April 25, 2017 - For Ted!

Today's run was sponsored by Ted! Thanks so much for continuing to help fund the Ty Taylor Memorial Campship Endowment. We're getting so close to fully funding the endowment, I appreciate your help! Soon, YMCA Camp Miller will be able to send a deserving camper to camp for free every year in honor of an amazing man.


Today's run is for a former AES Runner, secretive donor and all-around nice guy. My students might call him a lurker, because I haven't heard from him in forever, but he's checking the blog and making a donation - but they've given on the intricacies and nuances of our language. I call him a friend.

Here at school, we ask the following question a lot: What does the research say? Friend or lurker? Well, researchers have been trying to convince us that social media is fooling us into believing that having hundreds of friends is normal, let alone possible. British anthropologist Robin Dunbar suggested that humans ability to keep and maintain friendships was correlated to brain size. 150 was the number he suggested, but he divided that 150 into layers. The closest layer contained 5. A study conducted by Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences suggested that the respondents to their study had only two. Research from 2016 reported on the Huffington Post confirmed Dunbar's findings.

All of that seems like bad news for those of us in the world of international teaching. Falling out of touch is easy as people move in and out of our schools and our lives. We follow each others' blogs (peep Ted's gap here sailing blog here!), see each others' photos on Instagram and Facebook, but it becomes easy to slip away from each other. Facebook can make us believe that we're keeping up on each other when snippets fly through our feeds, but it's not the same.

But do you know what?

I'm okay with it.

Because the friends that I've met since I made the decision to come abroad are the greatest people I've ever met. I know that they're there for me. That they'll help out. That they'll meet up in Bangkok, or Buenos Aires or Brooklyn. And more than anything, that we'll pick up exactly where we left off last time without skipping a beat.

I miss Ted, and Amie and the kids. I miss the time we spent chatting on our runs. Truthfully, I've been thinking about two of them a lot lately. Amie and I spent about 5 minutes one day running laps around a traffic circle near the American Embassy waiting for the group to catch up. I think about it almost every time I pass that circle. And Ted was always willing to join on long, hot runs. I saw a map of the 2014 edition of the British History Half Marathon (the first running, btw), and remembered how Ted joined me for an extra few miles to bump it up to a 20 mile training run despite the fact that it was blazing hot at the end of a really long run. Like I said earlier, an all-around nice guy.

As the school year winds down, I'm thinking a lot about how great it's been to have friends step up with no hesitation to run with me. In the dark, in the rain or on hot April Tuesdays after work. That's what I did today. It was Kate's morning to work out, so I squeezed in a run after school.

It was hot. It was hazy. It was Delhi on an April afternoon. But knowing that Ted had taken the time to donate was enough to motivate me. Thanks for helping to make the Ty Taylor Campship possible, friend. I appreciate you, no matter what my silly students might call you.

The route was a classic. School to the Salt March Statue, to Teen Murti. A loop around Kautilya Marg and a loop around Nehru Park.

RUN STATS:
Distance - 4.93 miles (I really should look at my distance before quitting my workout - .07 miles more!?)
Time - 41:22
Soundtrack - Ana Tijoux, Vengo

April 14, 2017 - For Pat and Jack!

Today's run was sponsored by Pat and Jack! Thanks so much for continuing to help fund the Ty Taylor Memorial Campship Endowment. We're getting so close to fully funding the endowment, I appreciate your help! Soon, YMCA Camp Miller will be able to send a deserving camper to camp for free every year in honor of an amazing man.

Everyone else can get their dedicated run by clicking here and allocating the donation to the Ty Taylor Memorial Campship.

This year I've been thinking a lot about what my dedicated run posts will look like. It's the end of an era for me here in Delhi. Our family is leaving after nine years and we're heading on to Ghana in July. I'm also hoping we can bring closure to the fundraising that started so long ago. With those things in mind, I'm hoping to not only capture my waning moments in this amazing city, but also honor those of you who have continued to support me through the years.

So...

