Analysis and Learning

Hydration: I should learn more on hydrating properly before the race. Now the point is to identify what “proper” hydration means. Though I drink nearly 7-8 litres of water everyday and consume sufficient quantity of water before long runs I invariably get dehydrated after the run. More research is required on this aspect.

Running without Walking: Somehow I should develop the habit or running without walking and also work on my mental and physical toughness. Walking in the middle of long distance running really dampens my mental toughness and my legs yearn for taking more walk breaks. Important area to work on.

Weight Reduction: This would be one of my primary goals during the first half of the year. I managed to shed couple of kgs before the marathon, but would have to cut down another 4-5 kgs. It’s really important to feel light when I start training for my next marathon during the later half of the year.

Completing the marathon has really taught me few good lessons. Dedication, determination and sticking to a well defined plan would definitely result in achieving any goal. While doing any work, whenever complacency or laziness creeps into my mind, I think about the marathon finish. “Come on dude, if you can complete a marathon why not this work”. Some people learn things in harder way and I have chosen this way.

After a brief gap I ran 16k today morning. The roads were covered with mist with visibility hardly less than five meters. I enjoyed running in the mist while my mind was humming the song Brothers in arms – “These mist covered mountains….”.

Singapore Marathon - Race Day

Chip Time: 4:54:10
Placement: 2499 out of 9704 and 370 out of 1331 in my age category.

The Chennai Runners group which took part in Singapore Marathon.

From L to R: Ramesh, Shumit, Vidyuth, Senthil, Shahid, Narayanan, Ram and Me (few are not in the picture). I wouldn't have participated if I hadn't joined this running group. Big thanks to them.

Well, I am really happy about completing my first marathon, but not feeling great about my timing. Hoping to do sub 4 hrs, I joined the sub 4hrs group. With just five minutes into the race, I had to take a pee break. There was already a big queue outside the toilet resulting me in losing 4-5 mins and missing the pace setters too. I was running along with sub five hours group for some time and realised that I am running slowly. Then I did a mistake of picking up the pace at around 5k. Worried about over-hydration, I didn’t consume any fluid till 9th km. By then, my hamstrings also started causing some trouble. I think it’s because of the flight travel and some strenuous walking the previous day.

I was looking out for Shumit, found him at around 9k mark and we both were following 4:15 pace setters. After 13k I was unable to keep up the pace and had to slow down. I crossed the 21k at 2:03 and missed the goal of 1:50. I was slowly munching the miles and passed the 30k mark at 3:14. The moment I saw the 30k mark, my legs stopped to take a small walk break and played the spoilsport for the rest of the run. From there on, it’s just a combination of walk and run to complete the remaining distance.

I joined Vidyuth at around 32k and we both walked, ran together till 40k mark with some stretching during the course. At around 35k, I was feeling very hungry and was desperately looking for some thing to chew. I found the banana stall at 39k mark and felt alright after swallowing one. Somehow during the struggle, I didn’t think about any inspiration quotes to keep myself moving forward. Few weeks before the race, I had a thought of dedicating my first marathon to my father and the same thought kept my legs moving during the tougher part of the race. Heart burns and quads were forcing me to walk. What if my heart stops before I touch the finish line, what if I get cramps, will I be able to achieve at least sub 5hrs finish – I was going through lot of emotions which were pushing me to further slow down and walk. It’s a battle between my mind and body in which my body was defeating my mind on most of the occasions. With only few minutes to five hours and couple of kilometres to be covered, I told Vidyuth that I am going to run till finish line. I crossed the finish line with my hands raised in the air. My stopwatch showed 4:54:19. I am dedicating my first marathon to my father.

Post race I collected my medal and finishers T-shirt and went on to take a massage at the massage centre arranged for full marathon finishers. The entire race was organised to perfection with water and isotonic drink stalls every kilometre, cheering groups, bands playing and supporters clapping all through the race course from start to finish line.

My body was coated with thick layer of salt and I was badly dehydrated. I went back to my hotel room, tried to eat food and immediately puked after taking two spoons of rice. I slept like a log for few hours and felt better after waking up. Met couple of friends that evening and celebrated with few pints of beer near the river side. Overall the experience of completing a marathon is wonderful. Now I know my shortcomings and have to figure out to correct those before my next marathon.

