good conversation, I warned him that he was going too fast, and he has another 30-32km probably left behind to run, he looked at his watch and said the pace is 5:30 mins/km, and this is what he has planned. Well obviously he was running much faster than what his Garmin was showing him, I could gauge with my effort that we were running probably just under sub 5 mins/km at that point of time. After he agreed to slow down and I went ahead.

We all know that Garmin constantly adjusts your pace to match the GPS’ “current” pace. A GPS watch can be a wonderful tool, it’s not perfect. If you think about it, this little tiny thing on your wrist is acquiring signals from outer space and using that to geolocate you.  with a lot of tree cover in the Auroville trail, satellites aren’t always going to be able to pick you up, which means the measurement won’t be as accurate. Hence that Doctor runner was seeing a pace much slower than what he was exactly running.

The above is a classic example of too much dependency on GPS watches can throw you off the pace and literally can screw your race by showing your wrong data. Relying exclusively on a GPS during training runs, a runner never develops the learned sense of pace that is critical to race day success. Even wearing a GPS device during a race doesn’t guarantee pacing success – what if the signal is lost, it happens in a city with a lot of tall buildings, Chicago Marathon is infamous for that, in trial running like Auroville with a lot of tree covers, to makeover the pace which we think is correct by GPS, we surge or runway faster, and when its actual time to push at the end we bonk, so it's very critical to know how to race and gauge the pace without GPS dependency.

We all have been in a situation during the run when you looked down in your Garmin and saw your pace, you get freaked out, as it is way slower than you were “supposed to be”, so we quickly start to push, and then when you see the next mile, you are now way too fast. Not only that, but you are now breathing much harder than you should be. so we slow down the pace, and then we spend the next entire mile pondering that what just went wrong.

So I reached the finish line, saw the big clock reading 3:32:xx!, to be very honest, I wasn't planning this run a sub 3:40. If I was running with Garmin. I would have purposefully done 3:50:xx

And after running the Auroville, to my surprise. I had no soreness or fatigue. Everyone at the finish line was telling me that I looked fresh and energetic post the run. I realized that the mental pressure of maintaining the pace throughout the run creates soreness and fatigue more than effort.


My two cents to all the runners don't be a slave to your Garmin. I am not telling you literally to give up wearing it. What I am telling is to IGNORE it until you finish the run. I know it's easier said than done, this is the one thing we struggle with the most.

Don't let your watch dictate your run, because by doing so you are not listening to your body. I again repeat I am not saying do not wear Garmin/GPS watch, I love mine and rarely go out running without it. But I rarely depend on them, instead, I listen to my body and rhythm, maybe due to this reason, I could pull a decent timing without much fuss in this Auroville.

So in this Auroville Marathon, I had no ideas of my splits, heart rate, cadence, pace, etc, rather I was overtaken by the joy of running, and this is what Auroville is known for to organize something purely for the joy of running. It considers all the finishers as winners and therefore does not award any prize money for the early finishers. Hence why it is not a timed run. And this is one of the biggest reasons why I look forward participating in this run each year. 

The wodden Auroville Medal and dusty shoe.

The first mile is a liar!

The first mile is a liar - don't believe it for a second! 

I can relate to this because it can be interpreted both ways - A good start doesn’t mean a strong finish and vice versa. It’s typically a slow start for both physically and mentally, one needs to have for the first few miles running behind, rather than weaving around the crowd and suffering its consequences. 

Starting too fast too early may wreck your marathon by a good margin and way behind your target. , it can result in a DNF (Did not finish) as well. Going out too fast also makes you much more likely to hit the dreaded wall later in the race; high chances of hitting the wall go out too fast in the first 5k.

One of the most common pieces of advice for marathoners is don’t go out too fast! If you do you’ll suffer later. Some simply get caught up in the excitement of the start (I am guilty of that in the Berlin Marathon) and neglect to monitor the pacing before realizing the mistake. Whereas others plan to bank some time early on while they are still fresh. Yet others adopt a “go out hard and hang on for dear life” strategy. Well, the choice is yours.. :)

So in the Berlin Marathon, I did the above mistakes as I got carried away running my first World Major. Sharing the space with participants in total from 150 nations, thunderous crowd, carnival kind of atmosphere. I did get carried away and ran the initial 5-6 miles way faster than planned. 

