Don't sprint the marathon

Don't sprint the marathon is not the 'run-of-the-mill' self-help book targeted for all and sundry, but is aimed at overzealous and ambitious parents who relentlessly push their children towards 'success'. The author, V Raghunathan, painstakingly explains that, for most part, all the small things in life do not matter in the long run and it is the attitude and the innate passion that made people like N.R. Narayanamurthy and GM Rao  stand out from the rest.

As the blurb on the back cover says, the title of the book does sound very obvious and intuitive,  but then as one of my colleagues, Patrick Marion, mentioned to me once - Knowing does not mean doing.  To that end, I do believe that this book is worth a read for all parents of school doing children.

While I did enjoy the small anecdotes and examples of the numerous 'achievers', I do have my complaints. It clearly appears to me that a lot of the messages intended for the audience get repeated over and over again in the book. The real-life stories apart, this book could have been condensed to less than 50 pages instead of the 170 odd pages as it stands now.

My take on this book - Pick this up from a library and read it; clearly not required for one's personal collection.

What I talk about when I talk about running

When I came across this book in my library, and noticed that the blob contains keywords "running" and "memoir",  I had no choice but to pick it up.  Having been running myself and jotting down memoirs of the same, I could not have resonated more.

And the book did not let me down. There were several instances/episodes in the book which I felt could have been typed by myself instead. I will try to list a few of them. Before that, I would like to mention one point -- this review is unlike others in this blog,  I have added a lot of my personal take on the different episodes, unlike others where I have just tried to be more objective.

The first is the author's observation towards the end of Chapter 3, where he says that even after 20 odd marathons, his feelings during the 26.2 mile race have been more or less the same -

• good feeling for the first 19 miles, 
• then the period of pain and frustration, 
• and finally (once the race is completed) forget the entire pain and get pumped for the next race and do things all over again.

I have not run 20 odd marathons, but in the half a dozen I have run till now, I have had exactly the same feeling.
The author goes to great length to dispel the wrong notion among non-runners that runners run because they want to live longer -- he reiterates that runners actually do run because they rather want to live life fuller. Another chord struck right there.


While reading the author's description of both the Athens - Marathon run and also his Ultra (100k) run, I could clearly visualize his feelings,  pain and the relief at the end of the run. I do not know if I will ever attempt a 100K run, but if I do, I really hope that I do it like what he did, a smooth sailing after the 40mile (65K) mark. Nevertheless, it was just great reading those memoirs.



Similarly, the author expresses his anguish at his failed attempt in completing a marathon and blames it on three reasons - Not enough running, Not enough running and Not enough running. I had an almost identical feeling with my failed KTM run.

I liked the quote "Muscles are hard to get and easy to lose. Fat is easy to get and hard to lose". I do not know if there could be any other statement that I agree more :)


The author describes talent, focus and endurance as necessary elements for a successful writing (and possibly other) career and long distance running teaches more than abundantly in those areas. True.


The author lists the following as some of the lessons that he has learned from long distance running.

Some lessons from Running:

• How much can I push myself?
• How much rest is appropriate?
• How much is too much
• How far can I take and still keep it decent and consistent?
• To what extent should I be confident of my abilities and when should I start doubting myself?

It just makes so much sense to me, to the extent that I could even call these as obvious. Though I must add that one keeps raising these questions over and over again and still manages to get more and more relevant answers with each run.

Needless to say, there are a few things where I differ with the author. For completion sake, I list a couple.

• He keeps saying that he does not care about times. While time may not be the the most important element, I doubt if he really just did not care about timings. 
• He says that he gets the runners physique, just by running 5-6 times a week. I do not know if this an universal truth. Even in my peak mileage, I do not think I got any physique, leave alone runner's physique :)

Just before concluding, there is one other episode that I should mention, that kept me pondering for a while. The author admits to succumbing to what he calls as "Runners Blues" after he completed the Ultra and sort of moved away from running for a long period of time. While one part of my brain says that this is non-sense, the other half can clearly see the "sense" of this all. As I mentioned earlier, I do not know if I will ever attempt 100K, but it would be interesting to see what happens to me after such a run, if I attempt one at all and survive!

At the end of the book, the author just concludes saying that he just wanted to be known as a person who never walked. Great thought and a good way to the book.