Check out my pictures here and here.

Expectations

4 days to race day and 2 days of training remaining. Since last three weeks I have been practicing speed workouts which resulted me to think about an over ambitious goal of sub 4hrs marathon. Sunday I ran 21.5k in 1hr 55mins. Sub 4hrs marathon goal will become realistic if I could cut down my half marathon timing by another 5mins. During the race I hope the environment, people and the company through out the race might help me in achieving the 21.5k timing and subsequently the remaining distance in another 2hrs. If I fail to manage it, I would be satisfied with finishing the marathon. It's the day on which all my training would be put to test and I am desperate to clear the test.

I was browsing through a triathlon blog site and found this wonderful clipping which states "Achievement is largely the product of steadily raising one's level of aspiration and expectation". Check out Bevan Docherty (in black dress) of New Zealand sprinting from behind to clutch victory from the grasp of compatriot Kris Gemmell at the 2005 New Plymouth ITU World Cup triathlon.

Running and Brain

French "mathlete" Alexis Lemaire broke his own world record after working out in his head the 13th root of a random 200-digit number in just 72.4 seconds. Lemaire, a 27-year-old doctoral student in artificial intelligence sat at a laptop computer that randomly selected the figure and displayed it on the screen. The number was so long it ran over 17 lines. He took just over a minute to identify two quadrillion, 397 trillion, 207 billion, 667 million, 966 thousand, 701 as the 13th root. In other words, the number multiplied by itself 13 times produces the 200 digit number originally generated by the computer. He uses an artificial intelligence system on his own brain instead of on a computer. He says sometimes when he does multiplication his brain works so fast that it would require him to take medication. He practices regularly and jogs every day, doesn't drink coffee or alcohol and avoids foods that are high in sugar or fat to help him think faster.

What caught my attention is that he runs every day to keep his brain active. I have also read articles mentioning running helps in development of brain cells. Read this article. Now what's your opinion to start running?

Tapering Starts..

I should have approximately ran 35-36k yesterday, i.e. my peak distance before Singapore marathon. I ran 7.1k lap five times. My idea was to complete the run in 3hrs 30mins maintaining a lap time of 40 mins. In fact, I completed 28k in 2hrs 50mins and which is almost on target. But, as usual the last 7-8k was quite hard, with sun burning my skin, I managed to complete the remaining distance and my run in 3hrs 46mins. Good part is I managed to be on the road for long duration under hot conditions. Last week I suffered from IT band syndrome and was quite annoyed as it prevented me from running for couple of days. Few stretches and tips from my running group helped me to hit the road again in quick time. Now I am pretty confident of completing the Singapore marathon under 4:30(high hopes). Tapering starts from this week and has started counting days for the D-day.

31k in ECR

I was drenched in the rain even before we started the run. There is nothing more annoying than running with wet clothes and soggy socks. At least my clothes got dried after few mins of running, but my socks were wet till I completed the run. At around 22-23k mark I felt like removing my socks and throw them away. I completed 31k in 3hrs 22mins, and felt just ok. Somehow on Saturday night I was very anxious about completing the run in 3hours and wasn't able to sleep properly. I found last 5-6kms to be very hard; I spoke to myself "You are a tough guy and not going to give up easily". I was following Ram for long time and managed to run behind (with a gap of 400-500mts) him during the later half of the run.

For last few kms, I was repeating the quotes from the movie "Rocky Balboa" in my mind to keep myself moving forward.

It ain't how hard you hit; it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done.

Now, if you know what you're worth, then go out and get what you're worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hit, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you are because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain't you. You're better than that!

You can find the briefing in Ram's blog and the pictures here.

Need Endorphin Rush

I messed up my training this week. It all started due to heavy rains during the weekend. I woke up at 3AM on Sunday morning and waited for nearly two hours for the rain to subside, but it decided to take some breather only in the evening. Rest of the week went on with accompanying relatives at home, attending friend’s marriage and some personal work. The week, in which I should have run approximately 60k, I ran just 19k. Not sure if I could cover up at least half the targeted mileage for the week. Training for a marathon requires lot of focus and dedication, even if a person loses his focus for a week or two while peaking mileage, can lead to laziness and complacency. It’s been quite a while since I have focused on my career and personal issues. After the Singapore marathon, I would take couple of months break from the hectic training schedule and explore my other interests before I train hard again for my next marathon.

