Fantasy Boarding Announcement

Ladies & Gentlemen:

Welcome to Jet Stream flight JS 678. Your flight will be ready for boarding in few minutes. Please listen to this announcement in its entirety before crowding the boarding area.  I have been told to personally assure you that all of you in the gate area have an assigned seat and no one else is going to usurp it from you; most importantly, the flight isn’t leaving without you.

We will be boarding by many categories. Some have been identified as appropriate by our airlines operations staff; others, we have introduced in keeping with times. Please be assured that each of you will find yourself in one of the categories - do board only when your category is called.

First, we will board families with infants and young children, as well as elderly passengers and others who need special assistance. Right after them, we will welcome families with adorable but not so young children whose parents pretend to have the need for special assistance for them.  Alongside, we will accept somewhat elderly looking but perfectly able people who try to masquerade as disabled passengers.

Next, we will welcome our first class and Titanium class members of our frequent flyer program. Please give room for the Titanium frequent flyers, they demand their well-earned privilege and will rip us apart if something were not to happen to their satisfaction.  By us, I mean not just us airlines staff, but potentially you as well. For your own safety, if not for ours, please, stay away from them.

Business class passengers and Zirconium class frequent flyers will board next. Everything I said about Titanium class frequent flyers is applicable for this group too. Let’s give them their space, shall we?

Helium class members will be invited to board next. If I told you to be scared of our elite Zirconium and ultra-elite Titanium class frequent flyers, I’d say be terrified of the Helium class folks. They are Zirconium and Titanium wannabes, but at this time,  just a lot of hot gas. Consequently, they tend to be explosive. As a rule of thumb, just stay away from our road warriors. You don’t think earned the title of warriors for no reason, did you?

We will board by zones following these elite members. We do believe the zones are a good way to efficiently board. When Zone 1 passengers are called, we also will accept Zones 2, 3, 4 & 5 passengers who ignore everything around them by pretending to listen to music and sneak past us. Likewise, when we call Zone 2, we will accept Zones 3, 4 & 5 passengers as well, this time employing alternate tricks such as being engrossed in the book they are reading.  Zones 3, 4 & 5 will follow them. But who cares, right? The boarding area typically is near empty by this time. It’s as though a significant portion of our passengers have a sudden loss of comprehension of English language.

When I call Zone 5, if anyone is actually left in the boarding area, I’ll be damned! Do you realize you are the true elite? You haven’t lost your ability to understand English; you have infinite patience that will come in handy every day of your life. I bet you are truly satisfied and happy with life and take things in your stride with a smile in your face.  I will personally ensure your hand luggage finds place inside the cabin – our airline has an area by the first class cabin earmarked for your luggage! Tell you what, we will give a free round trip ticket in our airline to anywhere we fly.

Ladies and gentlemen, Jet Stream flight JS 678 is now ready to board. 

2010 DK Silicon Valley Marathon

Sunday, October 31, 2010 – Halloween Day!

3rd year in a row at the Silicon Valley Half Marathon…. And another year where my performance was almost identical to the previous 2 years. Again placed 48 in my age group, I completed this one in 2:13:45, slightly behind the 2:10 that I did earlier. What made this effort more than respectable was that I did this run with a gout attack. For those of you who are new to gout, it is very painful and disabling – fortunately, the attack had come not in one of the classic locations – that would have made me bail out of the race, but behind the heel allowing me to run. With the pretty strong medication, I was amazed at the fact that I was able to run, let alone being close enough to last year!

2010 Official Results

Just a few days back, on 20th, I ran with the legendary Dean Karnazes himself. It was a practice 5 mile run in Stanford, along with several others registered for DKSVM. Dean was such a down to earth nice person; for all his accomplishments, he had no airs about himself… I guess truly great people are truly humble! He was there on Oct 31st also and he kicked off the Halloween run wearing Pheidippides costume commemorating the 2500 year anniversary of the first marathon!

This year, my goal is to run every single week of the year. So far, so good… another 8 to go and I hope to end the year doing about 700 miles. More interestingly, I experimented with bare foot running this year. Having clocked more than 60 barefoot miles this year, I can say that it is actually a pleasure to run bare foot… except that the number of locations I can run is limited to ONE - a fully synthetic and rubberized running track in Campbell! I know I inspired at least one other person to experiment bare foot running.

That’s it, folks! I appreciate you talking the time to read and comment. Keep those feet moving… you will be glad you did!

