For Michael! - Naked Guys, Car Crashes, Snakes and Wrong Turns

This run is for Michael! At a random discussion before work, my fundraising came up and he humbly reached into his wallet and donated without hesistating! Thanks a lot, I appreciate it. The Campship fund in memory of Ty Taylor is growing every day. Donate here - http://www.ymcacampmiller.org/donate/ty-taylor-campship-endowment/. 

The idea behind this run (and most of my runs, frankly), came from the desire to see a new part of town. I'm sure that idea would resonate with Michael, he's seen more of this city than I ever will.

We started out on familiar roads, headed toward India Gate. On the approach, we crossed a group of men walking down the sidewalk, escorting two completely naked men. It was likely that they were Digambara Jains, or possibly Naga sadhus. Each group focuses on attainment of their religious goals through asceticism taken to the extreme. No possessions means no clothes. 

I'm not quite sure what to make of what happened next. As we were crossing the street, an autorickshaw stopped to let us cross in front of him. While that in itself should have been the surprising thing (it never happens), it was what happened next which really shook me. As soon as the auto stopped, the car behind it smacked into it. After establishing that the drivers were okay and the damage was minimal, we continued on our way. Days of processing have left me at a point of confusion about systems thinking. I know we often present quite a sight in the streets of Delhi. While stark naked men may be passé, a group of foreigners running on sidewalks, streets, railroad tracks, etc., isn't. I had never considered us as potentially dangerous, I had only thought of us being in danger from cars, dogs, and worse.

And then, we saw this.

A man, asleep (we hope) on his motorcycle, parked in the middle of a four-lane highway. The traffic moved effortless around him. Thanks go to Adam for capturing the photo.

The goal of the day was to complete a long run (14 miles), visit Indraprastha Park, and see some new things. Less than five miles into the run and one of those goals had been accomplished in spades. The second goal was just around the corner. Running to Indraprastha Park is not ideal. You get there on busy roads. It's alongside the Ring Road, not far from the Yamuna. Without understanding exactly where in the city I was, I've seen the park from buses and cars several times but the green space it occupies on the map is conspicuous. The focal point of the park is a large Buddhist stupa.

The Stupa was envisioned as a symbol of enduring world peace and was dedicated in 2007 by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. It contains relics donated by him, The President of Sri Lanka, the President of Mongolia and the Prime Minister of Nepal.

Running to the park was eventful. Running in the park was quite nice. It was good to get off of the pavement and the park itself is quite big. But running out of the park...

The difficulties of the park's location became apparent as soon as we tried to get out. Like many parks in the city, there are few entrances/exits. We ran to the end of the park, met a wall and tried to shortcut out through a nursery. When no exit was in site, we turned around and Emma jumped into the air screaming. It was a snake. Add it to the list of things that could kill us on a run. NOTE: I'm just going ahead and assume it was a cobra. It couldn't possibly have been anything else.

The next section of the run was what I had feared it would be - along the edge of the Ring Road. It wasn't too long before we turned away from Delhi's most traffic-ridden artery. We did it at the Nizamuddin Railroad Station. At one point, I had dreams of crossing through the station over the pedestrian bridge, but after an a day of pushing the limits of my friends' trust, I decided not to. We quickly got lost, jumped a wall, turned around and found our way through the warren of alleyways in the railroad adjacent neighborhood. At one point, someone said that it was more intense that last weekend's Old Delhi run. They might have been right. An underground tunnel, a parade of rickshaws, the entrance to the station, hundreds of school kids, and then - Silence. Within 100 feet, we had gone from absolute craziness to complete serenity.

We had also lost almost of the group. Well, not lost, exactly. Much of the group that day isn't training for a big race like me, so they took off after 5, 7 or 10 miles. At the end, two of were left to run the remaining four miles home. It was hot, it was exhausting, it was a great accomplishment at the end of the route.

What a run!

RUN STATS

Distance: 14.43 miles

Duration: 2:12:08

Soundtrack: A collection of Prince albums, of course. RIP.

The Platform 9 3/4 KM Virtual Race! (or, we are really nerdy runners)

Well, we did it.  The AES Runners converged at Gate 2 of our fine school to engage in a "virtual race" that simulates  taking a fictitious trip to a fake train platform, in order to board a fake train that would take us to a fake school. In a book. That became a movie.

