My Weekly Blog #2

After procrastinating and thinking for the last 24 hours, I finally have things to write about this week!
So let's start:

Laughing it up:
I am a huge Rafael Nadal fan and have supported him since I was 14. So, naturally I cannot be a "fan" of Roger Federer or Novak Djokovic, even though I really respect and admire these 2 gentlemen.

Djokovic for one, is a special person. When was on a roll, he was more dominant than both Nadal and Federer combined. And I don't know if you guys have noticed this, but when he starts to lose points in a match, he initially gets frustrated and then he starts smiling.



Not like that. It's a little sinister, and once he does that, he calms down and all of sudden he is back to winning points again. It's not foolproof, he does lose matches, but his body-language changes and that makes a world of difference.

All of us go through rough patches in our lives. No one is averse, life is a sinusoidal wave or in the immortal words of Deadpool: "“Life is an endless series of trainwrecks with only brief, commercial-like breaks of happiness.”

But when these trainwrecks happen, many of us(I am generalising here) just go into a negative spiral. For example: You're having a really sucky phase of life and in the middle of it, you go the kitchen, you pull out a packet of pumpkin seeds and they fall to the floor and get scattered(incidents in this story are based on real life experiences).

On a normal day, you would groan, clean them up and it would be a minor inconvenience.
On a bad day, it would be a catastrophe. Your mind would connect it to all the bad things in your life, it will remind of that one embarrassing incident in your childhood, it would moan "Everything is going bad, this was just supposed to happen", it will further ruin your mood and you cannot wait for the day to get over.

But you know what? When the seeds fall down, laugh. Laugh and say to yourself "Man, I can't even do this right". Just laugh it off and clean the mess. And then see the difference.

You see, your mind is adept at making connections and when the train of negativity hits it, it forms a negative spiral connecting the small negatives to the big negatives and that begins to reflect in your persona and it brings you down.



When you laugh, you break that spiral. Your brain doesn't approach the negative incident as a bad connection, your approach changes.

And with time and patience, that bad phase passes and you feel like this again:




Try it the next time!

Weighty Matters:
The running community cannot come to a definitive conclusion on this topic. First of all, let me just say this (and I'm prepared to be pelted with stones): No elite marathoner is Fat.

Well, Mo Farah might say Eliud Kipchoge is fat:




But in reality, neither of them is fat.

That's a fact. I'm not body-shaming anyone and I'm sure people love Mirna Valerio. But trust me, Eliud Kipchoge would be a lot slower if he weighed 300 pounds, ate Pizza for every meal and then posted Self-deprecating memes as a way of overcompensating.

But, Eliud Kipchoge wouldn't be helped if he began to focus on looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
You see,  "lifting to increase muscle size is counterproductive to endurance( and particularly marathon) performance. During endurance training, you work to increase the capillary density and mitochondrial content of your muscles. When muscle size is increased, the capillary and mitochondrial density of the muscle is reduced"(Pfitzinger & Douglas, 2nd Edition).

I saw a post recently, a guy finishing a marathon shirtless, flauting his abs, but his actual finish time not even close to mediocre.(Well, to me Sub 3 marathon is mediocre, 2:30 is respectable, 2:17 is where it is at).
If you're actually a competitive runner, no-one really gives a shit about 6-pack abs and burly biceps. Abs a by-product of your training and show-up not because of your crunches but because you dropped your body-fat % age. Do a million crunches a day, and you won't see able until you drop that slice of pizza.

Runners look like Runners. They're gaunt, they're not the people who you would want moving stuff around your house.

My point is, go and run. Get your mileage in. Get a good mix of strength training and core, flexibility training and stretching. And eat properly. It's fun to be self-deprecating but it is even more fun to be self-disciplined.

Indulgence gives you a moment's pleasure, Discipline gives you a lifetime of it.

And it's cool that you can benchpress a 1000 pounds or do a full split. Don't boast about it. That won't make you a faster runner. Train smart and be happy!