I badly want to experience the endorphin rush and probably will run 12k tomorrow.

Thursday to Tuesday

This is how I trained from last Thursday to Tuesday

Thursday: I had to pick up my aunt from the railway station on Thursday morning and at the same time didn’t want to miss my weekday LSD(Long Slow Distance) running. The railway station is just 8k from my home and as per my schedule I had to run 13k. I figured out a longer route which was around 12.5k and ran till the station. Though I reached the station on time, the train was delayed by an hour. I called my sister and asked her to come and pick up my aunt. Came back from station to kodambakkam by train and ran from kodambakkam to home, which is another 2k.

Saturday: I cleaned my bicycle (bike) on Friday evening for cross training on Saturday morning. I hit the snooze button at 4 AM and the next time I saw my watch it was 4:50AM. For a moment I thought to skip my training hoping the cycling group would have left before I reached the starting point (which is 7k away from my home). I decided to give a try and left my home at 5:10AM. Rammed my bike pedals really hard, but just 600-700mts before the meeting point my bike chain slipped. It took nearly five minutes to fix it and concluded the group would have already started. Fortunately I caught them in the last moment and it was a pleasure riding with the group. We rode even in the heavy rain before finishing our ride with a good filter coffee at saravana bhavan. I would have pedaled around 30k.

Sunday: It was drizzling when I met Shumit at 4:30 AM. We did some stretching and started our run at 4:36 AM. The weather was very pleasant and it rained almost till we completed the run. Shumit runs fast, but I didn’t want him to slow down because of me and ran at a pace faster than I run long distances. We ran 30.2k in 2hrs 59 mins and both of us felt really happy about the timing. In fact I wrongly assumed the distance to be 32k and wanted to celebrate with beer that evening. Nevertheless it was a great run.

Tuesday: I did fast uphill training with Hari and enjoyed the chat with him. It’s good that I am slowly getting used to the habit of chatting while running.

Fillers – Friday and Monday I hit the gym for upper body training.

Fixing Me

How did we come into existence? What have we done to our lives? Why is it so complex to break the shackles of worries? As everyone say, does life becomes very boring if we are always happy?

Time will cure. But time also brings new things into our life. It becomes hard for me to get answers when I think these types of questions. It gives me a strange unpleasant feeling when I think that I can’t see my father again. Before I repair others, how do I purify my thoughts and be positive. What do I do now?

I Listen to Music. Music is my energy booster. It’s an awesome feeling I experience when I hear the strumming sound of guitars, melodies from piano and poetic lyrics. Bands like Coldplay and Pink Floyd will never tire me. I am not sure how many thousands times I have listened to them and still listen. Currently my ipod is playing “Fix You” by Coldplay. Very inspiring lyrics and music. There is so much to get from the lyrics and many things I can relate to. Personal loss, day to day worries or even when I try to give up in the middle during my long distance running, remembering the lyrics from this song helps me a lot.

Fix You – Lyrics (Coldplay X&Y)

When you try your best but you don't succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse

When the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

And high up above or down below
When you're too in love to let it go
But if you never try you'll never know
Just what you're worth

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

Tears stream down your face
When you lose something you cannot replace
Tears stream down your face
And I

Tears stream down your face
I promise you that I will learn from my mistakes
Tears stream down your face
And I

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you.

Running Thoughts

Feeling quite strong mentally and physically after the 30k run yesterday. I took nearly 3hrs 15mins to complete 30.5kms. Tackling the stray dogs during my early morning long runs is becoming a pain. I hate them to the core. Even though I run in the middle of the road, I prefer to walk at certain stretches of densely populated areas to avoid these creatures chasing me. But still couple of chasing incidents happened yesterday. Leaving the dog stories aside, I am able to complete the run quite strongly. Except little bit of soreness here and there, I have recovered pretty fast. Run followed by heavy breakfast and 3 hours or nap was sufficient for me to recover completely. Though I wasn't carrying my fuel belt, I was hydrating throughout the run at regular intervals.