That's right, we did the Hogwarts Running Club Platform 9 3/4 KM virtual race. It's a way to raise money for various charities, encouraging running, and offering the opportunity for crazy oldies like us to plan a thematic run, spout Harry Potter quotes, and otherwise act like giddy young kids on a Saturday morning.

I couldn't resist the temptation to plan a route that was a) exactly 9.75km and b) Harry Potter-Honoring. As this race was honoring the magical platform at King's Cross Station, I knew I had to include the platform at Safdarjung Station. Getting there, I figured we'd do a bit of drawing in the Chanakyapuri grid and pass the Train Museum as an added bonus. I immediately crafted the route and hid it as private on MapMyRun so BludgerNimbus couldn't find it and spoil the surprise.

When we met at 6am on September 5th, I had to scan the crowd to see who had read my email and knew what they were getting into:

Evan and I are running the super-secret Hogwarts Running Club Platform 9 3/4 km run.

You are free to join us, but be aware! There will be significant backtracking and possible Dark Arts at work.

Seeing the trepidation in the eyes of the new members of the group, I hoped they wouldn't mutiny. Analyzing the eye-rolls of the veterans, I quickly calculated the risks, began the run and almost immediately stopped for a selfie.

While not strictly a Flying Ford Anglia, an Ambassador would make a cool ride to Hogwarts...

The stress of leading the run, drawing the map correctly and chatting with Bernie led to several groans from the group as we immediately u-turned from the Ambassador and headed into the grid. Another u-turn, more groans. Also, lots of Harry Potter quotes. I was so intent on getting the route right, that I was convinced we made a wrong turn, cursed myself out (while anticipating a Cruciatis Curse from another runner). To compensate, I went the wrong way, realized it again and made a third u-turn. We had gone a mile total, but we were only 1/4 of a mile from our starting point.

Apologies offered, we headed out and made all of the turns. After running almost half of our total distance we were on the way to the station. We arrived to greet two security guards with "good mornings" and "namastes" and entered my absolutely favorite secret back-door in Delhi. From there, it's up and over the pedestrian bridge to the station. The only thing stopping us was a monkey. Sitting dead-center in the middle of the stairs. I bravely (barely) convinced myself and the group that it wasn't a Dementor,  but that it was actually my Patronus.

We managed to cross the platform, take some great shots of people using Platform 9 3/4 and ran it back home. We compensated some new turns to make the distance and finished happy. The overall response of the runners has assured me that they enjoyed my shenanigans and just might join me on another run in this fine city!

Keep going for pics and the map!

RUN STATS:

Distance - 9.75 km

Time - 59:19

Soundtrack - Mostly friendly ribbing from friends, also the Entourage Soundtrack

For Liz and Adam!

Saturday was the big day. It was a day that had been percolating like a pot of coffee in my grandfather's electric coffee pot.

The British History Half Marathon had finally arrived.

I originally planned this route in October of 2012 and had hoped to run it last year. The grand plan was a themed run inspired by the Siege of Delhi in 1857. I had traveled to the Coronation Memorial Park a few years ago and it just happened to be about 12-14 miles from campus. An idea was born. Why not do a point-to-point half marathon that started at the Coronation Memorial, passed through some major landmarks from the Delhi Mutiny and finish at school?

Sadly, the run never happened last school year. For various reasons, I couldn't inspire enough people to join me. But this year, things were different.

I started promoting the run on our running group a few months ago, trying to drum up interest and give people enough time to get up to distance.

One of the runners I hooked for this run was Adam. As a high school history teacher, Adam was keen to join. If you look back at the blog you'll see that Adam has joined for pieces of other fun runs. He was along for the Old Delhi Half, the Tughlaqabad 18 Miler and last weekend's Goodbye 10 miler. He's always been supportive of my themed runs, especially my Delhi sight-seeing runs and my historical tidbit runs. Thanks for the donation friend, I look forward to many more runs with you next year!

Today's other donor, Liz, has been a running buddy for a long time. Liz was very excited to join us and had been building up, getting ready, until she suffered some running injuries that have put her out of commission. Sadly, she's moving away, so our next run is a bit of a question mark. That said, in the world of international schoolery, I've learned that anything can happen. Thanks for your generous donation and thanks for being a friend. I've loved the running we've done together over the years!

