Tempo Run

I have been running at the same capacity, speed and stamina level for quite some time now. I have been unable to improve my stamina, capacity and times. Even if there have been improvements they are too slow and too little. This is mostly due to the lack of time. Work, travel and lastly my own laziness have been major factors. Lack of good training resources and plans have also led to the stagnation.

So recently I bought two running magazines 'Running Times' and 'Runner's World' that contained lots of training tips and plans. After devouring them front to end, something caught my eye that read 'This "Comfortably Hard" run is key to running your fastest'.

This was an article on 'Tempo Running.' Basic definition of a Tempo Run is that the effort should be "comfortably hard." As in something that is really hard in effort but still do-able and not over the top hard. And it is obviously not something that is comfortable in effort, along the lines of 'comfortably numb' ;-)

Tempo running improves our metabolic fitness. Tempo runs teach the body on how to use the oxygen reaching the muscles more efficiently for metabolism. LT or Lactate Threshold is the level at which the body fatigues. Tempo runs aim to push the threshold higher thus making your muscles better at using the acidic by-products of metabolism. The result is less acidic muscles letting you run farther and faster...

"A classic tempo or lactate threshold run is a sustained, comfortably hard effort." In a tempo run you start with an easy warm up and end with an easy warm down. In the middle you run at a speed that is higher than your average running speed but is a sustainable speed and not your top speed. At this speed you should not end up panting or feel the need to walk in these middle sections. The magazine had a very simple plan that I have started following.
Week 1: 5x3 minutes at tempo pace, 60 second easy jog between each one.
Week 2: 5x4 minutes at tempo pace, 60 second easy jog recovery
Week 3: 4x5 minutes at tempo pace, 90 second easy jog recovery
Week 4: 20 minutes steady tempo pace.

Run!

More Bheja Fry...

In the last panel Hobbes is sort of equal to Ranjeet Thadani and actually even to all of us and Calvin is like Bharat Bhushan...

Bheja Fry...

How irritating is the central character, played by "Vinay Phatak", of Bheja Fry? Oh you better believe it, it is one of the most irritating characters executed in films.

Bheja Fry is an awesome movie that will leave you guffawing throughout and exclaiming "My god, he is so irritating!" The story is about this innocent, downright stupid and obsessive income tax officer who somehow lands in the net of a rich music executive to recruit a bakra/muse for him and his rich friend's weekend stress busting pastime. Bharat Bhushan played by Vinay Phatak (One of the hosts for 'Cricket Crazy') is that bumbling fool who questions "kya idiots insaan nahin hote?" Central to the movie is that fateful night where Ranjeet Thadani (played by Rajat Kapoor from Monsoon Wedding and Dil Chahta Hai) auditions the guy who will turn his world right on its head.

The movie is damn funny and is made that by its dialogues and not by slapstick visuals or anything of that sort. So pay good attention to what is being said and also observe the subtle facial expressions of Vinay Phatak, they are priceless. This guy always goes off track, especially when he is on the phone for a particular reason then without fail he ends up going completely off track driving people insane or frying their bheja ;-)

Go see this movie, it is totally worth it. I wish bollywood made more and more comedies like this. I did hear/read somewhere that this is picked from a french movie but the movie has been adapted enough to fit in the Indian context that it deserves its own merit...

Have a new phone...

...couldn't stand waiting around for the iPhone to make it to India so just went ahead with the 'HTC Touch'. This phone is quite comparable, in terms of features, with the iPhone. It is a totally touchscreen based phone with just 3 small buttons, as you can see below, near the bottom of the phone...

The coolest feature of this phone is the 'TouchFLO' screen. When you slide your fingers on the screen in a certain way the screen rotates to a different desktop. Each of these desktops serves a different purpose, like one of them is the multimedia center which has audio and video launchers. Other one has contacts and so on. By the way the music player's interface is very similar to the iPod interface. The phone has a nice 2.8 inch screen and the videos in landscape mode look really good...

Other than that the phone has Wi-Fi and I've already used Wi-Fi to surf the net without opening the laptop ;-)
This phone has Windows Mobile 6.0 and HTC has worked with Microsoft to provide its own interface, which is pretty striking, and to add the TouchFLO technology...

It has the pocket version of Microsoft Office and can sync with your Outlook email over both wireless and wired interfaces. I haven't used the wireless interface because don't have GPRS nor have the access rights for the corporate email server. But have used the wired interface to sync with my laptop directly and that is pretty straightforward...

Cool device overall, weighs only 112grams, pretty light for a Windows based smartphone and the form factor is quite cool too. It is definitely a tiny device compared to others. The phone is being provided by AirTel in India and also comes with a 1GB micro SD card on which you can store your audio and video files...

TTYL on the Touch ;-)

Nadal can play on grass...

