Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Back

It has been long since I last visited this website. Very long. And a lot has happened since then.  
 
The friendship turned to an infatuation, the infatuation turned bitter, the bitterness turned back to infatuation, and finally the second wave of infatuation turned to love. Yeah, lame I know, but hey that's what it is. That's how it turned out to be. That's how we turned out to be. Oh, just to complete the story, I am happily engaged now. Engaged to be married without dogs (for now). I think I was well into graduate school the last time I was here. So that hasn't changed. And probably won't for a while. Nope.  
 
Today as I continued to stare at 21 inches of coded boredom, browsing through the postings on Pinterest to get myself motivated to do something, my better half sends me a text that gets me motivated to write this post. I think my laziness to write has been overwhelming. Usually I pull myself out of a pit, but turns out that this pit was deep and dirty. But, finally I am out. I hope. I think if I tell myself that I won't go running unless I write something, it might actually work.  
 
Talking of running, I was fairly surprised at myself when I ran a 5.8 mile loop around Charles river last Sunday. It was a bright and surprisingly hot day and I couldn't have possibly picked a worse day to push myself from the regular 3.8 mile loop I got stuck in ever since I found a temporary solution for my recurring blisters (tiny cotton balls and a lot of bandage taped around the problem areas does the trick, works like magic!). The run was pretty good. I had to stop a few times, twice to cross over the road/river and get to the other side of the highway/river, respectively, and couple more times to dodge around a group of very enthusiastic photographers (I will not describe them for obvious purposes, but we made them our brothers and they attacked us). The view could not have been better, the river, the blue sky, the not-so-crystal-clear-Charles-river-water, ducks and ducklings, ducks' and ducklings' poop, happy families, and Rihanna screaming through my earphones. It was not breezy at all and the sun was burning my skin through the layer of dried sweat. For once I wanted to sweat more so that it won't burn as much. Usually its the other way around, I get into very very awkward situations because of my over active sweat glands. Luckily I remembered to wear my new shiny apple-green hat so at least my face/forehead was protected.  
 
A really good reason to have a partner who is into sports - he knows sport clothing, and he knows it really well. Another really good reason to have a partner who is into sports - he is bound to be fit and super hot. Sigh. Okay, back to what I was talking about. Yes, running, running it was. So, the part-road part-grass run was nice. The shoes I wore have worn out padding and my knees were beginning to hurt by the time I was done. I made two decisions then: (a) I will buy new shoes - again the-partner-who-is-into-sports comes into play and (b) I will not buy 5-fingers and run with them, or with minimalist shoes for that matter. The shoes I have right now, I have been running with them since IIT days. So they are pretty old, but they are the most amazing pair I have. They fit well, they have(had) adequate cushioning, and they are still going strong. I am not ready to part with them yet. I think I will make them my sailing shoes. Yes, that's another thing I re-started doing. Sailing on a moderately windy day is probably the best thing to do after a long tiresome day, provided you know sailing because otherwise you'd end up freaking out if you get hit by a gust. Gah, I deviate too much. Back to running. So I ordered new shoes and I am now fully equipped to do equally long and maybe even longer runs. I am still not at all interested in doing a half-marathon/marathon. I don't know why, I am not sure if it is the fear of 13/26 miles or if I just don't want to do it. The whole reason why I got actively involved in aerobic activities was to get into a better shape every day. I don't doubt my mental strength, and I am not trying to be snobbish here, just realistic. I know I can do it if I want to. But I just don't. That's it. I like my sweet short runs, I love them in fact and I wouldn't change a thing. It is near perfect.  
 
I got pretty wobbly by the end of my run. I slowed down so much that a 4-year old girl named Jen was able to overtake me in her pink Huffy (don't ask me how I know her name, trust me I am not a pervert, I just have excellent hearing) but I didn't want to give up when I had already made up my mind to do the whole thing before starting it. I kept telling myself that I can do it and I think I said it out too loud too often because I saw some heads turning from the corner of my eye. Anyway, I got back to where I had started from, stretched a bit, sighed at the most amazing view of Boston skyline, smiled at how amazing the view would look if a 6-footer blocked it, took a deep breath, turned around and started walking back towards my apartment.  

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