The run starts from the Coronation Memorial Park. This park was the original site of the three Durbars that were held on the location. The first was in 1877 and commemorated the ascension to the throne of Victoria. Another Durbar was held in 1903. The durbar of 1911 was the only one attended by the King, King George V. The photo below marked the starting line or our run, the state of George V that originally stood in the cupola behind India Gate. It was moved to Coronation Park in the mid-1960s and it sat in an overgrown, weedy circle with other deposed British statues for years. 

The last time I was at the park, I had to creep through a half-open fence and wandered among the statues and empty pedestals. This time, I arrived in caravan with the 10 other runners to find that the park had undergone a significant face-lift. The statues had been repositioned in a circle surrounding the obelisk commemorating the 1911 Durbar. Extensive sidewalks and buildings are also being built, with the promise of an elaborate park.

We set out on the run, down a busy and dirty street. My run stopped abruptly, with water pouring down my back. My hydration pack had sprung a leak. My friends leapt to my aid as soon as I yelled "Help!" One was unsnapping my bag, another was pulling out the bladder and the rest stood bravely by, laughing, realizing that I wasn't in fact, peeing my pants.

After some adjustments we continued toward Delhi University. A crowd of people were on their way somewhere, a rally(?) - a party(?). We'll never know, because they went right and we went left. The first adventure of the day was under way as we all passed through a gate that definitely suggested that our entry might be restricted. It wasn't, thankfully, and we cruised through the quad.

Heidi and Tara. And Gandhi.

The next stop on the tour was the Flagstaff Tower. During the 1857 mutiny, the British wives and children holed up here waiting for news. I tried my best to recollect the story as I told my tour group and suggested they read more about it on my website - wikipedia.org

Great group of supportive friends!

We continued through the Kamla Nehru Ridge, again surprised at what great green areas there are in the city and we hit our first detour. After we crossed the road, entered a private nursery and were encouraged to leave, we were faced with the dilemma of choosing left or right. I took it upon myself to choose right and off we went. In a big circle. I probably added close to a mile with this wrong turn. Sorry team. Once we were back on track, we were running up a long hill (!) filled with monkeys. Sorry Ted. The next sight to behold was the Mutiny Memorial. We convinced a guard to let us in and it was time for selfies.

The Mutiny Memorial was the last stop in the Ridge, so we left, ran along a gnarly busy road filled with cars, dust and sun for too long, then turned off in search of the Red Fort. We missed the Kashmeri Gate, which was the entry point to the city of Delhi in 1857 and an important battle sight. We did reach the Red Fort, though and were able to run along its moat.

Preparing to leave Old Delhi, we stopped by the Delhi Gate for a quick photo, then off to the Turkman Gate. 

Near the Turkman Gate, we stopped for a drink break.

Pictured: Getting Drinks

Pictured: Nonplussed Observer

After finally leaving Old Delhi, we cut through Connaught Place (more selfies!) and then started the final leg back to school. At this point, we had covered almost 14 miles and I was feeling good. The pace had been relaxed, I was feeling strong and it was fun.

Getting back to school, we made sure to loop around so we could all finish together. Our half marathon had turned into almost 16 miles, so people were pooped. With only four miles to go to reach the 20 miles mark, I had to add another loop. I was feeling good, so I decided to go for it. Bernie and Ted joined. The first mile was great. When we hit the park, suddenly the heat came on strong. We were in full sun and our legs finally started talking to us. The Nehru Park Loop record is around 10:40, but it took us over 14 minutes that day.

We pulled up to school, the MapMyRun lady whispered 20 miles in my ear and I was satisfied. It was a great day of running and a great day with my friends. You guys rock!

This run belongs to Liz and Adam!

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 - 20.27 miles
Time - 3:02:43 - Over three hours of running!
Soundtrack - Death From Above 1979, Nine Inch Nails, Panda Bear, Hy Brazil Vol. 1 ...

For Heather and Skweebs!

I'm over 10% of the way to my stretch goal! I know that $7000 is a tall order, but I really want to provide an enduring campship in the Memory of my dear friend Ty Taylor. He loved YMCA Camp Miller and providing the opportunity for a needy camper to experience it via a scholarship in his name would be amazing.

If you haven't donated yet, please do. Follow this link to donate. And here's a crazy thought. If each person that has donated was able to convince one of their friends to donate just $10, it would be another $110. See if you can convince someone today!

Today's run is for Heather and Skweebs! They both stepped up yesterday with donations, so I was extra motivated to get out of bed at 5:40am to go for my five mile run. This was especially helpful, due to the fact that the boy child was up at 4:25 and didn't go back to sleep.