If Federer is the best tennis player of all time and I think he is, then Nadal is a very very close second.

From how the Wimbledon finals played out I agree with what Federer told Nadal at the net "You [Nadal] deserved to win today, but today I [Federer] was the lucky one."

The game was unbelievable. Federer is god, no doubt. No player past or present comes close to him but yesterday Nadal did the unthinkable. He not only matched Federer but was clearly outplaying him. And this is on grass!!! Even when Federer was pulling out all stops, Nadal took the fight to him. I have heard commentators tell many times that Federer wins many matches in the locker room itself. That's how good he is, people come out afraid, and on grass people just wilt in front of him. But Nadal was the Lion on the court yesterday, something even Federer himself couldn't do at Roland Garros this year when he had the chance. All heart man, all heart...

It was just an amazing match, can't remember two players at their peak going at it like this, toe to toe at the same time. Almost every point was worthy of making it to the highlight reel. I personally will remember this match for Federer's record tying 5th consecutive title but will probably remember it more so for the fight Nadal put up...

How smooth is smooth???

Everyone has probably heard of the Gillette Mach 3 shaving razor which have 3 blades. Then some of you might have heard of the Schick brand of razors, Quatro, which has four blades. Well I recently found out that 4 blades is not enough for a smooth shave. You need 5!!!

Gillette probably heard that song 'Smooth' by Rob Thomas featuring Santana and came up with their Gillette Fusion...

5 blades!!!

I think it's time for me to at least chuck my twin blade and graduate to the Mach 3 ;-)

Live Earth

The concerts are live on VH1 in India tomorrow 7.7.07...

London buildings...

London, in terms of buildings, definitely has a really good balance between the old and the new. At many places I saw the two worlds clashing, wierd looking modern buildings of glass and steel standing next to old, elegant, brick and stone buildings, maintaining a pleasing contrast. Here are some examples:

This was visible from the Westminster bridge...


Don't remember where I took this but found the two buildings next to each other very striking...


The next two are while walking from the London bridge to the Tower Bridge on the southern side of the Thames river. The walk from between these two bridges is something I would recommend to everyone. There are a million things to notice there...

Portland Aerial Tram

The aerial tram is a 3 minute ride to the top of a hill to the Oregon Health and Science University and definitely a must see for people visiting Portland. Here are the mountains that were visible...

Mt Hood


Mt St Helens belowing volcanic smoke...

Aww nuts!!!

Manged to finally get one picture in which he was staring straight at the camera and the camera didn't shake :)

Places...

Trillium lake...Trillium was the name of the first company that I worked for after graduation...

Madras!!! Well, I didn't take the 26 East to check if they too have their version of the 'Sarvana Bhavan' ;-)

beaches and waterfalls...

...of Oregon

Oregon...pristine

After covering nearly 600 miles of 'Oregon Scenic Byways' over the weekend, pristine is the word that comes to mind. Pristine in the sense of beauty and serene but also untouched and uncorrupted. How do they manage to keep such vast expanses of natural beauty in so much 'order'?!? Even in the remotest of the places it looks as if someone has just mowed the grass and pruned the trees...

But, no doubt, the place is amazing. The weather was not the best but the drive was totally worth it. I covered the Oregon coast from Newport to Astoria on one day and the Mt Hood scenic loop the other...

On the costal drive the highlight was the Yaquina Head Lighthouse built in 1873. The winds were howling and the view form the lighthouse was nothing because of the heavy fog rolling in but whatever was visible and the lighthouse itself were quite nice...

SF run...

The Twin Peaks in San Francisco were the target of my run in SF. I started running from the Mission street in the general direction of the hills. It wasn't a good idea to run uphill after a week's layoff from running but it was a nice sunny day and very ideal for running. Obviously I got lost but finally did manage to make it all the way up to the hill right besides the Twin Peaks called the Sutro hill which I now found out is about 50 feet taller than the Twin Peaks anyway ;-). The Sutro hill has a huge and very peculiar tower called the Sutro tower on top of it. I had my camera with me in a pouch that fitted very nicely in my hand and took some pictures on the way up and made mental notes of the rest that I wanted take pictures of on the way down, here they are...

This was another one of those steep streets that I ran up. Well I ran up this one but there were several on which it was just not possible to either run up or down. Check out that striking dark red, maroon tree...

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Finally I spotted the Sutro tower right in front of me and I took this without stopping on the way up the final uphill street...

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Below is the 'Transamerica Pyramid' building (taken with 12x digital zoom), a fairly prominent part of the SF skyline...

And lastly the Golden Gate bridge was visible from the top. The bridge is now 70 years old...

Building mural...

This was the mural on the side of a building in SF city. It is one of the best murals I have seen. I don't think the panoramic picture above captures the painting too well. Maybe the close-ups below capture the uniqueness of the painting...