The Day to Remember — First Half Marathon : 14th May 2017.

Well it was the Leeds Half Marathon last Sunday (14th May) and I don’t think I can ever recall being as nervous before a race as I was when I did my first 10km race 2 years ago.

I did completed three 10K’s in Leeds but never participated in Half Marathon. 2 months ago I decided to run for Half Marathon and started practicing for that. My main objective was to complete half marathon (21KM) without break. This is a long distance run and I need to be serious. I started practicing from 10K and increasing 1 KM every week till I reached 16K.

It was an early start for me as I made my way over to Leeds city centre and arrived at around 8.30 am. It had just stopped drizzling and was still somewhat overcast on the walk down from my parking spot. I met my friend Naga and then we headed up to Millennium Square.

By this time the clouds were lifting and the sun was out. We had lot of time at Millennium square to relax. Our warm up started at 9:45 am.

There were 4 zones. Blue numbers to start first then Red followed by Green and then Yellow.

We were in Yellow zone. So we started at 10am.

The first couple of miles were pretty uneventful until we turned onto Stonegate Road at mile 3 and the road took a relatively sharp climb upwards through Meanwood. The crowds at this point provided real encouragement, and bowls of Jelly Babies, and it wasn’t too far before we turned again and headed down to the ring road section.

At mile 4-5, this area is my area I used to stay here last year and I am pretty much aware of this. Also weekend long run I used to cross area. I feel like at home.

Mile 6 is weetwood where my friend stays so that area is also known to me.

Mile 7-8-9 is horsforth area where I used to take my driving lessons.

I was running with my regular consistent pace till 10 miles.

Miles 10-13.1 is Kirkstall Road. This route is also known to me, we did Leeds 10K on this route. And finally then The Headrow at the end and in hot conditions, Kirkstall Road is an oven!

Last one mile, I was like I cannot run any more still I was telling myself that “YOU CAN DO”.

Last 100 meter, after crossing the town hall Hundreds of people were cheering for me.. I feel like Hero 😉  and I started running very fast.

At Finishing line 🙂

I crossed the line in 3 hours 05 minutes and 30 seconds; I was thrilled and really proud that my training and preparation had paid off.

This really was a day to remember. Yes it was hot, yes there were hills (they weren’t that big), but the event was very well organised. I felt great and really enjoyed my running !!

I can proudly show-off my medal and photos.

My Medal & Certificate

Thanks for reading.

Vikram

 

Adorn the speech with quotations, idioms, phrases and proverbs

संस्कृताध्ययनम् ।

It becomes self-satisfying if one’s speech is adorned with quotations, idioms, phrases and proverbs. सूक्तयः (सु + उक्ति = सूक्ति means good saying –> plural सूक्तयः)

A good charming list of some 116 idioms, phrases and proverbs ! I have tried to give my own translations and also some appending comments.

1. अतिपरिचयादवज्ञा (= अतिपरिचयात् अवज्ञा) = Familiarity breads contempt. Beginning of a सुभाषितम् “अतिपरिचयादवज्ञा संततगमनादनादरो भवति । मलये भिल्लपुरंध्री चन्दनतरुकाष्ठमिंधनं कुरुते ॥” meaning, “Familiarity breads contempt and frequenting brings disrespect. (For example) a tribal woman in Malay mountains would burn sandalwood as firewood.”
2. अतिलोभो विनाशाय = Greed will kill (is poison)
3. अति सर्वत्र वर्जयेत् = Excess of anything is bad
4. अति तृष्णा न कर्तव्या = Too much hankering is bad
5. अधिकस्य अधिकं फलम् = More the merrier
6. अनतिक्रमणीया हि नीतिः = Codes should not be transcended
7. अल्पश्च कालो बहवश्च विघ्नाः = Time is short and obstacles are many.
8. अव्यापारेषु व्यापारः…

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The day to remember – Parkrun

Saturday 3rd December 2016, this was a day to remember. It was little bit sunny and 2 degree cold morning at Rounday park, Leeds UK when I started running Parkrun.

I first heard about Parkrun in Jun2015 when I was chatting with one of my colleague Naga on twitter. That time we were practising our first Leeds 10K.

I immediately register for parkrun but could not go roundhay on saturday due to lots of foolish reasons.

On Friday 2nd december 2016, while coming from office I was just discussing about parkrun with Naga and he said let’s go tomorrow. We both found our barcodes without checking any details on Parkrun site we just reached to the venue thinking that it starts at 9:30. we reached there at 9:20am and saw most of the people are completing their run and heading back home :(.

We still ran and completed our first 5K run. I was not able to scan my barcode because by time I complete my run they closed the run. So it is not my official first parkrun.

With that, I was started. Our first run was a bit of a nightmare. We weren’t fully prepared, we weren’t used to running Parkruns, but we got up, we did it and we finished.

Naga could manage to complete within their time and could log his time in Parkrun 🙂

I have seen people wearing T-shirt with 50, 100, 250 then I asked one of them then got to know they belongs to that club and you can not buy that T-shirt but you need to earn it. They ran that many parkruns. Wow !!

My Stava link

My Parkrun details

Oh well.. there’s always next week. And another… and another… till we get to 100 Parkruns. Then 250. Then 500………

I am hoping I will have PB every run 🙂

Hope to see more Parkruns in futures.