Couple of week’s back I lost my fuel belt somewhere. I went to spencer plaza in the evening with my friend to check if it’s available in any of the sports store. As expected none of the stores had fuel belts. One sales guy in Nike showroom said they don’t sell belts in their shop (thinking that I was inquiring for a leather belt). Later I went to landmark to check if they had any books on running, but no luck. Still lot more to catch up.

Nowadays I am thinking more about running and completing the Singapore marathon. Moreover, except running I don’t have anything interesting happening in my life. Looking at the recent posts I think it's apt to change my blog title to My “Running” Thoughts.

5k in 24:16

I competed in a 5k race yesterday and finished it in 24mins 16secs. Considering that I ran the race after a slow 15k run, I feel happy about my timings. Initially I was bit hesitant to participate hoping that I would miss my weekend long run. On the other hand, I also didn’t want to miss the 5k race. So I thought of combining my weekend long run with the short 5 k run and decided to reach the race venue running. Throughout the race I maintained good constant pace. But towards the end I started competing with a guy for the third place. I wrongly assumed that I was nearing the finish line, started sprinting and ran out of steam very quickly. I gave up, decided to slow down and jogged the last 500mts. I finished 5th or 6th in the race and really excited to know that I ran at an average speed of 12.4kph.

Disconnected

For almost a week I was physically and virtually disconnected from the external world. I attended a residential workshop on project management conducted by my organisation I am currently employed in. It was an exhaustive workshop with sessions starting at 7AM and ending after 9PM with some short breaks in the middle. Our day starts with a session on breathing techniques, followed by seniors sharing their experiences with some interesting role plays and activities. The participants were all budding managers working in different projects at different levels. Except one colleague, everyone was a stranger to me and it was nice to spend time with them. We seldom get opportunities to meet the people who have been with the organisation since day one and made it grow and see it growing to this level. The vision, thoughts they shared with us was very motivating and amazed to see them still working with lot of zest and hunger to make the organisation grow. With so much of packed activities I still managed to run on couple of days. The resort (Pleasant days resort) we stayed was maintained very well with wonderful landscapes and greenery. Only drawback is the suites doesnt have internet connection. I also utilised some free time to plunge in the swimming pool. Overall the experience was fruitful and the time just flew away.

ECR Run 3

This time I completed the ECR run without any problem and really feel great about completing with very less walking. Yesterdays run is a big morale booster for me. Last time I stopped at around 22km and took an autorick. to reach the destination. But this time I approached the run with a different mindset and managed to finish the run in 2hrs 45mins.

We (ChennaiRunners) started the run at 5 AM. Hari, Shumit, Vidyuth and Rupert the fastest runners in our group took off with a blaze and set the road on fire. Unlike last time I didn’t do the mistake of running fast initially. I started slowly and ran continuously at an average speed of 9.5kph for 1 hr 15 mins. I took a small walk break for 2 mins and at 1hr 17mins, I again took off. I set the next target of taking a break at 2hrs. I approached the 2hrs mark and didn’t find any discomfort with my body or mind. After a 5 mins walk break at 2hrs mark, I knew that only 7-8kms are left to be covered. I took the piecemeal approach for the remaining distance and moved my legs again. A fellow runner joined me and started conversing. I somehow wasn’t comfortable having a chat while running and told him “let’s not speak until we touch the finish line”. Till now I was running alone and suddenly when someone joined me my concentration started to get distracted. I stopped for couple of minutes and waited till he advanced for 300-400mts. From there on I didn’t stop until I reached the end point. It took 2hrs 45mins 17secs to cover 26kms. My next target is to complete the same distance in less than 2hrs 30mins.

You can find more briefing and pictures from the fellow runners Ram, Hari, KK (organiser) and Shumit.

Article in India Today

Last month the ChennaiRunners team gave a photo shoot to India Today for an article to be published on our running group. They took the pictures after one of our weekly Sunday run. I did a 26K that morning and was very tired during the photo shoot. The photographer asked us to do few 50m sprints for taking the pictures. She would have taken at least 20-25 pictures, but after the photo shoot, we came to know that one of the chip got corrupted (lost half the pictures) and had to redo again on Tuesday. Check out for the article below which came out on the edition dated Sep 17th.

