Lots of Chalupa members showed up today. We had two guests – Amrita and Arka – from Birmingham, Alabama join us. Also ran into my old friend Raj Sundaramurthy! Even Sudipto and Mishtu came!! We had four junior runners there. By the time I showed up half an hour early to put in an extra couple of miles, Atashi and Sid were already there running on the track! There were sixteen of us in all.
Seems like Fowler Park makes a big difference!

Went out for a run near my neighborhood. Ran slowly for 5 miles. Need to stretch now desperately.

Was listening to songs all the while running on the left edge of the road. Suddenly, as a song ended, I thought I heard footsteps alongside me. Turned around and sure enough, there was a dog following me. Not sure how long it had been running with me. It would not bark, it would not go away – it just kept going with me. Thought of trying a trick and turned around and retraced my path. The dog kept running back with me and then suddenly stopped in front of a property. I am quite sure that is the right house for the dog and also am guessing the owner is a runner and takes the dog for a run… Wish had my phone with me to take a picture….

A few brave souls showed up for the Bengali Chalupa run this morning. It was in mid twenties …

After a long time, ran early morning around Georgia Tech campus. The hills are steep but the old houses are quaint!! Even the Starbucks lady commented that she had not seen me around for some time!

After a long time, ran in the evening. I am usually a morning person. Went running in the hills. There were a lot of kids horseback riding. I was half afraid that I might have appeared as a traffic cone to the horses 🙂
Nice 63 degrees. It falls to 18 in about 24 hours!!

This Sunday morning, we had our usual Bengali run. And we all agreed that the hills are killing us (we have switched to a new location lately). We might try out a different spot next week. Great discussions afterwards led by the indomitable Sid!!

Today’s group included two of our youngest members and two more in the junior group. Not sure what happened to the rest of the adults. I know one of them is in a mourning period after the Saints loss. Others are probably recovering from parties!! 🙂

5K run in windchill driven -7degree F. (-22 degree Celsius). The biggest difficulty was not the cold – although the wind was nasty – it was my glasses. My breath escaped thru the mask and froze on the glasses. In the end, I was barely seeing thru a small hole in one glass. The other had ice particles on it!!! (See pic)

The Starbucks lady admonished me that I was crazy to go out and run today. I sheepishly offered that it would be boring if everybody was sane. Somebody has to do the crazy stuff.

So she wrote down “Insane Guy” on my cup and gave the coffee free!!!

If this was a big public race and I had posted a big achievement, I would be thanking everybody now. Especially my wife, who, unlike my daughters egged me on to post a personal record. Coming to think of it, this egging on might have something to do with the fact that last night she realized that she had run out milk and eggs and my Starbucks is next to her grocery store. 🙂

Hmmmm…. 🙂

Tomorrow morning in Milton it is going to be 6 degrees F – with windchill -7 degrees F. ( -22 degrees Celsius). I am going to attempt a 5K run to post my personal coldest run of my career. Previous record was nearly 12 degrees F warmer. (It has to be minimum 5K to qualify). I know this is nothing compared to what my friends in Chicago and New York are going thru. I am glad I am not having to run there!!

They say two layers of clothing in the 30s/40s and then an additional layer for every 10 degrees. By that calculation, I will be wearing five layers of clothes to run tomorrow. I think it will be less of running and more of waddling like penguins with outstretched arms 🙂