...Pat and Jack, you get my go-to route. It's the one I can always count on. Just like you. When I was lucky enough to have you become part of my life, I was immediately struck by how quickly you let me in and by how willing you both were to support me. I know that you'll always be ready to help, and for that, I'm eternally grateful. Thank you.

The go-to route is, of course, Nehru Park. We're lucky to have Nehru Park so close to campus. It's only a kilometer away, and it's a wonderful green respite in the craziness that can be India. In a lot of ways, Nehru is our Central Park, although it's only 1/10th of the size. On any given morning, there are people jogging, walking, doing yoga, playing cricket or otherwise enjoying some time for themselves.

For me, that's what a run in Nehru has been over the years. It's familiar. It's predictable. It's a time to go on autopilot and meditate on a morning run. Now that it's April, it's crowded at five o'clock, but in the winter, it's often dark and abandoned. It's a perfect time to unplug and recharge at the same time.

It's the painted reggae bridge, the Lenin statue, the fountain that was fixed for some reason last month and now flows with renewed energy and commitment. It's the contests from 2014 to be the fastest lap around. It's food festivals, three ancient temples and hidden idols.

It's Arlo zipping around on his bike, Amos and Kate and I following behind. It's comfortable. It's my backyard. It's home.




RUN STATS:

Distance - 6.16 miles
Time - 54:26
Temperature at 5:42am - 79°F

Create Routes or Search for a route from millions at MapMyRun

April 3, 2017

Well, training has begun in earnest. And it's already hot in Delhi.

Granted, this was an afternoon run, but if it's a sign of things to come, this year's going to be a tough one for training. Speaking of training, I've decided on a pretty tough plan that I hope will help me to finish with a PR for the half marathon in June. Oh, and I'm starting at week 5 of the plan. And I was crazy tired and dehydrated from traveling this past weekend. Whee!

But, I ran. I ran because I know that this post was going to be a dedicated run because my friends are generous. So, this post is for ______. You can get a dedicated run by helping me finish my goal of raising $3000 to fully fund an endowment to give a campship to a needy camper at YMCA Camp Miller in memory of my friend, Ty Taylor. Just click here and donate, then let me know you did it - http://www.ymcacampmiller.org/donate/ty-taylor-campship-endowment/

The route was a quick Nehru Park four miles after school to make up for the long week of not running at all in Italy over our Spring Break. Granted, I was snowboarding almost every day, so it's not like I haven't been working out. Speaking of last week, here's a picture from the top of Courmayer!

Going from that to 100 degrees was a shock to the system to say the least. Here's looking forward to two more hot months of India running.

RUN STATS
Distance: 3.91 miles
Duration: 34:52
Time and Temp: 4:00pm, 100°F

Create Routes or Search for a route from millions at MapMyRun

For Michele and Lynner!

I'm a bit behind on my dedicated runs. Sorry! This run happened last Thursday. It's dedicated to Michele and Lynner! I sent out an impassioned plea for $15 to reach the $1000 milestone and they both stepped up independently to push me over my goal. Thanks so much ladies, without your help hitting the pavement is so much more difficult.

This year I've been really lucky to have a lot of company on my training runs. Most mornings when I head down to the gate to leave campus, there's someone there waiting to run with me. Given my occasional flakiness due to off nights with the baby, it means even more to me that my friends are around to help. Thanks guys!

Back to Thursday. When I got down to the gate, there was nobody there. After waiting for about 5 to 10 minutes, I took my solitude as a sign to attempt to break the Nehru Park record. When I have company, we can't really run Nehru, so I haven't been pushing myself as much lately. Since I've managed to hook all of my running friends on trying to beat the record, the competition has ramped up.  The previous link shows my March 24 attempt of 11:10, which was then seven seconds behind the record. My next effort was a massive one, taking 24 seconds off of the record, pushing it down to 10:46. That record held until April 17, when Bernie managed to steal my record away. His time? 10:45. My best time in April was a measly 12:06, so when I set out on Thursday, I knew I had some work to do.