Ponder

Few important things I have experienced and follow (at least try to) in my life..

1. There are always people intelligent than you, so never, ever underestimate anyone.

2. Everyone is reasonable from their own perspective, so value their views and opinions. Take it if you like or make them understand why you didn't like, but don’t ignore their views.

3. Whether interesting or boring, be dedicated and honest to whatever task you take up. Don’t deliver an unfinished low quality work.

4. Time will provide a solution for the sad and bad moments you are experiencing in your life (I miss my father very much).

5. Today is a gift from yesterday and tomorrow is a gift from today. Use today wisely and create a wonderful gift for tomorrow.

6. Always think big or at least try to think big.

7. Stay fit and lead a healthy lifestyle.

8. Respect humans, elder or younger, poorer or richer, dumb or intelligent and never humiliate anyone.

9. Think for a moment before you react but there is no point in regretting after you react.

10. Dream and chase your dream.

Push, Push....

Push, Push, Push…is what I tell to myself while running long distances. Legs move pretty freely for 22-23k, but from there on it’s purely a mind game for me. While running, apart from concentrating on my breathing, I also have to consciously make an effort on stopping pessimistic feelings creeping into my mind along with lot of self talking. Controlling my thoughts when my legs are tired and weak is a tough job. When I am exhausted and feel like stopping I try to think about people like Carol (a normal person who started training for triathlon at the age of 40 and went ahead by participating in competitions) and fellow runners from my running group who push themselves hard to keep myself going. But one thing is guaranteed, during long runs I get ample time to think about everything and anything. All my pain would vanish when my mind wins against the body and when I achieve the target I have set to myself.

I am planning to do 30k runs over next three weekends and a 36k on fourth weekend (which also means waking up at 3:15AM on Sundays). If I manage to complete the 4th week run then it won’t be a great task for me to finish the Singapore marathon. I also have 3 months time to increase my fitness level too. Ahhhh, this month I am shelling out some money and joining a good gym which has got 7-8 treadmills and spacious enough for circuit training. Wanted to try out a 30 day schedule shared by a running partner Shumit. Nowadays I think more about running than anything else, at least 5 to 6 hours in a day. Hope it doesn’t become an addiction like depicted in this article to me.

How Big & How Small

Last weekend I watched a program in Discovery channel on Planet Earth's evolution. Became bit curious and was surfing the net for some related information and accidentally found the pictures below. Check out the size of Earth and Sun in the 3rd, 4th and 5th pictures.

Virtual World

My Sify broadband internet connection went down for more than 24 hours and I felt handicapped without the net connectivity. After repeated follow-ups, at last today evening the Sify guys fixed the problem and I got the connectivity back. Major time of my browsing goes in reading blogs and few running sites. Reading blogs with personal experiences and information feels like spending time with friends. It is bit sad that I spend more time in virtual world than the real world, but that’s the case in many other lives too I think. Happiest part is we at least keep track of friends through social networking sites, thanks to orkut, facebook, myspace…. After being part of the runners group, I have started meeting more people than usual from various fields sharing one common interest “Running”. I feel rejuvenated when I interact and run along with them challenging my mind and body for few hours in a day.

What about you, do you meet your friends regularly? How often do you meet your friends?

Is Your Personal Corporation Growing?

I read this article and found quite interesting. It made me ponder about my effectiveness at work. There were days when I used to slog and work for 14 to 15 hours everyday six days a week with lot of determination and hungry to achieve something. But in recent times I often get distracted while working and my concentration level has also decreased. After every thirty mins I had to consciously make an effort to bring my focus back to work. This article says a person can increase his or her effectiveness anywhere from 50% to 100% and more within 30 days. Read on..

Is Your Personal Corporation Growing? - By Earl Nightingale

Every person is, in reality, in business for himself or herself in that each is building his or her own life regardless of who happens to write his or her paycheck. So for the purpose of this message, think of yourself as a corporation. You hold the office of president of this corporation, and you're responsible for its success or failure. You and the members of your family are stockholders in your corporation, and it's your responsibility to see that the value of the stock increases in the years ahead.