The route today was a five miler that I've only ever run one other time. The last time was May 6 of last year. It's a good route, with a fantastic "India contrast" aspect. The run starts at school in the Diplomatic Enclave of New Delhi - wide streets, lots of trees, and very few people on the streets at 6am. I decided to take some photos today, since Heather is one of the most prolific photo sharers I know! This first shot was taken from the pedestrian bridge that separates the embassy area and its private golf course from the neighborhood of Moti Bagh. You can see that the construction of an expansion of the Delhi Metro is in full swing on this route.

The next picture is something that I've noticed on my past trips over the walkway, or as they call them here, "Pedestrian Overbridge." I love the texture from all of the old, peeling notices.

As I wrote last time, the shift from the Diplomatic Enclave to Moti Bagh is crazy. Immediately upon turning into the neighborhood, the streets narrow, the trees disappear and the buildings triple in height. There were people everywhere getting ready for their day. The run progresses past shops, guys washing cars, washing themselves, sweeping yesterday's trash, preparing today's tea and greeting the day, each in their own ways. Some were on their way to the Gurudwara to worship, some were reciting mantras to the sun as it poked over the trees and others were poking their heads from their beds in their market stalls. These are the reasons that I simply cannot run in the park everyday. There's way too much to see.

The last time I ran this route, I missed the turn to re-cross the Ring Road. Today, I did the same thing. The difference, though was the Metro construction. The ubiquitous blue metal walls that simultaneously close off the city as they strive to open it up were everywhere. I couldn't find a way out! Dead ends turned into dead ends. I backtracked, re-strategized and hit more dead ends. Finally, as it always seems to do here in India, an opportunity presented itself.

A chained gate with just enough squeeze space to make it out to the road! You can see the lock just under the leaves, the sun coming up over the trees and the pedestrian overbridge! The only sticking point was the guard that wouldn't let me over the bridge. He pointed in the direction from which I had come and I was resigned to find another way across. Not too soon, I came upon what I thought was the first bridge from the beginning of the run. Once I was up and crossing, I realized that it wasn't the first bridge but it was, in fact, the bridge I wanted. A quick cross, ducks and dodges of parents taking their kids to school and I was back on my way home. All told, the wrong turns, dead ends and backtracks only added about .64 miles.

The final piece of the run is familiar territory and as I passed this water tower, I decided to stop and take a final pic for the day. It's always struck me as interesting and I've often thought about taking a photo, but haven't. So today, for Heather and Skweebs, I did.

This run belongs to Heather and Skweebs!

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 - 5.64 miles
Time - 45:07
Soundtrack - Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs - Fever to Tell, White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan

This is what the run is supposed to look like, underneath you can see how I messed up the Ring Road crossing.

For Dr A, Lynner and Star Wars Nerds Everywhere!

Much of the credit for today's run goes to my dear friends Dr. A and Lynner. Their support of me over the years and their generous donations (follow this link) went a long way to provide the motivation to get me out on the streets this morning. It means a lot to me to have them be a part of future kids' experiences at YMCA Camp Miller. It's an important place and the Ty Taylor Memorial Campship is an important tribute to an incredible influence.

And now, today's run - one of my favorites!

"Fast ship? You've never heard of the Millennium Falcon? It's the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs."

 by Doug Kline

I've been waiting for today's run since September 27, 2013. That's the date that I created the 11 mile Kessel Run. After a few years of running Mother Theresa Cresent, I noticed that the curve around the back of the Rashtrapati Bhawan might just be the beginning of a good picto-run. With just a bit of playing and some lucky roads off of Safdarjung Road and I had a workable reproduction of the Millennium Falcon, complete with the cockpit! 

The only catch was the fact that it was an eleven mile route. In the fall, I just wasn't able to get my mileage up to the 11 mile range. Everything's changed. Now my mileage is up and I've been keen to do this run for a while. Today I got my wish! Extensive emails were sent to the runners group to drum up interest and I was able to sway Bernie. He was worried that I'd try to cut several parsecs off of this route, but he agreed to come anyway. For which, I'm grateful. It's hard to do the longer runs by yourself. I'm also glad that he didn't shoot first. 