I headed out on my 4 mile route of the park and entered with a mindset to break the record. I was focused on my pace and tried my hardest to push my limits. It felt good in the park, I was running fast and I felt like I had a chance at the record. After the last sprint to the finish, I left the park and felt tired. I mean, really tired. So tired that I stopped my run. My plan was to walk back to school and call it a day. Wednesday is my soccer night, so any Thursday run is a bonus. I quickly looked at my phone to check my time on the loop and saw two things. First, I didn't break the record. My time was 11:05. Second, I saw that I had only run 2.64 miles. I was disappointed with both.

I decided to run home despite my tiredness. When I got home, I spent about an hour analyzing my run looking for a way to cut time. I identified four areas of the run where I can try to push a little harder, but overall, it's getting hard to cut the seconds.

I hope to do it. Maybe it will be on another dedicated run. Maybe we can make a wager, readers. How much would you donate if I can break the current record? Leave your pledges in the comments of this post and when I break the Nehru Loop record, I'll collect. ;)

This run belongs to Michele and Lynner!

I'm dedicating runs to raise money for a campship in memory of our friend Ty Taylor at YMCA Camp Miller. Click here or here to donate. Please make sure you choose the Ty Taylor Campship option. And please let me know if you've made a donation so I can thank you!

RUN STATS:

Distance - 2.64 miles first, then .69 miles more
Time - 18:28, 5:49. The pace on the first run 7 minutes/mile. The last bit, 8:28 minutes/mile.
Soundtrack - The Pixies' new album, Indie Cindy!

View this Course on MapMyRun

Motivation!

Thank you! An appeal for donors nabbed three quick donations, taking care of today's, tomorrow's and Wednesday's runs.

Without Becky, today's run most assuredly would not have happened.

It was dark.
It was raining.
My headphones stopped working.
Wah.

Under any normal circumstances, I would have headed back upstairs and crawled back into bed. Training for a marathon takes time, effort and dedication, but a measly three miler can be skipped, right?

Not when there's money on the line. It means the world to me to have people helping out and donating money to inspire me to keep running. More importantly, the ball is rolling. Becky's donation helped to make my total $260. Added to the previous amount in the campship, and we've raised almost $1000! There's still work to be done, though. An effective campship needs between seven and ten thousand to accrue the necessary interest to send a kid to camp every year. Click here to read why it's so important to me to raise money to create a campship in memory of my friend, Ty. Click here if you think you can help too!

Back to the run.

Believe it or not, this was the first time that I've ever gone running in the rain. I wasn't sure if I would like it or not, but it's not so cold anymore in Delhi and truthfully, it wasn't pouring. It wasn't so bad, and like I said, there was no way I could back out on this run. The big bummer was the fact that my headphones stopped working. I love running with music, so not having anything to listen to put me in a dark mood. Again, thanks to Becky, I kept running.

The route was the Nehru Park 3 Miler. If you're reading my posts (I think somebody does, right?) then you know that this is my speed workout, my challenge run, my future probable cause of puking on a run...well today was a good one. I got my second personal record (PR) on the 1.6 mile Nehru Park Loop course. 11:10. The standing record is 11:03, and I would love to break 11 minutes. Maybe a big contingent donation will motivate me?

The rain didn't keep the visa searchers away from the Pakistan embassy. The translators were under tarps with their LED lanterns busy on their typewriters. Over the weekend, there must have been an event in the park because today there were piles of chairs and tents. Not so oddly, there were few other people in the park today, just a few walkers with umbrellas and a few other runners braving the rain drizzle.

Normally, after I push myself on the loop, I leave the park and slow down quite a bit on the way back home. Today, I decided to keep the pace. Lo and behold, even though I didn't beat the "in the park" record, I did get a PR on the overall 3 miler. It was my fastest time out  of the 12 times that I've run the route this year!

This run belongs to Becky! Thanks for helping out!

I'm dedicating runs to raise money for a campship in memory of my friend Ty Taylor at YMCA Camp Miller. Click here or here to donate. Please make sure you choose the Ty Taylor Campship option. And please let me know if you've made a donation so I can thank you!

RUN STATS:
Distance - 3.0 miles
Time - 20:45
Soundtrack - None. See my whiny comments above.

The One With All of the Peafowl!