If your company is growing, it will have a tendency to continue to grow. In other words, you're doing things right. Conversely, a company that is going backwards or shrinking has a tendency to continue to go backwards or shrink until acted upon by an outside force. All responsible company officers know that unless the company is growing, it's developing the first signs of death. As the head of your personal corporation, you must realize that this same law applies to you as well.

However, a person has a tremendous advantage over even the largest corporation. Think of any large multinational corporation. Can it double its production in a single day? Of course not. Can it double its sales in a single day? Of course not. It would like to, but its growth must be gradual and steady because of the interconnecting complexities of operating such a large organization. Yet a person can double, triple, quadruple his or her effectiveness in a month or less. It's like comparing the movement of a single scout to the movement of a great army.

Can you grow and improve as a person at least 10% a year? Of course you can. In fact, experts estimate a person can increase his or her effectiveness anywhere from 50% to 100% and more within 30 days.

History is filled with people who exceeded their previous performance to an almost unbelievable extent. People in management and in production who multiplied their effectiveness many times. Students who moved from failing grades to straight A's and the Dean's List. People in sales who found they could, through the proper management of their abilities, minds, and time, sell as much of their company's products in a single month as they had previously sold in an entire year. Think about what that means.

If you waste even an hour of productive time every work day, it adds up to 250 hours a year. That time wasted could shut your corporation down! You can earn nothing with the doors closed. What is your time worth an hour? Multiply this by 250 and you can see what you're throwing away. Now whether your employer pays for this wasted hour or not is unimportant. Life will not pay for it.

How much are you worth right now, today, as a corporation? What's your value today, to yourself, your family, your company? If you were an outside investor, a stranger, would you invest in this corporation? A company growing at the rate of 10% a year will double in size in about eight years. What attention are you giving to the growth of your personal corporation?

Singapore Marathon

Yesterday I have registered in Singapore Marathon which is scheduled on Dec 2nd . Though it’s quite expensive, I didn’t take very long time to decide. Heard it’s organised very well and wanted to complete a Marathon at any cost. Chennai Marathon is also organised at around same time but didn’t want to take a chance and get stopped by the cops after running for 3 painful hrs. Around 9-10 guys from Chennai runners have already registered and it would be fun running along with them in Singapore. I have been training quite hard for the past few weeks combining cycling-running workouts and controlling my diet to shed some weight too. Let’s see how it goes..

The Boss

At last I watched the movie Sivaji. Even after hearing average reviews I was quite desperate to watch the movie for the publicity and obviously Superstar.

What did I like?

1. Background score by Rahman. It’s awesome. The music should have also made wonders for the movie success.

2. Mottai Boss. Rajini was looking great and different.

3. Shreya’s abs. She has amazing abs. You seldom see in South Indian movies.

What didn’t I like?

1. The screenplay. First half was patchy and felt bit boring. Other than songs and few comedy scenes the rest was pretty ordinary.

2. Climax stunt scene. Instead of copying the stunts and special effects from movie “The Matrix” they could have picturised differently.

In general I found the movie to be quite dragging. But watch the movie at least once.

Books in my shelf

What are the books in my shelf and which are half read or yet to be started.

How Life Imitates Chess – Gary Kasporov

Freakonomics - Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

What Do I Do When I Want to Do Everything – Barbara Sher

Creativity – A. Dale Timpe

Mahatma Gandhi: His life and ideas – Charles F Andrews

High Performance Entrepreneur – Subroto Bagchi

I have the habit of buying at least 2 books per month, but sometimes fail to keep up the speed of reading with buying. Before I get into a bookstore next time, I should make sure to complete minimum of two from the above list.

For Blind

Last week I saw an article about few college students doing a project on designing a special computer keyboard for blind. It was mentioned that it allows the users to type 40 words per minute. My basic doubt is why a specially designed keyboard is required for blind and why can’t they use a normal keyboard to type 40 words per minute. For them using a computer should be more like interacting with humans than just working with a machine. This made me ponder on how the visually impaired people use the computer.

I did googling and found that there are many devices to help the blind to use computers. Few of them are given below.

Braille Displays: An electronic braille display is a tactile device that is placed under a conventional computer keyboard, or laptop keyboard and enables the user to read the contents of the computer screen by touch in braille. Each cell has eight pins made of metal or nylon, which are electronically controlled to move up and down, to display a braille version of characters that appear on the computer screen.