2009 Silicon Valley Half Marathon

Sunday, 25th October 2009


I successfully completed the Dean Karnazes Silicon Valley Half Marathon – my 3rd long distance run. This had been a year of learning to run with injuries – or rather, recover from them and get back on the feet at the earliest. In that sense, I am grateful that I was able to compete and complete the DKSVM race with a decent timing of 02:10.

02:10…. Interesting! It matches my 2008 run to the minute!! Almost to the second!!! The run experience was a close repeat of the 2008 race as well. What are the odds of that!

Since I didn’t change (well, other than aging by a year), I thought I will do a comparison between this year’s and last year’s results to see how the world has changed around me...

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	2009	2008
Overall Time	02:10:10	02:10:04
First 6 miles	00:55	00:55
Hardest 3 miles	9,10,11	10,11,12
Overall Place	410 out of 927	484 out of 982
Division Place	48 out of 71	53 out of 78

Certainly looks like I am statistically better off in 2009 over 2008!

2009 Official Results

Still 2 more months to go in 2009. In spite of the injuries and the mandatory time I had to take off from running, it looks like I will beat my 2008 stats (652 miles / 1050 kms). More on that towards the end of this year.

A Christmas Day experience like no other

We had just finished our stay in Death Valley and were leaving the place on our way home on the Christmas day. It was extremely windy and quite a bit of dust was getting blown around.

We were going to drive from Furnace Creek to Rhyolite, the largest “ghost town” still standing in the Death Valley area on the Nevada side of the border. The winds were quite strong – the note I read in the visitor center said gusts up to 50 mph! On top of it, lot of sand and dust was getting blown around. As if driving the straight roads below sea level for miles together wasn’t good enough, the dust storm produced a haze around us that was surreal… You notice that I am refraining from using the term sand storm – as interesting the dust storm was, it was no where close to the sand storms I had experienced in Pilani during my school days in 1980s. It was bright, sunny and a warm 68 ºF when we left Furnace Creek.

The road to Rhyolite took us over the Daylight Pass, about 4000 sq. ft. above the sea level. It was a short 45 minute ride, but by the time we reached Rhyolite, it was 42 ºF, cold and the winds that were blowing up the dust in Death Valley was making us shiver! On top of it, there were stretches of road where we were the only vehicle as long as our eyes could see.

On a whim, we decided to drive by Las Vegas, even if only for couple of hours before heading for our night stay at Barstow, CA. The moment we entered Las Vegas, it was like a slap in the face… from miles and miles of solitude, we had to crawl in the strip amidst bumper to bumper traffic! When Jaya & I hiked the Golden Canyon earlier in the day, we were the only two people in the canyon for couple of hours with absolute peace and quiet. In contrast, making our way through the crowded gaming area in Circus Circus, we had to avoid a human every step of the way!

Our early night drive from Las Vegas to Barstow took us over the Mountain Pass. It was raining from the time we left Las Vegas. By the time we had reached the top of the pass, the precipitation had turned into freezing rain with occasional flurries and the outside temperature was reading 33 ºF.

From the solitude of Golden Canyon to the crowds of Las Vegas… from the dust storm in Death Valley to the freezing rain later in the night… 25th December 2008 was a day like no other.

Fri, 12th Dec: 1000 kms in 2008

Sometime in April, I realized that if I put my mind to it, it might be possible to do 1000 kms of running by the year end. It was especially gratifying last Friday when I went past that milestone with 2 weeks to spare. I intend now to end the year with a 20 km/week average and hit 1040 which will serve as a nice little tax reminder for me!

This was the 2nd year of serious running for me. I had not logged my runs in 2007. In April, I read an article about an Air Marshal who had logged 89,000 kms since starting his running in his late 40s over a 3+ decade period. I am not afraid of setting lofty goals, but I want to throw in a sense of realism in my goal setting.

1000 kms was the first goal.

I will switch out of metric and shoot for 1000 miles in 2009.

2008 highlights
Number of days ran: 159 days or 44% days of the year
Total Distance ran: 1050.2 kms or 656.38 miles
Longest run: 21.08 kms or 13.1 miles
Best week: Week 42, 33.25 kms or 20.67 miles
Competitions participated in: 2 [Sunfeast 10k and Silicon Valley Half Marathon]

Silicon Valley Half Marathon

Sunday October 26, 2008.

I decided to take part in the SV Half Marathon two weeks before the event after having regularly logged ~15 miles per week for the past several weeks. I didn't formally train for the event, but felt that the general fitness level I had ought to be sufficient to do this run - possibly better the timing from the 26k Bangalore Ultra I did in 2007.