Today's run was a 6+ miler through the Delhi Central Ridge. The ridge is "Delhi's Green Lung," and the home to several species of plants, birds and mammals. Read about my first solo in the ridge here.

To learn even more, I found this e-book from 1991. The History section is worth a read!

It's meant to be a protected area, but as this site explains, there has been much encroachment into the area. It's a shame, because running in The Ridge is an absolute pleasure and a distinct change of pace to the hectic streets of the city.

Today's run was an idyllic 10K through the wooded trails of the ridge. Today, those trails are maintained by the army and the President's Bodyguard, a calvary unit of the Indian Army. The PB are stationed at the Presidential Palace, near the Central Ridge and maintain the trails that were originally set up for the British Viceroy in order to exercise the horses. The story goes that our outer loop was the Viceroy's and the inner loop was The Lady's Loop, reserved for his wife (and her possible indiscretions, ooh la la). I'm still looking for a source to verify this...

There is always something to see in The Ridge. Today it was peafowl (my wife reminded me the other day that there is no such thing as a female peacock; those are peahens). On the route today, there were at least 12 of them, most of them taking flight. There are few "bird things" cooler than a peacock in flight. Their bodies are so big and their tails are so long, that it seems impossible that they can take to the air. At one point, a group of three took off, with one flying left, another to the right and the third straight ahead. It was awesome.

This run belongs to Lynnea! Thanks for helping out!

I'm dedicating runs to raise money for a campship in memory of my friend Ty Taylor at YMCA Camp Miller. Click here or here to donate. Please make sure you choose the Ty Taylor Campship option. And please let me know if you've made a donation so I can thank you!

RUN STATS:
Distance - 6.86 miles (a bit extra due to some backtracking)
Time - 58:57
Soundtrack - None. My phone was almost dead, so I skipped the music to save battery.

The Hard and Fast One!

As you know, this year's fundraising is an effort to raise money to create a campship in honor of a man that served as a role model for me in my youth as a counselor at YMCA Camp Miller.

It's appropriate then, that my first dedicated run of the year goes to Dr. Cathy Alfrangis. She was my first mentor in my teaching career. She took a chance on me as a long-term sub, fresh out of college. She hired me to fill a position the following year. She encouraged me to take classes to grow as a teacher. She helped me win a fellowship from the Washington Post to study in Spain and she always believed in me. Every year, at the beginning of school, I take out the goodbye card she wrote to me. It has inspired me to keep improving.

And Dr. A continues to inspire me. After becoming the first donor (minutes after yesterday's post), she told me to run "hard and fast!" So that's what I did.

Today's run was a three miler on the Nehru Park course. As I wrote last month, I'm using the "gamification" of running to help keep me motivated. I created a "digital race" in Nehru Park that keeps track of the fastest overall time, the runner with the most runs and the most consistent runner overall. To date, I hold all of those records. It's been a bit of a back-and-forth with one of my running partners (who also loves competition and extrinsic motivation). In fact, we joke that it will probably eventually injure one of us (I'm guessing me).

With the goal of breaking my record on the 1.6 mile course around the park, Dr. A's inspirational words, and the desire to start the fundraising campaign off with a bang, I picked the Nehru Loop as today's target.

On Feb. 17, I left the house dressed in pants and long sleeves. It was 52 degrees and it was pitch dark at 6am. Today, I wore shorts, a t-shirt and it was plenty light by the time I got to the park. I've been feeling really strong lately, so I figured the run would be a quick one.

I entered the 80 acre park after the typical route past the US and French Embassies, across Shanti Path and another quick dip between the Australian and Pakistani Embassies. As usual, translators with typewriters and LCD lanterns were busy at work on the sidewalk, helping fill out visa form at the Pakistani Embassy. It's quite a sight in the dark, so in some ways, I'm sad to see the sun coming out earlier.

On the other hand, it made for some impressive half-light to the set the background of Nehru Park against the manicured lawns and palm trees in the first open space - one of open spaces where free concerts are held, where school children play and families picnic on the weekends.

