Tuesday 24 January 2012

Mud on your face...

Almost literally.

In keeping with my resolutions for the year (the word is Procrastination. Preceded by a giant big NO), I have had a productive morning ticking things off my list. I have taught my class and feel justified in a bit of time off for 'creative pursuits' as I call them. I have so many blogs to give blog-love to now that this one gets short-changed. Damn!

Here is a story.

This weekend the husband & I ran 10k together recently. We all woke up super early when it was still dark. I woke up before they both did, of course, I am nervy, I am not going to fight these things any more. This is what I do. Who I am. We set off sort of all bleary-eyed (you know thats untrue. I was chirpy!). Dropped child off at the pool for her lesson. We took off - me clutching this awesome yellow bottle my boy MSB has given me for such purposes. It has a little sleeve for keys and gu. We stopped the car the stadium and stepped out.

This is one sphere of life (there are many, its a matter of accepting them) that I know a lot about. I think I can do a mean job of pacing you. You want to be a runner and have some talent? I could totally take you to the next level. Assuming its still all in the 'recreational runner' phase of course. I am quite unabashed to admit this. So I was checking with the alpha male husband if he would like to discuss strategy. It wasn't a big deal run for me - just 10 km - but for a person without a great number of miles on their feet it can be a bit of a challenge. And there are goals. Like no walking. Or time goals. I didn't get the right responses (think grunts), so I set us a broad time target (and therefore, pace), and we set off.

We did well I think. I hold myself responsible for him besting his previous timing by several minutes. I turned a deaf ear to all the calculations he did after using his heart-rate-monitor-german-watch. I have no patience anymore for any other way of measuring distance than le Garmin. So call me an idiot. Just don't tell me - if its not GPS satellite-based - it doesn't count for me. I am not bad at dealing with people that want to talk pace/speed in different units: mins/km & mins/mile are what I use - I switch between these. But if you want km/hr I am okay with that, I can deal. I might need a piece of paper for miles/hr though. But still, don't come and compare your ittybitty watch things with my Tomahawk of a Garmin. Please. Be that as it may.

This morning while he was sleeping soundly, I ran again. I was not trying to do anything big - just a regular weekday run. Just that I happened to run 10km in about 8 minutes less time than we did on Sunday. I was pretty happy with today's run because this is the fastest 10km I have done this season (I think), though I have done a faster race a little while ago - about 2 years ago - and that is my current Personal Best 10k time. I want to try and beat that one this year so I felt awesome this morning as I felt strong. Like I could do that. Anyway I suppose my own husband cursed me about this.

I was walking calmly to lunch just now - and lo and behold - I twisted my ankle. KP was asking me recently about how I dared to run on Saturday before the Sunday Full Marathon. What if you twist your ankle, he said. I admit that I hadn't thought of that. It was just some routine madness that MSB & I always get up to when we hang out together. But then I think its fine. I tend to ignore ankle twists roundly. It was in 1991 (December of) that my ankle issues started. Thats a long story. But I have never managed to fully recover from that. Now both my ankles are shot. Plus I have flat feet. I shouldn't even be walking, let alone running.

At least I didn't really fall on my face. Yet.


4 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey. I have some talent. How about you help me get to the next level coach ?

Preeti Aghalayam aka kbpm said...

bring it bhamla. i got this one.

Karthik Padmanabhan said...

Me too, me too.. please!

Preeti Aghalayam aka kbpm said...

Karthik - Come on! We are training together to crack that 1:50 half. Starting Sunday.