46,983  participants in total from 150 nations

I would like to break up my marathon into phases to explain my mistakes and learn minutely. 

Here I am brimming with confidence just at the start!

The first 10k, was my fastest 10k for obvious reasons, weaving around the crowd in the initial mile, adrenaline rush! , locals just line up the entire 42.195km and root for you, The locals are the biggest fans of the race and the course is lined with spectators from beginning to end. They love to call out your name to cheer you on. I forgot the count, the number of times my name was called by someone from the crowd, "Come on Asif!" (They read your name on BIB) . Trust me each time my name was called out my speed shoot up 10 seconds faster, and these surges which were not necessary culminated in a disaster later...

The crowd, which I weaved around.

So the first 10k ended in 42 mins, which is faster by a margin of 4 mins (planned target). Well, 4-5 mins don't sound too much, isn't it? Let me break it up in this way. 

The first 10k should have been run in 47 mins, I ran in 42 mins. Means 5 mins faster than expected first 10k. If we break this 5 mins further it is 300 seconds, 47 mins 10k is 4:42 min/km pace, and 42 mins 10k is 4:12 min/km pace. So it means, I ran 30 seconds faster in each lap for the first 10k of a marathon distance. There you go! The disaster was waiting to happen in the latter part of the race. 30 seconds faster in each lap does make a huge difference, that too when I have another 32k left to run :)

By the time, I had realized my mistake during the course, I had already run the first half of the race in all the euphoria, amidst different bands all over the course & those cheerleaders with Pom-Pom :P 

The cheerleaders!

I ran the first 21k in 1:30:13, which should have been a 1:35:xx (planned one). Courtesy to my mistake in the first 10k, although I ran 2nd 10k marginally slower than the first one, the damage had been done. I made a mistake and the consequence was irreversible.

One of the bands along the route.

From 21k to 30k, I didn't feel any issue, I was firing on all cylinders, or maybe my body was giving indications, probably I did not understand or ignored. 

It’s around 30k onward when most runners hit rock bottom. There’s still a significant distance to cover, your batteries are running low. This phase really shows who has mentally prepared to run a marathon or rather finish it! 

The initial surges, weaving, and initial fast 10k, body ran out of fuel and went under too much stress. I suffered a bad pull in my hamstring around 34th Km, which caused a great rhythm to shatter and forced me to switch to plan B, to go slower and easier till the finish line, which I should have done in the initial miles. Although I got my PR in a world Major by more than 6 minutes. I ran Berlin with a time of 03:16:09. But I know I have missed a golden opportunity to get my desired time, had I didn't commit those mistakes. 

Just 100 m to go!

I will leave it for another day (Race). As they say, either we win or we learn from our mistakes.

There's nothing better than a finish line.

So here I am 15 official marathons down. Which is run across different geographies, in different courses, and some extreme weather conditions, I have learned not all but a few lessons, which I have shared below. 

What precautions we should take while running a marathon distance :

Our body is just like a car, the faster you run, the more fuel you burn. When you run at your marathon pace, you start to burn significantly more carbohydrates. 

Our body can store enough fuel to run about 2 hours at a marathon pace. This means unless we're running really fast, we'll need to take on a lot of extra carbohydrates during the run. 

Our body has a difficult time digesting the carbohydrates we take in while running (in the form of gels, bananas, etc). As our body becomes increasingly stressed, it begins to shut down non-essential functions such as the digestive system. So, while we could be consuming enough energy gels to keep our vitals alive, they may not be getting processed by our body. The best way to combat this unfortunate bodily function is to take on carbohydrates in fluids early in the race when our body is feeling good and not stressed.

Run the first 5-6 km a bit slower than marathon pace, it is important that we stay relaxed while running in the big crowds (especially world Majors) and weaving around runners. Relax and run with the flow until a natural opening for running appears, which usually comes within 5km, you need a hell of a lot of patience for this. I know that It is easier said than done. :P

Surging past slower runners and getting uncomfortable in the tight crowds is an easy way to ruin your race. All the surges and weaving in the initial phase require a lot of energy. (Energy = fuel) so the more energy and fuel you burn up during the first few KMs, the less you’ll have over the last 10k.

If you started the race a little slower, you’ll have a chance to absorb more of the nutrition you take on board.


The last 7-8k of a marathon is tough. and there is no way around it.

