7 January 2017

First run in the snow this year

5K run in the snow. Usually, the first such run every year lands up in a disaster since I forget that running shoes have breathing holes and invariably cold water seeps in during the run and freezes inside making my toes numb and blue.

This time however, I remembered to put two plastic grocery bags over my socks before I put the shoes on. It was a good run but had to slow down considerably after slipping a couple of times.

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6 January 2017

Nikispeak – New Year’s Eve

Reached home a little late at around 10:30 PM or so after the India trip. Nikita was at the kitchen table doing her studies. After some time we started having dinner together and were exchanging notes about our Holidays.

As a reference, I was in India and she was in Dallas with Natasha and Sharmila. Also, as a further reference, “masi”, in our language Bengali roughly means “aunt”. Actually it is used to address your mom’s sister. But it is common practice to call an lady who would be roughly your parents’ age as “masi”.

Finally we came to New Year’s Eve.

“What did you do, for New Year’s?”, she asked.
“I was fast asleep. How about you?”
“Oh! I spent most of it being surrounded by a lot of drunk “masis” “.

🙂

Seems like nothing has changed in Dallas in ten years 🙂

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1 January 2017

All in a day’s run

The first run of the year was an adventure unto itself.

First we ran to Baisakhi’s house. We reached at 8AM after a two mile run and then instead of climbing up 3 floors, we just started yelling out her name from below. Eventually, a groggy eyed Baisakhi emerged in the balcony and we wished her a full throated Happy New Year. A minute of talking loudly later, we went off running in our merry way. I am pretty sure she woke up later in the day wondering whether it was just a bad dream 🙂

Then we ran for one more mile to my inlaws’ place and wished them a very Happy New Year and had our familiar tussle with my mother in law who insisted that we come in and eat something and we just refusing to go in while we were sweating. Instead, a minute later we kept on with our running routine.

After two more miles, we reached our familiar spot – a particular bus stop. Not that we were contemplating on taking a bus back (for one thing, we were very close to our starting point) – but it was the favorite tea stall we had there. Sat down and had two “bhnars” (clay cup) worth of tea and then just walked back home. We even taught “chaa-yer maasi” (the old lady making tea) how to take a picture of the two brothers sweating profusely from the join effect of running and hot tea!!

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31 December 2016

The story of a thousand miles in 2016

Total Runs: 175
Half Marathons: 8
Lowest temperature : 9 deg F
Highest temperature: 91 deg F
Number of US states: 12
Number of countries: 2
Fastest pace: 7 miles at 8:07 min/mile
Fastest half marathon: 1 hour 52 mins

Some memorable moments:
1st mile: On Jan 1 with Puja (see the very first picture)
1000th mile: On Dec 29 with brother (see the very last picture) Chiradeep
Winning a medal after deciding the previous night to put in a half marathon race next day (picture in the middle)
Running in the dark with Samaresh and then stopping to watch the moon. (picture bottom right of the above picture)
Getting lost in the forests somewhere in Virginia (the right most picture in the same row as above picture)
Getting caught in howling winds and rains in mid town Atlanta and then deciding to run in an underground parking lot (picture is below the picture with Samaresh and myself)
Getting frustrated with a peer CEO who canceled our meeting. So I went for a run in his city instead (bottom most picture from the above picture).
Running to the post office to mail a letter (picture left of the above picture)
Discovering the power of orange (the fruit, not my shorts color) as a post run refreshment (left bottom picture)

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