“So, how much did you put in today?”, I asked the young guy who pulled out of the trail into the parking lot sweating from head to toe early in the morning.
“Seven miles, sir”, said he as he tried catching his breath.
I gave him a quick look over. He looked like a very athletic guy. Tall and with a runner’s figure. I was quite sure he was a regular runner.

“Are you in high school?”
“Yes, sir. South Forsyth”.
“Cool! Are you in the track team?”
“Yes, sir!”
“How long did it take you?”
“Fifty minutes, sir.” he said, after consulting his Garmin.
“That is outstanding – 7 minute miles. I can only dream of that!”
“Oh! I got very young legs”, he said, after he had looked me over and decided I must be at least three times his age. Which, I was.

For ten minutes this young guy – a rising senior in high school – and I chatted about what he wanted to do in life (engineer, as it turns out) and how I thought very well of his dream school – Georgia Tech. He then left, saying he needed to get to school.

And I started slowly walking to the head of the trail. I was doing the mental math..
“Wow! 7 miles in 50 minutes. My average speed – if I push myself over 7 miles – would be 10 min/miles. That is a clear 20 minute difference”… I kept thinking.

Then there was something he said that came back to my mind … “I have very young legs”. That is true, I admitted to myself. I am probably getting to the last few years of running if my legs hold up. I already have serious IT Band issue that I can’t seem to kick and that in its turn is affecting my knee already.
But then I also argued with myself – “Why give up till the legs actually give up?”

I forgot to ask the kid his name. But if he was around, I would have said “Jonas” – assuming Jonas was his name – “Today I am going to split our difference in half”. I will try and put a seven miler in an hour. The worst would be that I would walk back if the legs gave up.

The first mile, I warmed up at a 9:06 pace. Obviously that is faster than my warm up pace but I was already getting OCD – “Can I make it?”, “Can I make it?”, “How do I subtract 9 min 6 seconds from 60 minutes and then divide by 6?” That is the average I need for the rest of the run.

Moment the Garmin beeped for first mile completion, I took off. I was going to make it in 60 mins or accept that I have gotten old. That was scary enough. Kept pacing faster. Finished the next mile in 7:50. Third mile was a defining stretch. Kept telling myself – “Pace yourself, pace yourself” and then tried doing the subtraction and division thing again, got completely confused with numbers (getting, old? haha ) and just blindly ran.

7 min 43 seconds for the third mile.

Fourth mile kept at a slower 8 min 11 secs. Had to pull over at the end of the trail and have a drink of water and turn around. Stretched a little – and back to trail. Half way done. I might just have a chance…

7 min 50 seconds for the fifth mile.

Now the calculations had changed. The subtraction and division (by 2) had become considerably easier. Now, it was about how many seconds am I “banking”. If I keep at this pace, how many seconds can I slow down by?

8 min 7 seconds for the sixth mile.

Seventh mile has a slight uphill. Gave my everything to run up. Was counting on the traffic light at the top to give me a few seconds to catch my breath. Wouldn’t you know it? Today was the day where everybody had stopped because the sign was on for pedestrians to pass. Sucked it up and finished up the last part without passing out.

I was pretty much ready to pass out at the end though. I would have had too, had I not finally taken in the stats on my Garmin and realized that I had managed to beat myself in my own game… 56 minutes 50 seconds. Not that I needed anything else to boost me up but Garmin telling me that my 5K was at 24:24 and 10K at 49:17 certainly did not hurt. Running is not about beating others so much as beating your own self. Without hurting.

Speaking of hurting, here is a funny thing that happened. 12 hours after the run and I am writing this. Not a single pain in my legs. The knees, the calves, the hamstrings and the gluteals – not a boo from them. I suddenly remembered what Shelly had told me once – “speed up if you want to reduce your injuries”. I never believed her. Till today.

Okay, old age. Your move, next.

Many of you may not know this, but my running career started rather ignominiously. Almost to the day, ten years back, I went out for my maiden run at 11 am in the heat of Dallas. Let’s put it this way – I had to be helped back home by the paramedics. Ten years later, I had a sense of deja vu today.