Funny Incident of the Week:

I don't watch Football. At all. I don't know what's going on, I have unfollowed people who post about Football, the same way I have unfollowed people who run once and post a million pictures. I am a judgmental shrew, deal with it.

But, my friends family in Lausanne are a bunch of Brazilians. And just like your biased brain associates India with Curry, you associate Brazil with Football. Unfortunately stereotypes have some truth to them, and my family here really love Football.

So I came to know that Germany, who won last time I guess, got eliminated in the 1st round!
When I used to watch Football(2002, I remember France who had won in 1998, got eliminated that year in the 1st round and Brazil went on to win in 2002. So I am hoping for the same this time.)

Anyways, I went online to see the prices of Yoga Mats in a local sports store and I saw this:



50% off on the German jersey! And it looks good! I might just buy it and use it as running T-shirt! If only it drops to 20 chf!

Athletics Roundup for the Week:

Challenge Roth was on this weekend. Sebastian Kienle comfortably won the Men's division, with a time of 7:46:23, Andreas Dreitz finished 2nd, 7 minutes back.(7:53:06)

Cameron Wurf broke the bike course record, riding a 4:05:37 on a 180.2k course(I have to specify this as Ironman Races these days are just cutting the distance short to make records).

But the star in my opinion was Jesse Thomas. I am a huge fan of this guy, he's a really cool pro-athlete. He has his own business: www.pickybars.com, his podcast and he races in Aviators.

He's towards the end of his career and on his podcast he had made his intentions to do well in Roth clear. And he did, running a 2:44:52, finishing in 3rd place with his 1st Sub 8: 7:54:38.




I am so psyched for him.

The women's race was really close, with Daniela Sämmler edging out Lucy Charles by 9 seconds.



Unlike that clown Neymar, or Ronaldo, she hasn't fallen on the ground because someone *tried* to touch her but instead has collapsed after a huge sprint at the end of  marathon and on 8.5 hour work day where she swam 3.8k, biked 180.2k and ran 42.2k.

Also, someone who didn't collapse despite working hard this week was Michael Wardian.

This guy never ceases to amaze me. Last year he ran 7 marathons in 7 days on 7 continents. All Sub 3. (Slowest 2:54 in bloody Antarctica.) And then ran 13.1 miles more to make it a 200 mile week.

Last week, he did this:



So he ran:
At 2:30 pm : 42.2k in 2:42
Then at 6:30 pm: 10k in 38 minutes 
And then at 7:30 pm: 5k in 21 minutes

Also, Bernard Lagat won the AJCC Peachtree Road Race 10k (USTAF championships) on 4th of July in a time of 28:40.

That might not seem that fast, until you realise Lagat is 43. Ageless masterpiece this guy.



And , Tour De France starts tomorrow and I'm psyched for that. I will avoid controversy and not mention Froome and the whole saga. I just hope the Tour goes well and Peter Sagan is not sent home in the 1st week. I wouldn't like to see him doing this:



I'd rather watch this:




And finally, quote of the week: 


If you don't know who he is, you're not a real runner.

Haile Gebrselassie according to me is the greatest distance runner of all time. His consistency, his range(from being brilliant at 1500 meters to the marathon takes some skill) and his longevity all make him a legend.

What makes him more legendary though, is this quote from 2002. Gebrselassie debuted in the marathon at the London Marathon in 2002, where he lost to Khalid Khannouchi and Paul Tergat.
His marathon debut time was 2:06:35.

Even though a 2:06:35 marathon time would be a huge cause of celebration, Gebrselassie said: "I have to change a lot of things before I can become a good marathon runner".

The man with multiple Olympic golds and a marathon debut time of 2:06:35 said he wasn't a "good marathon runner".

So next time when you put a boastful post about your weekend ride or run, about how you finished X miles without training or your pathetic 39 min 10k PB, think of that and be humble.

Cheers and have a nice week!