Another great turnout from Chalupa running group. 20 folks showed up. Which is commendable since many participated in the Vibha race yesterday.
Hats off to the new leaders of the group – Malobika, Sudakshina and Samaresh for successfully roping Debjyoti in. Last time he showed up was over four years back!!
There is a certain Jasmine that has been threatening to show up for quite a few weeks… Ahem… 🙂
Went to run Vibha Dream Mile 5K with quite a few Sunday morning running group friends this morning. The organizers were very inept. As a result most of us in the front were sent the wrong way after completing a couple of miles. A lot of aspiring kids and regular runners wanting to put in a well-timed run were totally disappointed when they realized that they were sent the wrong way. I was really upset to see a dejected kid pull out of the run and start walking when he realized he has much longer to go.
After doing two rounds instead of one, when we all finally got to the right direction, a bunch of us asked the organizers “What happened?”. The organizers immediately threw the city under the bus citing restrictions that the city evidently put.What that has got to do with a team of volunteers – not at one turn – but at two different turns – when specifically asked for directions – guiding a whole bunch of runners in the wrong way, we could not understand. So much for grace from the organizers.
This is certainly my last Vibha Dream Mile run 🙁 If I want to get lost in my running route, I can do that by myself 🙂 If I am going to give my money and time to an ill-organized run, I would rather give it to the smaller runs where the local parents and kids organizing runs for school and church are a lot more graceful.
On the plus side, in my quest to find the 5K end line, I kept on running at 5K pace and then realized that I actually did my personal best 5 mile run at 41 mins 26 seconds 🙂 Sometimes, I can be tricked into my best performances 🙂
Last evening, I was a speaker at an event – I know, I can fool some people some time 🙂 . In any case, I reached there a little early to avoid traffic and settled down at a nearby bar with a glass of wine to work the pitch out in my mind.
This was a bar where the servers did not wear name tags. Which was a bummer since I like to address a person by his or her name to say thanks when leaving.
So, to be smart, I tried to quickly glance at the receipt to see the name of this elderly lady who was serving me. It was Anne. But I was struck by what name she had given me without asking my name 🙂
I did get her to take a picture of me – so I could put this post together !!
So after all the Starbucks names, I have a new name – The Pink Shirt Guy!!
One thing I often ask myself is what will I regret most when I am in my my deathbed. More often than not, I have concluded that spending more time with my kids and wife would be number one. Number two would be that I never got a chance to keep up with so many other people who crossed my life and made me in so many imperceptible ways the person I am (remember “intersection points”?).
But I have been curious about what I might be missing. So often, I ask elderly people what are the lessons they have for me. And once I got into real trouble because the daughter of this elderly person thought that my question was focusing on her parents’ mistakes (with the negative connotation).
Nothing could be further from the truth. Regrets, or mistakes of others can often be the best guiding star and narrating our regrets can often be the best guidance we can give others.
Finally, I came across something that satisfies my curiosity.
Bronnie Ware, an Australian nurse who spent many years working in palliative care caring for those who were dying had many many conversations with her patients till they died. She eventually summarized her conversations in a book called the “The Top Five Regrets of the Dying”
They were (with my self grades)
1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. (I would give myself a B+ maybe even A- on this)
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. (At best C+ for me)
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings. (D- 🙁 )
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. (Maybe I will give a A- on this)
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier. (Around B to B-)
Do you see me that way?
How would you grade yourself?
If you change nothing in your life, would you have some other regrets we should learn from?
Returning home from New York. Ergo puzzle time. Today’s is a simple yet challenging problem.
Think of the various pairs of two numbers you can make using the digits 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 (each used only once) e.g. (2345, 16789) or (743, 821569) and so on.
Which is the pair (of two numbers) has the maximum product value (compared to other pairs)?
Trying to heal my left knee, I have been alternating between the Merrel barefoot shoes and the Nike Frees. To test the knee, put in a non-stop 10 mile (16K) run in 95 minutes. 17,500 steps and 1550 calories later, the knee is holding up strong. The lungs, on the other hand, are not amused 🙂
After the run, made friends with a fellow runner, Karen – who is training for her half marathon. She took this picture of me taking rest after the run.
There is a Bengali word to describe my condition – “biddhhosto” 🙂
(The title of this blog was inspired by a terrible cross-language pun by my friend Narayan – who co-authored the Wall Street Journal crossword thus Friday)