The morning was nice in Delhi. It's surprisingly still not too hot. There were three groups of runners this morning, which bodes well for the next several weeks of training. I expect to have lots of company as I move through my program. My primary concern for this run (apart from the distance) was not getting lost in order to preserve the appearance of the Falcon. I really didn't want to take a bunch of wrong turns and end up with some wonky approximation of the beauty that "will make point five past light speed."

The cockpit was the first piece of the drawing and it was all on new roads for me. Sure enough, we got a bit turned around, but the overall effect is still close. You can see my wrong turn here. The next snag came at mile 4. I had to ask Bernie to stop so I could take out my phone and double check the turn. I didn't want to mess up the GPS art! With the turn successfully negotiated, we were on our way on another brand new street. We ran past the Vice President's House, which got us talking about the government of India. We knew that there is a Prime Minister and a President. We also knew that India has a parliamentary democracy. Our tour had introduced the new data of the existence of the VP (or at least his/her house). Yesterday's run was focused around the upcoming elections, so I decided a bit of research was in order to clean up these confusions. Side note - this has been one of my favorite side-effects of running in Delhi. Most days I get home from a run and immediately get on-line to find information about something I saw on my run that day.

Here's the brief outline of today's study:

• The Vice President of India is Mohammad Hamid Ansari and he has a house on the Kessel Run
• He makes $2,808 per month
• India is actually a "federal parliamentary democratic republic"
• The PM is the head of government an the President is the head of state
• There is a bicameral legislature with an Upper House (think US Senate) and a Lower House (think US House of Reps)
• The elections being held this year are "not really" for Prime Minister
• They are for the "Lower House"
• The majority party in Lower House elects its leader as Prime Minister

Sorry for the civics lesson, back to the run. We passed the Presidential Palace and headed through the forward hold into the second fork of the Millennium Falcon. Another 180 degree turn and we were completing the outline of the ship. There were a few hairy moments crossing the street today, traffic seemed to be busier than normal. It was almost like piloting through an asteroid field to attempt escape from Imperial pursuers.  Almost. The next big site on the route was the Gole Dak Khanna, the round post office from April 28's run from last year.

As we turned onto Mother Theresa Crescent to complete the drawing of a smuggler's modified Correllian Engineering Corporation's YT 1300, my phone rang and I received a request to stop at a pharmacy on the way home to pick up some medicine for the boy. Not a problem, as it was on our way.

On the final turn out of the Falcon's outline, we spied one of the other groups that had left for a run with us in the morning. We all had a laugh, exchanged hellos and kept running. As Bernie and I approached the pharmacy winded, struggling, tired and sweaty, we must have been a sight. We were laughing and happy, satisfied with our run and looking forward to seeing the route pop up on our MapMyRun dashboards. When I asked for the medicine, the pharmacist must have thought it was for me and that I needed it ASAP. Assuring him that I was fine, it took all I had to not say,

"She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid. I've made a lot of special modifications myself."

This run belongs to Dr. A and Lynner! Thanks for answering my pleas for donors!

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 - 11.12 miles
Time - 1:03:16
Soundtrack - Hip Hop mix of Das Racist, Digable Planets and the Digital Underground

I Finally Did It!

I have a running problem. Actually, I have several. Among them, is my desire to map routes that look like pictures.

For example on August 20, 2013 I created the Poppy 4 Miler. It looks like this:

I thought it looked a bit like a Poppy. Or one of those piranha flower monsters from Super Mario Bros. I also created this route to try to figure out the Kushak Road Area. Every time I run back there, I get lost. The roads twist and turn and for some reason, I never end up where I want to.

Case in point.

8/21/13-First attempt. Missed the first curve and ended up adding 0.12 miles to the run, making a mutant mess out of the poppy pod.

11/1/13-Second attempt. Fixed the missed curve, totally missed the turn back into the Kushak curve. Once I reached Dalhousie Road, I knew I was way off and decided to add more. This one was 0.66 miles too long.

1/31/14-Third Attempt. Totally learned from my mistakes. Except that I didn't turn right at all. I decided (for some unknown reason) to carry straight on down the center. Used the opportunity to define the "top and back in" part.

2/26/14-Fourth Attempt. I showed up to add four more miles to my February training total and was surprised to find three other runners from the running group that were headed out for a run. They decided to join me and we were on our way to conquer the beast that had become the Poppy 4 Miler. Maybe it was my repeated errors, maybe it was playing tour guide, or maybe it was just dumb luck, but I finally nailed it.

Birthday Weekend Runs!