Screen Reader Software: A screen reading program sends screen text displayed on the screen to be spoken by a speech synthesizer. Common features include the ability to speak the full screen, a user defined area of the screen, a line, a word, individual letters or the phonetic equivalent of a letter and punctuation. A screen reader allows menus, dialog boxes, tool tips and system messages to be read back.

Braille embosser or braille printer: Embossers print braille output from a computer by punching dots onto paper. They connect to the computer in the same way as text printers and can also be connected to notetakers and other devices with a serial or parallel port. Used in conjunction with the embosser is braille translation software that translates printed text into braille.

Voice Recognition Software: Voice Recognition Software enables the user to have an alternative to typing text into a computer. This is where the user talks to the computer and the computer talks to user (interactive software).

I think the voice recognition software should be the best solution for any work which involves typing. It might become a really difficult task to correct the mistakes committed while typing and a person might also doesn’t know in case of errors.

There are many other devices like these and quite a lot of research is being done on this front to enable easy usage of computers for blind.

When I was thinking about the latest technological developments and their usage for everyone, the first thing which struck my mind was iphone. Is iphone user friendly for blind? I googled again and found this interesting link “Does the iPhone shaft the blind?”. You should read the comments for the posting and look the beatings the author took from iphone fans :) . I don’t want that to happen for me. So let’s leave iphone aside.

Considering the population in India and the number of visually impaired people in India, can they use everything like what the normal people like you and I use. A simple task of withdrawing money from ATM should be a Herculean task for the blind. I still doubt if any blind person had ever visited an ATM. Does it have voice interactive software for easy access? Likewise I can think about many day to day needs and don’t find anything which is easily accessible for visually or physically challenged persons. Not sure when we start thinking about these simple things?

Trip to Dubai - Part II

What else is there in Dubai for the sight seeing? Malls, Malls, Malls, Jumeria Beach and Malls. Yes, Dubai is packed with shopping malls and every famous mall has some unique feature with respect to theme, size, shape etc.. I didn’t get a chance to carry my camera to all the malls I visited, but most of them have their own well designed websites explaining the details.

Mall of the Emirates – This is supposed to be the biggest mall in Dubai and is famous for its first in-door ski resort in Middle East. I visited this mall after my office hours and due to the limited time factor didn’t get a chance to try skiing. But managed to take few pictures.

I never visited a shopping complex of this size before and it was quite tiring for me to roam around. After an exhaustive walk I felt like having a good coffee. Few months back, I read the book The Starbucks Experience and wanted to find out what’s so special about the Starbucks coffee. I started searching for Starbucks in the store map and followed the directions as given in the map. Getting fed up of searching the shop for nearly 20 mins, I decided to go back to my hotel and went to the taxi stand. Not able to give up, I gave one last try and enquired the security standing near the taxi pick up area. He pointed towards the exit gate. Oh my gosh, the shop is just adjacent to the exit gate outside the mall and I have been searching inside for such a long time. I tried Frappucino (blended with banana flavour) and the taste was amazing.

One of my colleagues introduced me to his friend Sachin in Dubai. Sachin is a very enthusiastic person and was quite patient enough to roam along with me in Dubai. He took me to some interesting places which he himself has explored recently. We went to an amazing place called Century Village. It should be on the must do list of everyone visiting Dubai. The Century Village is a small oasis of fine dining restaurants, in a relaxing atmosphere of fountains and greenery which allows you to almost forget that you are in Dubai. First I and Sachin went to the Irish village tried Guinness (dark beer) and had good time chatting in a typical Irish country side setup. It is one of the very few places in Dubai that you are allowed to sit outside while having an alcoholic drink. After having couple of beers we went to an Arabic restaurant few meters away from the Irish village. We had an awesome feeling as soon as we entered the restaurant. The room was filled with flavoured smoke from hookahs, an Arabian singer playing Oud (Arabian guitar), singing and people were dancing for the music. The experience was enthralling and didn’t miss an opportunity to try strawberry flavoured hookah. After a great evening we came back to our hotel at around 2:50 AM.