VALKYRIE the plot to kill hitler - Philipp Von Boeselager

I just completed this book  and I should admit that I was pretty disappointed. The book titles Valkyrie, the plot to kill Hitler, but makes just a passing reference to this plot. No details have been provided on the plot and the book clearly fails to meet the expectations in that front.

The book is in fact the memoirs of Philipp V.Boeselager and in itself a good read to understand the conditions from a German WW2 soldier. The bravery of the soldiers waging a losing war in inhuman conditions, fighting against a Red army who had no scruples sacrificing their civilians to exhaust opposition's ammunition, the bravery of captured soldiers not spilling the beans and revealing co-conspirators even in the face of severe Gestapo torture -- the book is replete with such touching episodes.

On the plot to kill Hitler and the role played by the author and his friends, I tend to fully agree with the assessment  this article. In particular, I agree that one gets a felling that a lot of details have been willingly left out of the book, thereby reducing its 'authenticity' value. In addition, the high moral value and claims by the author seem a bit superficial. For example, the author keeps mentioning that he was not well informed about the atrocities committed by the Nazis in the early 1940's and that his focus was only on carrying out his military responsibilities. This is a pretty difficult argument to buy. In short, I do feel that the moral claims in this book are questionable -- one gets a feeling that something is amiss and theory pretty unconvincing.

In summary, this book is a decent read as long as the expectations are set correct - the reader should not expect to get details on the Valkyrie plot, but should just read it as memoirs of an German soldier in WW2 and leave it at that.

Auroville Marathon

Well, I really wanted to write more than just my marathon experiences, but given that I just finished one, I had to write about it. This time, it was the Auroville Marathon on 13th Feb, 2011.

I wanted to run Auroville Marathon last year itself, but given that I had finished my first Marathon in more than a couple of years at Mumbai in January 2010, I was not very confident of doing two marathons in two months. So, I just passed it, but heard from all people who ran that this was an amazing trail and too good to miss. So, I was determined that I run it this time around, now that I already had 5 marathons in my bag.

I was a little lax in registering for the race and by the time I eventually got to do it, I found that all hotels in Pondicherry were full and I had no option but to stay with my uncle in Cuddalore, about 24 K from Pondicherry. I took the night bus on 11th Feb and reached Cuddalore on Saturday morning. Since it was pretty early in the morning, I decided to walk the distance (about 2K) to my uncles house from the bus stand.

After relaxing a bit, I left for Pondicherry by around 11AM to collect the running bib. I was waiting for the bus at the bus-stand where I just saw one bus after the other pass by, but none bothering to stop. After a while I realised that buses do not stop there during the day time, but only during early mornings and late nights. So, I walked to the next bus stop and caught the next bus. It was overflowing and for the first time in several years, I did a foot-board travel. It was a good experience but given that I am no longer in my college days, I got inside the bus at the first opportunity. I had to stand all along (about 45 mins travel),  but it was not too bad.

Once I reached Pondicherry bus-stand, I quickly got into another bus that went close to Auroville. That was another 25 mins travel. I needed to collect my bib from the Visitor's centre and I already saw a lot of people coming , who probably were making their way back after collecting their bibs. I enquired the flower vendor for the directions and she told me that the visitor's center was a solid 8K away. For some reason, I chose not to believe her and asked another man on a bike. He told me that it is about 4K and that if I walk for a kilometer or so, I would find a lot of vehicles going that way. So, I set off walking the first K. The first K slowly became the second and third K and then I enquired at a shop. That fellow assured me that the visitor's center is about 2K away and so I set off again. I could see a lot of Karnataka cars coming the other way and I was just looking to get to my destination which never seem to be in sight. I finally asked one more person who said it was another 1K and by the time I reached the visitor's center, I had clearly walked close to 8K. . I quickly picked up the bib and was wondering how to get back to Pondicherry. I asked one of the organizers and he was gracious enough to drop me in the depot from where buses were scheduled to depart to pick up marathoners from the city for the dinner. I waited in the depot for about 30 minutes and then got into the bus and got dropped at the bus stand. Again, I had to stand all the way to Cuddalore and by the time I got home it was close to 5:30PM, clearly more than 2 -3 hours later than what I would have liked. Given all the walk I did in the morning, this 10K walk was clearly not in my to-do plans for the day before the race day.