From there, it's a right into the park on the jogging trail. A quick jaunt brought me past art installations, a statue of Lenin and an empty fountain. The second public convenience is the first big running landmark in the park. It's at this point that the MapMyRun lady comes over my headphones letting me know that I've reached the one mile mark of my run. Today she let me know that my mile was up much faster than normal. My first split was 7:12. I knew I was poised to take the Nehru Loop Record, so I kept pushing. Around the hairpin, up the hill along the wall, down the hill past the spot where we used to play Ultimate Frisbee, over the bridge at the Shiv Temple and into the straightaway. At the 2 mile marker, Ms. MapMyRun told me that my second split was 6:52. I knew that it was go time, so I powered up a little more and finished the Nehru Loop in 11:03.

It was 38 seconds faster than my fastest time. After cruising through the park, I thought I was taking it easy on the last 1/2 mile or so home, but my third mile came in at an average 7:00. Either I ran fast coming out of the park, or that last stretch in the park really helped me offset an easy trot home.

Either way, I ran hard and fast!

If you'd like a dedicated run too, please donate!


Here's the link for donating - http://www.duluthymca.org/give/ Just choose the Ty Taylor Campship option.

If you prefer, here's a direct link.

RUN STATS:
Distance - 3.03 miles
Time - 21:43 (Route Record!)
Soundtrack - 20 Questions: A Coverfolk Mixtape from my favorite blog - Coverlaydown.com

Dancin in the Dark

And I'm off and running! Today was the first day of the official program. I'm doing the Grandma's Marathon training program designed by Dick Beardsley, the course record holder. Two years ago I used the program to run my first half marathon ever and I was impressed by the results, so I figure I'll use it again for the full. It's an intense program that will have me running 6 days a week and take me over 550 total miles in the next 18 weeks.

Today's run started like most of my runs. 5:45am wake up call, dressed and out the door by 6. These days it's still pretty dark at six in Delhi and it's cold. This morning it was 52 degrees Fahrenheit. I'm sure my training partners in Duluth wouldn't mind 52, but for here it bundle-ups weather. It's just a matter of time before I'll be complaining about the heat, so I suppose I should grin and bear it.

I started with a 3 miler to Nehru Park, still searching for the top of the leader board in MapMyRun land. It seems that I'm getting close, but the scoring is still a bit of a mystery to me. Maybe I'll hit the loop one more time tomorrow before I start searching out new locales.

As you can imagine, running in the dark presents its challenges. I trust that the path will be true, that nobody will suddenly appear out of the fog and the half light and power forward. There's something wonderfully liberating about shutting out my sense of vision and relying on sense of feel to run through the park. Taking away the visual distractions helps me to focus on my thoughts and my stride as I consider the long road ahead of me. I'm looking forward to running the marathon, but I know that it will take effort and hard work to get there.

Run Stats:
Distance- 3.08 miles
Time- 22:21
Soundtrack- Shuggie Otis-Freedom Flight

Training Starts Tomorrow!

This year I've made the commitment to run my first full marathon and I'm stoked!

Tomorrow is the first "official day" of my training program, so I thought I'd write a quick post about what I've been doing in my first two months of 2014 running.

I made a goal to run 800 miles this year after a humbling failure of last year's 1000 mile goal. With that in mind, I was out on the road trying to get some miles under my belt. In January I managed 45 miles and so far in February I've done 40 more.

What's keeping me running these days? A big part of it has been the "gamification" of running on MapMyRun. Through their "courses" feature, I created a course at Nehru Park and I've been hitting it often to push myself to the top of the leaderboard. I've let my friends here at school know about the course and now we're engaged in some healthy competition to have the fastest time in the Park Loop. Today I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out just how the scoring works. I'm a sucker for badges, leaderboards and the overall mind-control of gamification.

Also, I've managed two runs with progressively negative splits!

Pitter Patter, Let's Get At 'Er!

Back to blogging and back to running. Too many excuses have clouded my thoughts and mind. To help me get back on track, I've signed up to run my first marathon. On June 21st, instead of running the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon, I'll be going all the way up to Two Harbors, MN and running the entire 26.2 miles to Canal Park.