Next day we went to Ibn Battuta Mall, the largest themed mall in Middle East. The architectural inspiration behind the distinctive design of the shopping mall is based around the travels of renowned 14th century explorer, Ibn Battuta, a man who travelled over 75,000 miles during his lifetime. The mall is segmented into six distinct architectural zones, representing key destinations visited by Ibn Battuta.The six courts are comprised of the Andalusian Court, the North African Court, the Egyptian Court, the Persian Court, the Indian Court and the Chinese Court. I liked the Chinese court very much because of its rich colours and architecture.

We also went to City Centre in Dubai. The place is as busy as the City Centre in Chennai with its size 5-6 times bigger than the complex in chennai. It has got nearly 4-5 multi storied buildings for car parking alone. Don’t miss to try Cinnabon in Cinnabon shop. The taste was awesome.

I missed to visit the famous open Jumeirah Beach. Heard from my friends the place is good to play volley ball and other water sports.

Even though I stayed in Dubai for a short duration, it was a happy and eventful experience.

Trip to Dubai – Part I

Last month I was in Dubai for few weeks and thought of sharing about few interesting places in Dubai. Dubai International airport is very famous for its size and the duty free shops. I had a chance to take few snaps of duty free zone and did little bit of shopping before my departure from Dubai.


Duty free shops in Dubai Airport

I bought this decorative Hookah for 60 Dhirams in a duty free shop.

The Dubai skyline might soon beat the Newyork skyline. Look at these skyscrapers on both sides of the road. The tallest building in the world Burj Dubai is under construction and nearly 140 floors are completed. Still 55 more floors to be completed. You can also get the information from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Dubai.

My office was 25Kms away from the hotel I was staying and it used to take nearly 25-40 mins to reach the office by taxi depending on the traffic congestion. The public transportation is not good and people have to rely on taxis or own a vehicle for commuting. Taxis are quite costly and I used to spend 40-45Dhs one way everyday.

A visit to Dubai is incomplete without going to a Desert Safari. This is one of the most exciting and thrilling drive I have ever experienced. Checkout the video clipping taken with my camera.

We halted at a campsite and took a camel ride, wore traditional dress (dishdash or thawb) and I tried Henna too. Sumptuous dinner was followed by a wonderful live belly dance show.

Graceful Belly Dancing. This lady had amazing abs. My camera batteries went down at the right moment and missed to capture the video of the dance. But you can find quite a lot of videos in Youtube.

More to follow in my next posting.

7 Years and still going on..

Yesterday I completed 7 yrs in my current organization. On July 17th 2000 around 22-23 guys from different colleges joined along with me to undergo freshers induction training and as on today there are only six of us from the group still working here. As the days passed on, our paths took different directions and headed towards unknown destinations. Personally, I am emotionally bonded with the organization. Even though there are few bad experiences the takeaways are many and I am happy about that. End of day the desires and aspirations are going to be the driving forces in our lives.

Great ECR Run

The run was fun yesterday. We all started running at around 5:15 AM and headed towards Mahabalipuram. Weather was very pleasant in the morning with overcast conditions. I started well and was leading the pack for few minutes (probably 15 mins), then I slowly began to drop my pace and continued running at the same pace for nearly an hour. At around 55th minute I stopped running and walked for a minute and this is when I started thinking about the distance and worrying about completing the remaining 18-19 Kms. Somehow managed to run/walk/crawl and completed 25 Kms in 2hrs and 40mins. I hit the wall, stopped proceeding further and took a shareauto to reach the destination Coral surf restaurant which was 3-4kms away.

During the course there were moments when I thought no more long distance running, but how many times I have thought about quitting alcohol after a hangover?

More detailed narration of the great ECR run in Kk's and Ram's blog. A very big thanks to the volunteers and Chennai Runners group for making this a memorable event. I admire you guys.

Few Pics from Ram's Flickr..



Before Start



After the run

ECR - 30 Km Run

It’s been nearly two months since I have joined the Chennai runners group and tomorrow the group is doing a 30Km run in ECR starting from Toll booth to Mahabs. The run would start at 4:30AM.

My last longest run ever was 25Km in 2005 Chennai Marathon. I am looking forward for this and I can take this as a benchmark for the forthoming Bangalore and Chennai Marathons.

More updates after the run.