Young Vadakkencherry!

It's been a long time since i blogged and i thought today was the right day. Simply because - read on and you'll know why!

There was this small,fat and cute boy who goes to a school 16KM away daily in the local bus. He has never been to the school alone - always accompanied by his mom. Why? She was also a teacher in the same school - Chinmaya Vidyalaya, Pallavur.


His pranks were less - with the tiny tot fears of being caught directly by his mom. But yes, still he was caught multiple times - there was a time when he along with his friends were caught red handed by the principal and made to stand in front of the principal's room for hours just before his annual exams. Imagine his plight when his mom entered the room to see her son there instead of writing the exams!

The best ones came in Class IX when his mom was his mathematics teacher. Imagine him using these phrases

"Good Morning Teacher"
"May I come in Teacher?"
"How many of us have this luck of your examination paper getting corrected in front of you by your teacher / mom at your home!"

The gr8 one - getting thrown out of the class by my teacher mom, for making so much disturbance! Can this fellow really be a prankster?


Yes, there were those bad moments, but very few of them.

Many of them were bright and happy moments - My mom was my best teacher. I just love to sit in her class and that may be why Mathematics was my best subject. Love you, Mom!

How many of us would enjoy the below moments? Rare!
- my friends flocking around me to know their exam marks before hand. after all i'm the teacher's son!
- seniors buying me chocolates to help them :)
- other teachers not punishing me so much just b'cos i was their friend's son!

This is the pic of my Class IX with my mom as my class teacher and the school principal. Spot me if u can?


Awesome naa..?

Then come the examination times - after every exam, i was treated to a Kerala Paratha and Peas Masala plus Banana Bajji(my old time favorite) from Goodlands restaurant and a 3-in-1 Ice-Cream from Amrita Ice-cream Parlour (it was called Parlour then!) These were gr8 moments and the best places in my home town - Vadakkencherry.

I used to be the happiest person then - the last 30 mins spent by me in every exam was not revising the paper - but thinking about what ice-cream flavors to choose today...

There are so many such happy memories. My mom cheering me @ annual day in my school when i used to get the proficiency prizes is still fresh in my mind. On those days it used to be double treats...!

Yes, I remember them very clearly today - Or @ 7 PM, only a crazy guy will be blogging from Office in Lowell, MA with his system test running in background. :)

Dunno why, memories kept on crossing my mind - one by one it rolled over like a touring talkies which made me post this.
As years went ahead, the memories remained in my mind and in pictures.

The boy grew and looks entirely different today - many words to describe him - the best one being "Dev D II mein role pakka hai".


Those times were the best - lots of friends, lots of happiness and lots of treats! Wish those times return!

This post is perhaps the fastest i've written as I just wrote whatever came across my mind with no intentions of editing them out.

And this one is for my Mom, My School, Goodlands restaurant and Amrita Ice Cream Parlour.

Moving on.... till then Mr. Aswinkumar Vadakkencherry signing off....!

My first Bangalore Ultra!

I know it's been exactly 2 months since i updated my blog! Everyone has a excuse and so do i - busy in work (the most regular one).
After a steady and successful kaveri trail marathon, the thoughts of doing a 50K run at bangalore ultra started. With the new found fellow runner, i thought i can do it.Think again my boy - you only have experience of running half marathon and the longest is 25K. my mind was going circles with + and -. But then RFL came up with a category of 37.5K run which suited me perfectly. Pradeep (he ditched me in the last moment by participating in 25K!) and me started training around a month back. But even during the trainings, the maximum i had run was only 21K!
Then came the day of the run - it started with us meeting with a small accident (my mistake) near my office on way to the run location. Pradeep's jaws were bleeding! what a start to the eventful day...

4AM - The bus was ready at cubbon park to take us to Hesargatta. It was full of runners many of them doing their first ultra. I had many with me for a company!
5.15AM - Reached hesargatta. Doctors reached in 10 mins and put plasters in Pradeep's jaws - said it was a light bruise. My heart felt happy now finally after 1 hour of tension in the bus.
5.35AM - still pitch dark, started some light stretching to get into the run groove and changed to my run gear - full tracks, ultra sweat t-shirt, waist pouch to hold mobile and foodies, lastly my favorite sony wireless mp3 player.
6AM - time of start. A1 gave some briefing about the route and it was slightly bright, but enough to run in the trails. (imagine the 75K and 100K runners who started @ 5AM with a torch in their hand!)

