My friend Akshay was recently in India. And he got me some coffee beans from there. In fact multiple packets. They are from different estates in southern India (south of Mysore in Karnataka). Note how my friend got the package personalized for me!!

Did a 5K in 92 degrees today. Target was to hit 35 minutes. And one minute shorter for every break. Eventually managed it in 29 min 41 seconds (9:53 min/mile pace) with two breaks. The sun was beating down mercilessly and there was no relief from any breeze.

At the end, when I sat down to take rest in the shade with water, I was getting flashbacks from that time when after a 18 mile run on a hot day, I opened my eyes to see a firetruck and firemen all around me!

My heartbeat reached 176 (which is 109% of my technical max HR). Even after sitting down for 10 minutes, the heartbeat would still not get down from 120 and I was not feeling totally up to it either. Finally, went inside the car, put the AC in full blast and took my shirt off. That cooled down the body very quickly and got my heartbeat to below 100.

Whew! I think I will try to keep these to a minimum!

Remember the T-shirt that I ran my last 5K in? It was blank in the front and in the back, it said “If you can read this, I am not last!”

I have this one for my motorbike rides. It says “If you can read this, SHE FELL OFF!!”

Interrupted by a coffee session with the Chalupa runners group!

Took 1 hour 46 minutes and involved an elevation gain of 938 feet.

And I was dreading seeing one more red light!

Not a classic drink really. It was made up for the Bond movie Casino Royale.

Gin, vermouth and Lillet Franc. (I believe in the movie, it uses Kina Lillet – but nobody makes that anymore)

My school friend – Sanjay Saha – recently introduced me to the Bangla Band – “Joler Gaan”. I did not know of them. But very nice renditions of Bengali folks songs.

পরের জায়গা পরের জমিন, ঘর বানাইয়া আমি রই
আমি তো সেই ঘরের মালিক নই

“Porer jaga porer jomin, ghor banaiya aami roi
Ami to sei ghorer malik noi”

The folk song muses that nothing is really ours. We build “our” house on “our” land… and yet, nothing really is “ours”.

Since Sharmila and I have started spending quite some time in the water, I sat down to do some math. And this is the conclusion I came to: A shark can swim faster than me but I can run faster than it. So, in a triathlon, it will all come down to who is the better cyclist! 🙂 🙂

(not original)

Now I need to figure out how not to collapse.
5K at 9:16 min/mile pace

Found this on the internet. What caught my eye is that this is EXACTLY the curve I am on. Till the fourth point. Exactly in the same sequence. (I would have never thought I would actually move from Apple watch to Garmin!)

Now I am curious about what does “Go Clipless” even mean. Also, can I skip the next step, please?

Honest story – I still can’t get the “Auto” mode button to work in our dishwasher!! Happened last week again when she was in New York!

I think we found him!!

Seriously though, it felt less like flying and more like avoiding weather all the time!

Nikita was in Uganda doing an internship for the summer working with “Set Her Free” – an organization that focuses on creating a future for very young pregnant girls and mothers. (Nikita mentioned some of them were 12 and 13 years world).

She had a bit of a rough time the last couple of days of her stay there with extreme tiredness, catching a cold and all that. From Uganda, she flew to Qatar and then to Washington DC. Originally, she was to come back to Atlanta in a few hours. But because of her health and tiredness – especially after two long flights, she opted to stay with a friend for the night in DC and come back home the next day.

You can see her walking out straight from the customs and immigration in DC airport.

What she had no inkling of is that right behind the pillar was her dad with his iPhone camera on!!

From the previous post you would have gathered by now how I was lurking behind the pillar as Nikita came out of the immigration and customs area in Washington DC airport after two long flights from Uganda.

Keeping a safe distance of a few feet I kept weaving thru the crowd. And then when she reached a less crowded spot, quickly paced up, approached her from her rear right and said “Excuse me!” like I was trying to pass her.

She instinctively said sorry and withdrew to her left.

I made eye contact.

One Mississippi. Two Mississippi.

And that is when the jaw drop happened. I caught a part of her face (you can see in the top part of the picture).

Spent a few minutes with her fellow interns returning from Uganda, took a group picture and came back to my hotel to start my day. She is staying with her friend tonight. And we will go back home tomorrow.

The original idea was that after giving her the surprise on her return from Uganda, she would go to her friend’s place and I would go back to work. Next day, we were going to fly home sitting next to each other. Me listening to all her Uganda stories.

Except, when I woke up at 5AM, FAA had grounded all flights due to the IT issue. Systems were so badly down that I could not even get thru to the airlines’ website or phone calls.

So, we made the best of the situation. Canceled our flight tickets and instead got ourselves a rental car!! And hit the road for a 12 hour journey to hear all the Uganda stories. On the way, we stopped at many rest areas to sit down and some fresh air. And, of course, more stories of a foreign land I have never seen.