If you were conservative over the first few miles and taken adequate fluids and carbohydrates, you’re going to run well the last 10k. However, I suggest implementing some simple mental tricks.

• To keep myself focus, I repeat these lines as mantras “I am fast, this feels good, I am strong, I’m running great." I talk to myself, It literally works for me.
•  Keep your mind and body relaxed. Look within yourself and focus on yourself.
• Good form – head straight, arms swinging forward and back slightly, powerful strides.

The finisher Medal. 

But it isn't the start that matters. It's the finish line.  It doesn't matter how well you start if you fail to finish."

Have Fun!

Never run alone!

Never run alone! 

When entering an 80 km race, you know you are going to be out there in the trail for a while. During that time, your mind will take you to places you have not explored before.

That is one of the reasons people take on such a challenge. Running becomes your spiritual guru.

One striking difference between the road races and ultras is that there is no shoulder-to-shoulder running for most parts of the ultra.

So here is something I have for you. For the Malnad ultra (80km category), I was by myself for probably all but the first 5k of the race. Runners went ahead, left behind right from the 5k mark when we entered the trails and after 1 km all disappeared into the thick jungle.

For the rest of the 12-13-hour race, I saw few souls again in that tropical forest and vast coffee gardens. Literally Just complete loneliness...

That is the moment when you get to be with your thoughts and internal chatter.

Our thoughts create our reality. When you feel good, you see the beauty of it all, the environment, the volunteers, the wilderness of nature.

And let me tell you that, this is the most difficult ultra I have ever run. Such extreme conditions, the never-ending elevations, Mud, slushy trail, leech bites & smashed legs. When you feel bad, you go to some really dark places in your mind.

During the course of the day, I had moments of immense gratitude and times of doubt. That is the pendulum of thoughts. However, I never felt alone.

Even though I was by myself, whenever I felt lonely or when negative, unhelpful thoughts occurred I had a trick up my sleeve.

'Dedicate Your Miles' was my strategy. It helps you to catch yourself going in a downward spiral of thoughts. What I did was whenever I felt troubled by my thoughts, I dedicated the section that I was on to a person that I have a connection.

There is of course, first and foremost my family. But you can extend it to family and friends, basically whoever you feel a connection with.

So even though I was by myself for the entirety of the race, I ran together with few guys Rajesh who was doing 110 KM category, met Sujith who was attempting his first 50 km + category, Sandeep and Rahul few others in a few sections, and segments.

Let me name the people to whom I dedicated the miles.

I ran with Prashant Hegde and Mahesh who were supposed to run New York Marathon this Sunday and their enthusiasm is contagious. And as I write this they are running this world Major!
I ran with Naghma, thinking of "All the miles I ran with her from past these many months over the weekend, which I love to do, I am sure she knows it ;)".
I ran with Movin, who is attempting a Half in Mumbai, trust me I had to convince him a lot for this :P
I ran with Sapna, who ran a great race in Bengaluru Marathon against all odds!
I ran with Jai Thomas who supports and encourages my passion for this beautiful sport called Running.
I ran with Smita, who ran a great Berlin race just a month ago and is a gem of a person.
I ran with Sushant and Arun. The Hegde trio including Prashant.
I ran with Subodh, who never ceases to inspire me.
I ran with Ravanan, who always stays positive and inspires others to do the same.
I ran with Nirupama, her never-give-up attitude inspires me always. 

I ran with Bhaskar, my childhood friend, Are we not like two volumes of one book?
I ran with Rajesh & Navaneeth who were running the 110 km category and I was rooting for them and honestly, they are the reason I didn't give up.  I ran with Shriram Bhai, Mark, Rajkumar, Shripad, Sandhya, Juri, Neelanjana, Gerald (my mentor and guru in running), Salim Bhai, Supriya, and many more.

Dedicating your miles made it feel like it was a celebratory reunion and an instant boost of morale away from negative chatter.

Reaching the finish line was a big achievement for me as it felt like I've started to get the hang of this ultra-thing. This was my 2nd 70+km run and although I know I can do better still, I feel that I am on the right track (or trail).

In the end, I conquered my physical pain over my mind and finished this grueling race of 80 km.

Here is the picture of the hard-earned Medal of 80 km category (It is a buckle)

Trail lonely trail. 

After finishing the race 

Small lake somewhere amidst the forest

Ridges 

Trail across the coffee estates