6.01AM - started slowly, allowed most of my runners to overtake me as i wanted to maintain a steady heart rate before getting the speed.

7AM - slowly increasing my pace, but going very steady. the climate was very good, but still cold. gathered the run momentum required.

7.22AM - completed the first loop of 12.5KM. great, i felt! was on track with the planned timings. my aim was to complete 37.5K in less than 5hours. met pradeep during my return. he was among the top 10 and going strong.

9AM - by this time, all the 25K / 12.5K runners had started and the trail was buzzing with crowd. there was a small part of the trail where it was very narrow and wait for others to pass. met my uncle on my way and he was going slow, enjoying his run. took some snaps in between. finally completed the second loop.

9AM to 10AM - great going! i thought, (how wrong was I?) 3 hrs and 25K was my personal best. only one more loop to go and i was still going good (not so tired). nearing the 27K mark, my legs have started tiring and i started to walk. by the time i reached the 29K mark, my speed was 6K/hr. I was taking 10 mins for every kilometre! I applied some ice on my calf muscles and slightly started to jog-walk-jog mode. better, but negligible. I reached the road part which was downhill and switched completely to jog mode. by this time, i was stopping at every available aid station to replenish myself with electrolyte/peanuts/sandwich pieces/bananas. I finally reached the half way mark of the 3rd loop - 31.25K. My legs have stopped to obey me and the time was 10.05AM.

10.05AM to 10.45AM - i immediately called up Pradeep and asked him to come to 35.5K mark to pace me from there. I've to finish before 11AM to complete the run under 5 hrs! It was uphill on the return and i had to walk. But i started to walk briskly and jog whenever possible. I saw the aid station near the 35.5K mark, but had to stop there for the final replenishment. had some electrolyte and peanuts and finally reached the point where Pradeep was waiting for me. Time was 10.45AM.

Last 2KM - 15mins and 2 kms.... not possible with my current speed of 6KM/hr (even less sometimes). He started to instill some confidence on me and made to slightly jog with him. I handed over my waist pouch and cap to him to lessen my weight (crazy me!) But then there was a sudden inner me talking - think about the finish line, the happiness you feel when you reach there, think about self glory, etc...
I started to gain momentum. There was another 37.5K runner in front of me. i wanted to overtake him but he was around 100+ metres ahead of me. by the time i reached the 36.5K mark, i had picked up my pace seriously and time was 10:53:40. 6mins and 1 KM to go. My average speed should 9-10KM / hr to reach there.

I really wanted to overtake my fellow competitor and i was going strong. My pace was increasing with the feelings of glory beckoning. I asked Pradeep to go fast to the finish lane to take my snap (even @ this time, i didn't want to forget the great moment) I could see the resort where the finish line is waiting for me. It was the last turn in the trail and then it was only roads. less than 250 mts to go..

I overtook my fellow competitor (had a feeling of gold medal in mind, even though any of my other competitors would've finished 40-60 min earlier). He was walking then, but I was in my sprints!

I entered the resort with several people cheering me and i saw the finish line - wne to 11th gear as i call it - FULL THROTTLE - NITRO BOOST - USAIN BOLT speed - as you can call.

I did it - my hands were waving - the comperor was uttering my name - my mind was silent - the feeling of happiness was infinity and to make it happier - the time was only 4:57 hrs in total (i came to know that my watch was 3 mins slower than the official clock.. holy crap - for all the dash i made towards the end)

I stood 12th overall in my category - pretty for a first timer and was only 57mins away from being the best! (only huh?)
There were many thoughts - tell my family, tell uncle, put in my blog, tell my collegues, etc... and yes, lots of pain for next 2-3 days as i slowly recovered from my run.

