#mmmm and self styled Triathlon.

I did my first triathlon last Sunday and it was a lot of fun. Since it was self style and personalised one, there was only one participant! India does not have any Triathalons (not even 70.3 ones), so you have do your own thing to train for one.

I got up at 3.30am in the morning and took a 4.15am start for my bike ride. It was a 27/28km bike ride from home to NCPA, Nariman point. It took me about 1hr 20mins, which is not bad given the road conditions. I parked my bike at a secure place in Churchgate, just in time for the 6am start from NCPA for the Mumbai monsoon mini marathon (#mmmm). This #mmmm was organised by local congress party politicians & workers, to protest against terrorism & to support peace. To my horror the planned (not publicised) start time turned out to be 7am and the final start time was close to 7.30am.

But the spirit was very good and the turnout was lot higher than what I had expected it to be, so things improved as soon as the run started (since it was a very short run of 5k, the delay did not really make much of a difference). I finished the distance in about 25minutes and then headed by to Churchgate for my swim. So I ended up doing about 8k or so that day (3k on my return to Churchgate)

I had originally planned a 1k swim as I was hoping that the mini marathon would be somewhere around 12km or so (which turned out to be just 5k). So I decided to make up for the distance by doubling my swim, to 2kms.

After that I had some yummy breakfast and then the bike ride back home (another 28km). With that I completed a 55km bike ride, 8km run and 2km swim. The only thing I need to really improve upon is the run for my next triathlon, need to take that to atleast 20km, and that will take be very close to the 70.3 Triathlon or half Ironman or Olympic Triathlon.

This triathlon has given my confidence a big boost and Ironman no longer looks so difficult. I was also inspired by a friend who recently completed his first Ironman (he did it in a little over 13hrs, a super effort indeed). Do catch his blog www.bedders.blogspot.com for more ...

A roller coaster ride

This week has been quite a bit of a Roller coaster ride. The first half of the week was quite normal, but mid week I was suddenly hit by a viral infection (severe throat and body ache, accompanied by mild fever). I was not able to rest sufficiently on Thursday as I had a action packed work day on Friday. But, after that I was able to take complete rest from Friday evening to Saturday evening (tons of sleep, with food breaks & snatches of India's disappointing performance in the second test against South Africa).

By Saturday evening I was almost back to normal. To confirm the same, I decided to go for a short 3km run and a well deserved cup of coffee at my favorite coffee shop, to celebrate my recovery. The run was almost effortless and the blues of the viral were blown away. I needed this run before I attempted my Sunday morning run.

Sunday morning I started early, at 7.45 which has been the quickest start time for a long time. With temperatures going up, even a half an hour delay makes a huge difference. I managed to complete the 11km run in about 1hr 05minutes, which is quite close to my regular pace, thought this was a mixed with walk and run. Which clearly means that the lower frequency of runs (now restricted to 1 or 2 runs a week) have resulted in my losing my running rhythm (without really the finish times).

But the highlight has been the super quick recovery from illness and I have only endurance sport (distance running) to thank. The quality of rest is now so much better, which helps the body bounce back in double quick time. Its almost as if the illness is like a 50km run and you need about a day to recover and get back to normal. I would never have imagined myself running so soon after recovering from an illness.

So along with the known benefits of regular running, like a 40% reduction in chances of a heart attack, weight reduction, better energy levels & stamina, there is a new one - super quick recovery from illness, esp. flu. (and this would also extend to bigger things like surgeries).