It all started with Sharmila offering to pick up Natasha from her horse stuff which is what I usually do. I got all excited that I had some more time on hand and decided to put in a long run. I realized it was going to be hot (85 degrees) and in direct sunlight – so I chose a very flat route to try and put in a half marathon – a little over 21 km or 13 miles.

The run itself actually went pretty well. Surprised myself a bit at the pace – 2 hours and 14 minutes (at a pace of 10 min 15 sec per mile). At the end of the run, I was tired but was feeling fine. I reached for a few bottles of water from the car, the phone and plonked down in a shade. I figured I would recover for about 20 minutes and then head back home.

Sipping water, I glanced at the phone. And that is when everything went into a tailspin. I was immediately greeted by a text message from Sharmila telling me she was on her way with Niki to her dancing class and that like every week, I would need to drop Natasha at her classes. In all that excitement of putting in a half marathon, I had completely forgotten about Natasha’s classes!

I had thirty minutes of time and it would take fifteen minutes to reach home. I realized I might be in trouble. Started all sorts of mental calculations – should I keep a few minutes at hand to take a cold shower before I dropped her (I needed to quickly cool down my body temperatures after being in 85 degree direct sunlight for over two hours) or should I grab a lot of carbs for a quick lunch so that I would not faint. (I had dropped 1600 calories at that point of time).

Realizing I did not have much time in hand, I got up to go back to the car. That is when I realized I might have bigger decisions to make. I staggered to the car and started driving. In about two minutes I realized that I needed more recovery time and I was feeling doozy enough that I was going to endanger my and others’ lives. So, I just pulled over to the grass from the road and laid down in the shade of a tree. The spot happened to a minute’s walk from a firestation.

About five minutes later, a gentleman called Sam came by asking if I needed help. I was able to talk fine – I told him I need rest. He suggested we get help in case I have a sun stroke. He and his girlfriend made a call and also called Sharmila to let her know of my status. Soon, we had the cops and ambulance on the spot. By that time, I had started recovering slowly. A quick check of vitals showed there was nothing to panic about. The cops left but the lady in the ambulance hung back suggesting that I do not drive at all and she would wait till somebody showed up for me.

As you might have guessed, figuring out I was not going to go anywhere in a hurry, I just hung back and chatted her up about her life and how she grew up. We talked about the business she and her husband also ran (lawn mowing) and we compared notes of pros and cons of Fitbit, Runtastic (she had one on) and Nike Fuel. Also the challenges of iWatch technology for people with tattoos on their wrists.

Meanwhile, Sharmila had told a few of our friends – Samaresh and Amitesh in particular to see if any of them could reach me earlier than her. Samaresh was the first one on the spot. And he was totally underwhelmed. Here he was expecting to see somebody lying down on the road with all sorts of flashing lights around and people peering into me on the ground. And here I was – now pacing up and down in front of the fire station and stretching my legs 🙂

We decided to go to the Starbucks nearby (I needed some sugar shots quickly). Amitesh with his family and Sharmila and Niki showed up there to meet me. As I looked around, I suddenly realized that not only was this one of my better half marathon practice runs, I do not think in any actual half marathon race, I had had as many people ever come to wish me well 🙂

Meeting up with old friends during business travel? Awesome!!
Running in different beautiful places during business travel? Super awesome!!!
Running with old friends that you don’t meet often in beautiful places during business travel – Priceless!!!

Realizing you have overbooked yourself by promising two different friends to meet up after a long time and run in the same morning? A little crazy 🙂

A very early morning 5K run with good old Neal near the Golden Bridge and then another 5K with Ananya at Crystal Springs trail. Both were unbelievably beautiful run!!

For all that craziness, I did keep up with both of them thru the whole run – each 12-15 years younger than me! I bet you though they have far lesser number of body parts hurting through the whole day 🙂

On May 9nd, 2009, I ran my career best till date 5K (25 minutes 17 seconds) for Run For your Life – a race dedicated to YoungLife (helping our kids grow). This was organized by Greater Johns Creek. Shaved off 15 seconds from my previous best. First two miles were good at 7 min 40 seconds each. The last mile killed me. Details at http://sites.younglife.org/sites/JohnsCreek/default.aspx