I was only 4.5 KM away from completing my full marathon and i decided that the time has indeed come where i should set my eyes on my first full marathon.
Celebrated my victory at Gelato Pazzo with Cake Fudge and Royal Butterscotch!

Nike+ Human Race!

Last saturday was one to remember with the Nike plus human race happening for the first time in Bangalore @ Clarks Exotica resort, near the Airport. I and my running mate, Santosh took the Nike arranged buses to reach the resort. The place was well decorated (red and yellow being the theme this year and looked like Nike spent a lot to create a party atmosphere rather than a running one). I was surprised that we were all subjected to security checks before entering the event location. (never heard of one for a race where the runners are checked!) As we entered the amphitheater, the dancers were practicing on stage and the place was slowly getting full of runners with the same uniform. We changed to our running attires (we run or not, but are specific about the running gear :)) and got ready for the warm up exercises.

The event started with a very energetic host giving us the instructions (i didn't listen to them!) and then gave way to the instructors from the Golds Gym for conducting the warm up exercises.
First time in my life, i'm doing warm-ups with some music (i don't know whether they can be really called aerobics), but it was fun which ended with being performers of the mexican wave.

Then we had our esteemed guests for the day - anju george (the long jumper making the news after a long time), mahesh bhupathi and sreesanth (always in news for the right and wrong ones) giving their words of advise (badly prepared ones that too). As the start time (it was @ 4.30 PM IST) got near, we made our way to the starting point where there was a small lecture by someone. we couldn't hear anything as the sea of runners were full of enthusiasm! The three guests flagged off the event on time.


The race route was good, but narrow and had so many turns. I hoped no one should fall in those sharp turns. All the way through our route, we were cheered by the localites (who were surprised to see so many people with uniform running for no reason - according to them!). Then there were some nice music band (2 of them) en route to provide us the much needed energy. I was disappointed not to see the cheerleaders (they informed us about them encouraging us all through -1 for Nike on this). It was not a good race for me (i clocked 56 mins) and was not comfortable running after 5KM (maybe because i had almost starved the whole day except for 4 bread slices in the morning)

But it was fantastic races for Pradeep (clocked his best of 50 mins) and Santosh (clocked 59 mins on his first run). Hats off!
Foot Massage post race really helped us cooling down and plus 1 to Nike on this. We were treated to some great post race entertainment - dance performances, laser shows, rock bands - which got the whole crowd on their feet again making us forget that we had run 10K just an hour before.


Dinner was ready by the time we finished dancing and we gorged on it. It was not great, but enough to fulfill our hunger....
By the time we finished, it was time for us to say goodbye as we slowly moved to the buses. The day ended with me and Santosh going to Gelato Pazzo and treating our run successes with some great ice creams!

Thumbs up to Nike and looking forward to the event again next year.

Diwali, Crackers and Manchester United!

Wish you all a very happy diwali!
It was a great diwali celebrated @ my uncle's house. You should see the way the whole house was decorated with colorful diyas, flowers and food!


All thanks to Ramu (our master chef), me and Ashok were treated to some great food (including my fav - masala vada). In the evening, before the relatives poured in, we with the wonderkid jayanth went to the cracker shop in the new I20. Bought a whole lot of stuff (it would surely have pushed the company's revenues sky rocketing!). The children burst all the crackers while we were the respected spectators (there was a time, when i used to love them but not anymore.. age is catching up dude!) The fitting finale was the 10000-wala with the whole street looking on. It was a spectacle and the professional photographer (so-called) was taking the pics throughout.. Hope he shares them soon.

The diwali was more special with my fav Manchester United winning again Bolton in the EPL (2-1) and with Chelsea, Liverpool losing, they moved to the top of the table... Diwali Special for Sir Alex!!!! Glory, Glory, Man United!

The next day was spent playing cricket (2 a side) with most of the matches being won by me... Hee hee Sridhar Mama... You should see his face when he finally won a match. It was like India winning 20-20 world cup.. :)

The day ended with me putting my technical head into resolving one of the most complicated issues remaining in his house - making the wireless router work. Here i should apologize for assuming BSNL to be the culprit where the real villain was NETGEAR... Jai Ho!