As with most of the pre-race nights, I had a pretty disturbed sleep and I woke up several times before eventually getting up at 3PM. I had booked a taxi and he came in at 3:15AM and we set off at around 3:20PM. I was hoping to catch a wink or two, but the driver was in a pretty talkative mood and I  was awake the whole distance to Auroville. We reached at around 4:05AM and the first set of runners were just coming in. Slowly, the runners trickled in and I met Vishy, Prateek, Sundar and a few other Bangalore runners. The race started off at 5AM and it was pitch dark and we were running with a torch in our hands. It was infact a very curious feeling -- to run with the torch on one hand and the water bottle on the other. The trail was amazing, but could not make out much because of the darkness. Also, my average pace was considerably slower than SCMM for the first one hour or so. When it dawned, it was more than an hour or so later and the sight was amazing. We running through the forests and a little later on residential quarters.  When I completed my first lap, it was about 2:12,  much slower than my time at the half way mark at Mumbai.

In all the races that I have run before, I had always had to walk towards the end and I did not expect anything better here as well. And given that my first half was slower, I clearly felt I had no chance of finishing below 4:30 and was bracing for a more 4:45 like finish. I kept pushing myself to run till 35K and then walk if required. Then a lucky break happened. I met Vishy at around the 32K mark, or rather he caught up with me, and he was running a solid controlled pace. I just decided to stick with him as much as I could and that turned out to be a great move. I kept pace with him till about the 39K mark and then walked a bit after the 39K. Vishy continued and he went on to finish by 4:26. After the walk, I started running again and somehow pushed myself to run till the end and when I touched the end tape, I was surprised to see that I had clocked 4:27, about a minute faster than the Mumbai time. Was it an amazing feeling? 

P.S. I eventually realized that I clocked 4:27:52 and so it was about 10 seconds faster than SCMM and not a minute faster, but still a P.B :)

SCMM 2011

Last weekend, I did my 5th marathon - Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon 2011. Of all the marathons in India, SCMM is beyond doubt the most renowned and the biggest of them all. And to add to that, this probably is one of the very few marathons in India where the whole city comes out in vociferous support for the runners.  Needless then to say, this is one marthon in the "to-run" list of most runners in India.

The run up to the race itself was muddled with a lot of confusions and uncertainties. First the train ticket did not get confirmed till the last day (in spite of having been booked almost three months in advance). Then there was the nagging cold and cough which I contracted exactly four days before the race and one that threatened to only get worse by the day. The third was the unexpected hospitalization of my aunt, with whom I was planning to stay.  Luckily, I was able to work around these and for my cold, I just took a chance hoping that the cold will not cause too many problems during the run.

I had my uncle's driver drop me close to VT on the race day, around 5:30 AM and in the morning and as I walked towards Azad maidan, the starting place for the race, I met Shantanu, Prateek and Anjana, fellow Bangalore runners. The place, as like the previous year, was buzzing with activity and enthusiasm and that atmosphere alone is worth experiencing.

The race started at 6:15AM and I ran the first KM or so a little slower, primarily because of the traffic. I gradually picked speed  and maintained a steady pace thereafter.  I am not by any yard stick, a veteran runner, but having run a few marathons before, I have always felt a similar pattern to my thinking during long runs. The first few K's, the mind jumps around, all doubts creep in, all question marks raised. Once this period is overcome, then comes the next stretch where you do a steady run, the mind sort of goes blank and you just enjoy the running to the maximum. Then at around the 25K or so, when the tiredness start creeping in, the mind comes to party again. It keeps playing games with body, often forcing the body to walk at stretches where it could have easily run and the frequency of such games between the mind and the body keeps increasing till the end of the race. I had pretty much the same experience this time as well. I was worried that I might feel totally tired and exhausted because of the cold in the first few kilometers and once the mind was convinced that this was not the case,  I  entered the steady phase. This continued till the sea link where the third phase started. I started to do little walks and the frequency of such walks kept increasing as the race progressed. I had set myself a personal target of 4:30 hours for the run and had thoroughly convinced myself that I will be happy with that timing, given the cold, cough etc. In the end, I think that hampered my final timing more than it helped me. Towards the end of the race, it was pretty apparent that I was going to do well inside 4:30 and so my mind convinced me to do a lot more walks than needed. In retrospect, I should easily done 5 - 10 minutes faster if I had pressed a little more harder.  Nevertheless, when I completed the race, it was below 4:30 and I really felt good.

