Sunday morning run with my Bengali friends – the old Faithfuls – Amitesh, Arup and Samaresh. And then, of course “coffee aar adda” (Starbucks and chatting). Although, Samaresh did bail out of the coffee. There is something to be said about that. For, as a community, we the Bengalis, are not exactly known for prioritizing running over “coffee aar adda” 🙂 In fact, we have a very famous Bengali song about a coffeehouse in Kolkata but none about running 🙂 [Strictly speaking, there is a famous song about Runner – but in Bengali in those days – it meant ‘the postman’ – when mail was delivered by human beings running from village to village]

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 🙂

That was a great race in cold, rainy and very windy morning. I am glad that I showed up – else I would have missed the amazing spirit and resolution people demonstrated to fight back ALS. Beyond pale, it demonstrated that in running – nay, in life, it is not about the gold or silver or bronze… it is about SHOWING UP and then PUTTING UP. And I thank Amitesh for exhorting me to come out to race. Both of us have a couple of friends whose parents are patients of ALS. Our run today was dedicated to them. Ran into good old Melanie who walked with her friend the whole distance honoring her neighbor’s dad who had ALS.

In the race itself, Amitesh posted his career best 5K today. I have to wait for my official time (my Garmin promptly quit citing low battery before the race). Whatever it is, there were two kids – at best fourth graders – who started and finished before me!! There were three hills and they kept running like they were going downhill. That was a little humbling!!!

Today’s proceeds went to Emory ALS Center.

Update: Results are out. Posted  24:57 at a 8:02 clip. That would be 4th in my age group and 32nd overall out of 216 racers.

As I said, it is cold, raining and very windy. I show up to run the race thinking not too many people will be there and this might be my chance to medal a race this year. And I find high school kids to sixty years olds warming up in the rain for the race. And little kids and adults alike in ponchos volunteering to set up the tents, organize food, water!!!
Ah! That indomitable human spirit…. If medicine can’t erase ALS, someday this human spirit will…
Now my turn to step into the rain to warm up…