FRIDAY

Friday was my 38th birthday. I woke up early, ready to run. Much to my surprise, when I walked out of the bedroom, I saw that I had just received a message on my phone. It was a running buddy, checking to see if I was heading out for my usual 6am run. I quickly replied that I was and hurried downstairs, eager to have someone to accompany me on my birthday run.

After a warning that he didn't want to run one of my "quick runs," I proceeded to follow him for the duration of our three miler.

The route was the Statues 3 Miler, one of the first routes I created on my MapMyRun account. It leaves campus and passes what is alternately called the Salt March Statue, The Dandi March Statue or the Gyarah Murti. This image depicts Gandhi's march to the sea to protest the British tax on salt. From there, it progresses to Teen Murti, another statue that gives the name to the complex containing Jawaharlal Nehru's residence, now a museum. After that, the route turns back to school for a quick 3 mile loop.

Thanks Keir for the surprise and a great start to my birthday!

RUN STATS:
Distance - 3.02 miles
Time - 23:42 (my sixth fastest time on the route-must be out of shape!)
Soundtrack - The Beatles, Revolver






SATURDAY

Saturday morning I headed out for a group run at 6:30am. Over the last few years, several teachers at school have dropped in and out of our informal running group. Many parents have joined also. Saturday morning it was three parents, a local ultra runner and I.

I arrived to the gate in the dark with two different shoes on, one street shoe and one trail shoe. After establishing the fact that no, I wasn't gettting dressed in my sleep, I produced their partners and we decided whether we were hitting the pavement or hitting the woods. A six mile street route was decided upon and we headed out to Sarojini, a local market (in my street shoes, the trail runners stayed behind). It's a fun route, so I was excited to get started. See this post from last year for more info about the market and the route.

The first leg of the route had us cutting across Nehru Park. For the past five years, I have been running, playing ultimate frisbee and hanging out in this park. On Saturday morning, I came across something for the first time in the park. It was a suspension bridge! And it was painted in rasta colors. Each slat was painted red, yellow or green. I was so giddy upon finding the bridge that I actually let out a goofy scream! The five of us hit the bridge running and as you could expect, it was a bouncy trip. Our strides went crazy and the bridge was all over the place. We loved it. The guy that was walking across in the opposite direction though, he probably thought something else.

It was a cool start to a run that would continue along the theme of discovery. Instead of sticking exactly to the route, buoyed by the excitement of Thursday's run, I set out to find a secret back way to Lodhi Garden. We found two locked gates, a secret escape route from a plant nursery, a row of hidden shacks and ended up on railroad tracks. After dismissing the possibility (for now) of a secret way to Lodhi, we set back on track and finished up the route.

I love running with this group, everyone's really nice and of course, it's great to have company.

Also, this route usually looks like Marvin the Martian, but on this given Saturday, the lines were adjusted a bit.

RUN STATS:

Distance - 6.28 miles

Time - 54:10

Soundtrack - De la Soul, Buhloone Mindstate and the Clear Lake Auditorium EP (more goods from the Valentine's Day free download!)

SUNDAY

Damn Google Maps. Sometimes your run just gets 3 miles longer.

On Sunday, I decided to continue my exploration of Delhi and thought I'd try a new direction. There are relatively few options of "which way to go" due to the railroad tracks, the airport and the closed roads around the presidential palace. After studying the maps on Saturday night, I decided to try a new six mile route on new roads. I knew it would be a risk based on the fact that I didn't know what the road would yield and sure enough, as soon as I got there, I found that it was in fact a closed gate into military land. That's also typical for this part of town. I decided to keep going, but I knew that it would lengthen my route.

The adjustment route was supposed to be about six miles. I headed up through the ridge to a new section of Delhi that I've never seen. It was fun to be in a new part of town (Rajender Nagar) and I saw some cool new things. However, the route is along pretty busy roads so I'm not sure that it will become a regular feature.

Like I said, it was supposed to be about six miles. At one point during the route, I wasn't sure which way to go. I guessed, and guessed wrong. It added another three miles to my route. Like I said, sometimes your run just gets 3 miles longer.

In any case, it was nice to go for a long run and to know that I can do it. It's also fun to think about which parts of town I can explore when I start my longer runs (16, 18, 20 miles).

RUN STATS:

Distance - 9.33 miles

Time - 1:14:13

Soundtrack - Danny Brown, Old and CVRCHES, The Bones of What You Believe