I wanted to dedicate this race to two of my aunts, coincidentally both of them reside in Mumbai. One is my mother's sister and the other is my father's sister.  The former has been a tremendous source of inspiration for me for her toughness and the way she faced and overcame the various kind of hardships that was thrown to her incessantly all through her life.  The second aunt could have easily passed of Aunt Dahlia, of Bertie Wooster fame, not in the "scariness context", but more from the "I know what is good for my nephew much more than he does and I will get him to do it" context. She is a very close to me and the kind of care she showed, right to how I should get rid of my cold to what I should eat before the race, was amazing. She in fact took a hour and a half long train ride from her home to VT to see me complete the race, though unfortunately, she missed her train and came in after I completed the race. Nevertheless, she was affection personified.   

Head First Design Patterns

For any professional programmer,  knowledge of Design Patterns is necessary not only designing efficient solutions to problems, but also to add to his vocabulary while interacting with other technical architects as these terminology have found widespread usage in design discussions.

Head First Design Patterns is clearly not the book that a design pattern veteran would pick up, nor will it ever be the go-to book when you want your hands on a reference book on the subject. And the book clearly mentions that it is not written with this intent. Rather, this book is for somebody who wants to get an idea of what these design patterns are -- not just their definitions, but more practical explanations such that people do not forget these definitions once they close the book. And I should  say that this book meets this goal.

The book covers 13 design patterns in detail and each and every one of them is explained based on a (though sometimes overly synthetic) problem with accompanying Java code. Patterns are introduced gradually in each chapter within the context of solving a specific problem, rather than traditional approach of defining them first and then following it up with an example. I think this is a pretty good approach. The one let down is that though there are exercises at the end of the chapters,  for most part, I feel that they are a little trivial and could have been made a little more challenging.

At the end of the day, this is a book which I would whole heartedly recommend for anybody just learning design patterns or somebody who is staring at a problem and wants to quickly check if any of the design patterns would fit the bill.

Bye 2010, Welcome 2011

Another year and it is time to reflect back if I have grown one year wise or just one year old. Pretty difficult question, I should say.  I am not going to try and fool myself answering this question one way or other, instead let me try to list down some of things that come to my mind as to how 2010 progressed.

The three marathons that I ran this year should definitely qualify as one the highlights of this year, with each race being a challenge in itself. Mumbai 2010 was my first marathon in two years and I need to overcome the mental demons as much as the physical challenges. SFO in July 2010 was an unexpected marathon and so I was not clearly as prepared as I would have liked to. Also, this was marathon was after a long layoff due to the shoulder surgery and given the course, this was a difficult race to run. Finally my first 50K race at Ultra in November.  Needless to say, any distance after 42.2K is challenging and 50K was a real challenge. That I did them, though not necessarily with exceptional timings, but without any injury was real satisfaction.

On the work front, this was a reasonable year -- Could certainly have been better, but it was not too bad either. We had one aborted release and one release hitting production. Though the reasons for the postponement of our first release were beyond our control, it was  pretty disappointing. Glad that we were able to put that behind and actually get our stuff into production in the next release. Also, this was my first ever year as a "Manager". Though I had only two people reporting to me and these were smart people (luckily) who did not need much management, it was definitely a new experience. I think, looking back, I did enjoy this position, though I am not sure if I am cut out to being a manager for a much larger team.

If there is one clear area that I would clearly like to improve upon next year, that must be to improve my self-discipline. Identifying what needs to be done has not been as difficult as actually going ahead and executing them. As a result, some of the stuff that I earnestly wanted to do in 2010 -- reading (both technical and non-technical stuff), writing,  or gymming (to name a few, there are many many more) -- all suffered. It was clearly a lack of discipline and laziness.

At the end of the day (or should I just say year), I think the only one resolution for me would be is to be self-disciplined, sacrificing the immediate pleasure for the long-time needs.  It is obvious that if I can get this done, I should be able to define and achieve all I set out to this year, professionally and personally, without much ado. As with any other self development trait, this is much easier said than done. Only time will tell and I really hope it tells good news :) 

P.S. I have started a new blog to keep track of the books that I read this year and sort of take notes on them. That should give my grades at the end of the year of how well I have kept up my resolution.