During my regular runs, I was steadily doing better than 10 minute miles (more closer to 6 minute kilometers). I completed the longest preparatory run of 10.3 miles in 104 minutes - 10.09 minute per mile. I set a goal of 2:10 - 2:15 minutes to complete the race.I got off to an excellent start, completing 3 miles in 28 minutes, 6 in 55 minutes and 8 in 75 minutes. Could I do it in 2:05? During the next two miles, I maintained 10 minute miles but was slowing down a bit - the right knee was having a mild pain. I didn't want to injure myself; but I was doing my best timing yet and was getting motivated to somehow push for 2:10. A "gu" bar at the 6 mile marker and a sip of gatorade or something similar was all I had until 9 miles. The 11th and 12th miles were probably 11+ minute miles. The final mile and a chance to push for an overall average of 10 gave me the boost to push ahead - the guntime showed 2:10:59 as I crossed the finish line and I knew I had an excellent chance of having made the 2:10 race time.

Right as I entered home, Jaya told me that I had done 2:10:04 - I was thrilled. This timing, a personal best, was far superior to my performance in the Bangalore Ultra 26k and at the end of the race, I felt comfortably tired, if there is such a thing!

Here is a link to the official race timing.
Official Result

For those in RFL who read this blog, I will tell you - I certainly will miss running the 2008 Bangalore Ultra. Taking part in the 2007 ultra and incorporating running into my life was instrumental in my achievement today. While this run was very well organized, there is definitely a charm and closeness in the RFL group and events - and the Hessaragatta course is awesome. Good luck to those who are running in November.

Cheers
Suresh

BIAL Run

It was too good an opportunity to pass up RFL's run on Sunday, Jan 13th at the new Bangalore International Airport that's coming up in Devanahalli. Afterall, how often will you get an opportunity to brag to your fellow passenger before takeoff and landing that you've actually run where the aircraft you are in is at that moment:)? I had to leave home by 4:15 am to catch the bus from Cubbon Park at 5:00 am and reaching the airport in time for an early start.

Our run was on the runway that was 4 kms long; we started along the taxiway, going to one end of the runway and running all the way to the other end before turning back on to the taxiway and returning to the starting point, making it an 8 km loop. It was chill and slightly foggy when we started at 7 am; the runway runs east-west; it was awesome to see the suns rays on the mountain on our right as we ran due west. The greenery around the runway was very pleasant. I can definitely tell you that the takeoff and landing in the new airport will be a very nice experience. Nice doesn't mean it will come anywhere close to the breathtaking beauty of SFO; but it will be nice and probably the best in India. I completed one full loop and did a smaller 2nd loop totalling about 15 kms in 110 minutes. It was good to have the knee behave reasonably well and not trouble me like it did during the Ultra.

Of course, this blog wouldn't be complete without my impressions of the new airport. We were given a tour of the new terminal by Marcel Hungerbuhler (the COO of the project, a runner himself) and his staff. The single terminal building has 9 aero bridges with the departure on the left and arrival on the right; 7 baggage carousels; lots of shopping & dining options. Everything we saw was state of the art. The airport can handle ~10 lakh passengers per month, a number that was doubled from the 5 lakh passengers at the beginning of the project without compromising the launch date. The financial stakeholders in the BIAL project are Siemens (Germany & India), L&T India, Zurich Airport, Karnataka Government and Airport Authority of India. The technology stakeholders are largely L&T and Siemens. With 77 days to go, I am reasonably confident that the terminal will get completed in time. Otherwise, Marcel had better not be running with us today :). Seriously, during the tour, we were given to understand that the Zurich airport looked in far worse shape 30 days before the opening than does BIAL now. What is definitely troubling is that there is still ~5km of kachcha road from NH7 to the airport that needs to be fixed; the NH7 - Airport road interchange is looking far from complete; there are couple of overpasses being built on NH7 that will take time to complete. You can read up lot more on BIAL from the following link - http://www.bialairport.com/

How long it is going to take to reach the new airport? Well, from the outermost point in the city, the Hebbal flyover, it will take about 30 - 40 minutes. You need figure the time to take to get there from where you live in Bangalore - for us, living in the eastern end of Bangalore, it will take 40 - 60 minutes by the Outer Ring Road. So, anywhere from 1:15 minutes to 2 hours for us. A far cry from the the 30 minute luxury we enjoy today. Is the new airport going to worth the additional commute? I am impressed enough to give it a shot in Q2 for my US trip - or then again, it could be to exercise my bragging rights!

Run Statistics
~15 kms in 110 minutes at 8.2 km/hr.