The Joy of Injury..

I have never been injured before, and that of course obviously means that I have not experienced it before. So, I never understood how it felt to be injured and I could never really empathize with people who were fighting injuries. But now, having come off a hip injury while training for my 4th marathon, I am happy to have had seen it off and being able to come back to running.

Injury (any setback actually) teaches you the importance of things like stretching and how to gradually come out of a bad phase. I have been running for a while now, not really training very well and at the same time some how managing to complete marathons. Yes, I have ran all these years without getting injured. But what is the fun if you don't know what your limits are! I might have been very much in my comfort zone running those marathons, and hence did not injure myself. Not that I was careful to prevent the injuries. It was just that I was not pushing myself. The finish times of 4:52, 5:24 and 4:58 speak for themselves. I am still yet to better my first marathon time and hope this is the time, and I will be happy with a 4:51 time come October 28th 2007. Hope it rains in Wasington DC!

It is one thing to learn from others' experience and a whole lot different learning through one's own experience. I believe there is a great joy to it.

I am really happy for the experience. I would love to have the opportunity to advise people on a hip injury, but again, people really understand something only when they have the need to. I have had a lot of friends and family who have been through knee injuries and that is one thing where I have learnt from others' experience (when I was closest to the person who experienced it).

Cheers! As one of my coaches signs off, Happy Trails! :) And Happy Comebacks.

Bingo!!!

It seemed to be just the perfect weekend after I played Scrabble at a local club in Los Gatos. Aah! Finally, everything in life seems to be falling in place. :) Also, I had someone rooting for me. Bonus. Now, I will have my rating with National Scrabble Association, and can play Scrabble more regularly.

It was one of the things (one of the many things) I missed while living in San Diego. San Diego is great! but not my kind of place probably. Been missing out on too many things.

Bay Area rocks!!! Bustling with energy!

who puts the cat(s) amongst the pigeons?!

Okay, so, I was running for 12600 seconds at about 8 foot per sec pace. how boring. But I kind of made it interesting by following a new pace model - kind of a ramp-up/ramp-down model. And I think it worked. I was looking strong towards the end. These practice runs seem to be a fun exercise. :)

My rant apart, today I had run on this trail in Foster City near Oracle headquarters. first time for me and in my mind I had complaints from people about how the trail not having shade and stuff. Luckily weather smiled and it was cloudy this morning. :) Well, only for a bit, maybe, more on this later.

As I was heading out, I noticed gazillions of cats on the trail. Really, a huge number! and kept wondering where those came from. And they were quite plump. Maybe this is the place where people leave their overgrown pets or something, but whatever, as I went further ahead, I saw a whole bunch of pigeons! Wow! Who puts the cats amongst the pigeons?! Heard of the phrase many times but this was the first time I saw it actually. However, both were happy in each other's company. :) So much for the phrase!

I was beginning to enjoy the weather and the trail (right beside the bay) when it started raining half-way through. So much for the weather smiling. Now it began to cry. Sorry weather Gods! Not me. But it was fun, and I wanted to get back to the hut as soon as possible. So, it kept me motivated to keep running. :) I hope it rains on my marathon day too. But.. hope it doesn't snow!! (I am running in DC in October).

When does hummus go bad?

Hummus is easily one of my top picks for dips and snacks.. but do you know when hummus goes bad? smells kind of weird, and tastes a little sour? It still has that texture but it becomes a little more fibrous.

Yea, it does taste like that at times. At times when hummus becomes tuna!

Today, I ate meat for the first time! Did not even realize it could be tuna until I ate half of the sandwich, wondering why my hummus tasted bad.. hmm.. watch out!! Don't know how people eat tuna but my first NV experience wasn't all that great.

books

I have come across these two cool sites:

http://www.bookcrossing.com/ - this is a great great site for book lovers. Books travel on this site!! Check it out.

http://www.shelfari.com/ - And this site is one of those community sites. for book lovers, you can get your recommendations here, and then hunt for your books in book crossing. I think book crossing is a great philosophy.

First Post

I just thought I would create an eco-friendly blog site to keep up with the Global Warming buzz (since I hope this blog will be the most active one). So, all those with CRTs can save lot of energy. Come to think of it, I need to turn off my home PC.