Running For My Life !!!!!!

I run 3 miles everyday, that is if you call red faced,gasping breathed ,desperate hopping meets frantic plodding as running.

I run on a nature trail which for most parts is away from the road, but is intersected by a few traffic lights, to save me the embarrassment i have learnt to pace myself, my running for most parts is as graceful as a giraffe with asthma running a three legged race.when i approach a cross walk(zebra crossing),my legs are so stiff that i waddle across like a penguin. I now time my self in such a way that 200 yards approach to and 200 yards after the cross walk  i am Usain bolt and a cheetah rolled into one, i leave the motorist waiting for their signal spell bound at how graceful and athletic i am. they see me whizz by head held proudly high, my legs taking long graceful leaps with amazing in air hang time(Michael Jordan would be proud of), nonchalantly slowing down at the signal, arrogantly looking on either side with a eagle like narrow eyes and cross the road with fluid momentum. if i were my own admirer i would swoon.
what they don't realize is that, exactly 2 minutes later this gazelle turns into a sloth and shuffles all the way to the next cross walk where he magically turns into a gazelle again. what they don't know is that arrogant look they see while i scope the road is nothing but blurred vision caused due to low oxygen supply and the sharp narrow eye is so that the sweat which is pouring out of my scalp does not enter my eye and set it on fire.

Why all the showmanship you ask?? I can't help it !!! its a involuntary action, i have no control over my brain!! its like fat men sucking in their stomach when a pretty lass walks by. or short men standing on their toes while talking to a taller person.

I started running while i was in Chennai a few years back at Railway Officers club where my dad is a member, i used to haunt its health club . you would generally find me breathlessly hanging on to a runaway treadmill or sulking underwater in the deep end of the pool. hanging out here was a big ego boost for me, as i was generally surrounded by middle aged women discussing the latest soap operas or men with globe shaped midriff walking languidly on the treadmill, the tennis courts had geriatrics playing a game of if-my-serve-makes-it-over-the-net-I-win. the more athletic sorts were shielded away from less athletic sorts by being enclosed in indoor badminton courts so as to not upset anyone or bruise any egos. so i was generally the toast of the joint with my laborious 5K exploits being considered the most effort anybodies ever put in and being skinny was enough to be called fit. i reveled in my skinniness until......

I landed here with the same brimming confidence and walked into the health club in the apartment complex i live in, only to find to my utter dismay it was filled with Greek gods and Godessess, the place seemed to be crawling with statues from some pillaged Greek temple. It was filled with people who hadno business being there.
 I found people twice my age pumping weights and running distances twice what i could even consider physically or for that matter remotely possible.everybody looked like they had just stepped out of the cover of a magazine.i kept looking around me to see if there were cameras around shooting a hip hop music video or holding the annual Mr. Universe competition. my entire workout regime was just a warm up for most people.
In my 3 mile run, the last mile is the hardest, i turn into a regular monica selles (in the grunting department) and the sweat is streaming down my face as if in a hurry to flow down to Somalia and solve the drought situation there. i am staggering all over the treadmill , my legs are protesting and threatening to give up any minute, my knees are turning into jelly. and my eyes are fixed to the distance meter pleading it desperately to go faster. by the end of it, i am a breathless mass of quivering flesh who feels like the test dummy of an juvenile acupuncture student.
On the other hand the sons and daughters of Apollo,Hercules and Athena in the gym barely seem to break a sweat.they in their fancy sports wear and even fancier sports drinks they saunter through their extensive and rigorous workout like they were taking a lazy walk on a beach even their hair didn't seemed to get disheveled , while i on the other hand looked like i just climbed up Mount Everest and came down on the other side using my face as the break.

If that wasn't bad enough the Gym overlooks the pool which is crawling with people who didn't look like they had ever lifted a dumbell in their life, but had a body which could be used to chisel diamonds with. they had cuts in parts of bodies where i have bumps and their Abs were stretched across their stomach as taught as a trampoline.this was too much for my fragile ego, crushed and mutilated i sneaked out when nobody was looking and decided to taking my running outdoors henceforth.

I am all for health clubs banning fit people from entering them.Now i understand why most Greek and Roman statues have been vandalized. . it was done by people with bodies like mine.

I took to running outdoors, i tell people that i did it because that is where the joy of running is and there are many beautiful nature trails here i can run on. but the truth is that i was driven outdoors in the heat and potential public embarrassment by the Da vinci's specimens of the perfect race infesting my Gym.

The View from on top of the hill was worth the effort!

Running outdoors was great, the trails were well marked and very scenic, some of the trails lead you through a forested area,and one beautiful trail takes you right up to the top of a hill giving a panoramic view of the entire countryside,there were few fellow runners, but ( if you have read my blogs before, you will have come to realize there is always going to be a "but" :) )  along came summer. The damn sun refuses to set till 8 at night,the heat wasn't a problem, for some one coming from between the tropic of cancer and equator a little heat never hurt, its the damn snakes.

I wonder if the Snakes
know about these rules?!

Summer seems to bring out the snakes from their cosy abodes, and lucky me to live in the area infested and famous for its RATTLE SNAKES!!!.
It takes a lot of will power to maintain an exercise regime, and believe me it does not help when you hear so many horror stories of snake siteings and bitings. fitness be damned, self preservation comes first.


My once de-stressing run slowly started turning stressful, while running these trails i am no longer focusing on my breathing , listening to music and reveling in the adrenalin rush. i am now searching furtively with darting eyes for snakes, i am constantly scanning the long grass on either side of the trail for reptiles. every time i hear a rustling noise , my heart leaps out of its place between my ribs and lodges itself in my throat  i have to swallow hard to send it back down. every time i see the grass move, i jump three feet in the air, the hair on the back of my head are at constant attention. i keep forgetting to breathe leaving my gasping for air every 20 yards.i would arrive home at the end of the run looking and feeling like messenger boy who just ran through a war zone and is in need of medical and psychiatric help.

enough sssssaid !!

 It was almost always rabbits,squirrels, wild turkeys or other smaller birds who would trigger the panic attack in me on these trails and the one time i did see a snake on the trail turned out to be a California King snake which Google informed me later was non venomous and make for great pets. i didn't know all that when i stumbled upon him, but didn't stay long enough to acquaint myself to him either, saw the snake , had a mini heart attack , turned and ran for my life in the opposite direction, venomous or non venomous i ain't trusting a snake. i did stay long enough to take a picture though. :) you have got to admit it makes for excellent Facebook posting material.




So driven outdoors by people, and driven back indoors by reptiles..... i suppose none of these Greek gods bite, so i am back safely on a treadmill running like a racehorse, no no not as fast as a racehorse, i run like a racehorse wearing blinders,looking straight ahead, so as not to be distracted by somebody bench pressing a 150 pounds or doing 200 squats or 250 crunches. volume on full high i run in my own world, a world where i am the center of the universe and there are statues of me in Greek temples.

Pretty much how i feel at the end of my run - ;) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES32UFlPOUA