In that spirit, two goals for 2014:

1. Run 800 miles (lessened from my overly ambitious 1000 mile goal from last year)
2. Finish first marathon


Secret goal for 2014:
1. Actually run 1000 miles in spite of my newly expectation-lowered goal of 800 miles.

So far, I've been back in Delhi for four mornings and I've been for three runs. I've done the Nehru Park Loop three days strong.

9 miles down, 791 to go.

I've got this.

ps. Despite the lack of posts, I did run over 150 miles including 1 10-mile race since the last time I wrote anything. As you can imagine, they were all very interesting and anecdote-filled.

May 4, 2013

A Popular Spot on Our Runs!

Last year when I trained for my first half marathon, I fell in love with Google Maps and MapMyRun.com. I was organizing routes for the first time in my life based on distance, so I wanted to make sure I was actually going 2 miles, 3 miles, etc. One of my first routes was a 3 miler that ran past the Salt March statue of Gandhi leading India to the sea to stand up to the British tax on salt.

When it came time to plan longer routes, I immediately took a look to see how far the Gandhi Smriti was from school. I was thinking of making a Gandhi-themed run. Smriti is a word that is usually used in the sense of remembrance, and the Gandhi Smriti is now a museum. The 5.25 mile route that eventually grew out of this search has served as the foundation of all of my themed runs. It changed from a Gandhi run to a route that went past the final resting places of three of India's most well-known leaders. Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru all passed away in my neighborhood. Of course, these runs often lead to google sessions at home to learn more about each of these folks and what happened to them. The Mahatma was assassinated at Birla House, Indira Gandhi was killed by her bodyguards and Nehru died of natural causes.

Fast-foward to a few weeks ago. I was running with friends Scott and Melissa on a new road for me when we ran past the Lal Bahadur Shastri Smriti. How could it be that there was a Smriti that wasn't a part of my run? I made a mental note to go home, find it on the map and Google it for more information. What I found was very interesting. Nehru was India's first Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi was the third and Lal Bahadur Shastri was its second. He seems to have been widely liked and humble. He died poor, under mysterious circumstances in Tashkent. He had gone to negotiate a cease-fire with Pakistan and after successfully doing that, he died of a heart attack. Some Indians allege foul play, and in accordance there are several conspiracy theory supporting details. No post-mortem was conducted, the government has no official death records, etc. I knew that this had to become a feature of my all-new Smriti run! I added it to the old route, extending it by a mile and the Smriti 6.25 Miler was born.

On May 4, greeted by Scott and Melissa once again, I offered the new route for our Saturday run. Six and change was agreeable to all and we set off. Adding to the challenge of remembering a new route, we had decided to run it backwards! By the way, this is a great way to avoid route fatigue. The run was progressing very well. There were peacocks all along the route. They were on walls, on the British era bungalow roofs, along the road, everywhere. Things in my  peacock call-induced zone out were beautiful until I was shocked back into reality when I almost touched a macaque. I was running along the sidewalk, minding my own business when I glanced to my right and a two foot tall macaque was approximately six inches away. Knowing that these aren't cute, fun monkeys like the ones in the movies, I give it a calm-assertive, Cesar Milan "tsh-tsh" to let it know that I wasn't afraid (I was) and to let it know that it should move out of my way (it didn't). Instead, it bared fangs, hissed and maybe swung at me. The split-second that this whole process had been slowly taking was interrupted by a scream from behind me, two hands on my shoulders and a jump over the bushes into the street. Scott evidently didn't trust my "tsh tsh." We were both scared crazy and the adrenaline had us running the next half mile a bit quicker.

When we got home, we had a story. I marched up to the apartment to tell it and log then run. That's when I noticed that I had cut out the Gandhi Smriti when I had extended the original 5.25 to 6.25 miles. Now it's time to figure out how to double back to Gandhi while still visiting Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi and Nehru. The Smriti 7 miler? 7.5 Miler? ...and come to think of it, I know where the grave of Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, the fifth president of India is.  This route seems to be getting pretty long. Smriti 10 Miler anyone?

RUN STATS:

Distance - 6.25 miles

Time - 1:07:27

Soundtrack - More Beastie Boys (time to switch up the Shuffle)