The Runnerd

Hey guys! As you may have read, I'm running the TCS London Marathon for charity. Raising funds for the Royal Society for Blind Children. They're doing some great work to help blind and partially sighted kids live a life without limits.

Please do consider donating whatever you're comfortable with. No donation is too small to make a difference in these kids' lives. Thanks in advance. 🤗

Dhruv's fundraiser for Royal Society for Blind Children Help Dhruv Varma raise money to support Royal Society for Blind Children

Cloudy morning 8k, before work, yesterday. Jetlag had me up at 4 am! So after an hour (or two) of trying to go back to sleep, I decided to just go for a run, and get on with my day.

By the time I headed out, I barely had enough time for a 5k, but decided to run 8k anyway! 😝
Sure, that meant that I had to take a super quick shower, inhale my breakfast, and still be late for work. But it was worth it! 😄

Apart from being cloudy, it was also fairly windy and chilly. Between the chill, and awesome AQI, I was happy to push the pace a little. Had at least one sub 5 min km in those 8.

Had a fairly productive day at work, followed by a nice dinner at an old favorite, pan-Asian food place. Managed to fall asleep fairly early, yet again. But this time managed to sleep through the night. Probably thanks to the sake and/or the melatonin. 😄

Didn't quite have enough time for a run this morning but let's see if I can get one in, in the evening, or maybe tomorrow morning.

In other news, I've managed to get a spot in the , this year!!!!
I will be running for charity, raising funds for the Royal Society for Blind Children, .

I really appreciate all the great work they're doing to support young people with visual impairment, and their families! The link to the fund raising page is below, please do consider contributing whatever you can/are comfortable with. Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions about the cause or the organization.

Can't wait to get some focused training started!!
Watch this space for more!
Back to work for now. Ciao!

https://www.justgiving.com/page/the-runnerd

Back to Delhi. Back to obsessing about the AQI. Back to running in the afternoons to minimize exposure to pollution. Back to clothes smelling like a campfire. 🙄
As much as I love being back home, part of me just wants to go back. But then again, I'm only here until Friday night! Heading to Austin, TX for work and then the !

The wife is highly suspicious of how the marathon is lining up so perfectly with my work trip. 😂 And while I don't blame her for being suspicious, I truly had nothing to do with the scheduling of either of the two events. I just got excited about the coincidence and signed up for the race, not realizing that it has more elevation gain than the ! Which, totally kicked my butt, just a few months ago. 😬🤦🏻‍♂️

Anyway, I'm just happy to be running the race. It's been on my wishlist for a while. There's something special about running a marathon in a city that you've lived in. Boston is the other city where I spent some considerable amount of time, but that marathon is a tad harder to sign up for! 😄

I'm also excited to finally be feeling a lot better, after weeks of ups and downs. I first got a cold then pretty much recovered, before it relapsed and turned into something even worse than the first one. Somehow managed to get in, just about good enough shape to run the ! And then managed to get a minor stomach bug in Goa. But luckily, it all finally seems settled today.

In fact, I felt great on this run. I almost couldn't remember how long it'd been since I felt this good on a run.
As usual, it took some pushing to get myself out the door, especially after the two day break. But once I got started, the world started to make sense again.

Can't believe I'm running another marathon in less than 3 weeks! Let's see how this goes. 😬🤞

Beach runs hit different. Came to Goa after the . The wife and I had already planned to be here on the Republic Day weekend. So while she had to had back to work in Delhi, I figured I'd just come here directly and work out of here. I really didn't want to go back to the toxic Delhi air, if I didn't have to.
As if I needed an excuse to be in Goa for longer! 😆

The missus flew in last night and we have a few more friends that decided to join us here. So it should be a pretty fun long weekend.

About these two beach runs, went for an easy, recovery 5k on Tuesday and then an 8k yesterday. What was interesting was that both of these runs were preceeded by short swims! It's been awesome to swim again, after ages! I used to be a regular and a pretty decent swimmer but somehow that activity just faded away from my life. In fact, I now believe that swimming laid the foundation for my running. It helped me understand endurance.

Growing up with asthma, my doctor had recommended swimming as a good form of exercise. So I used to go swim almost everyday, in the summer. Every year my dad would give me some crazy goal of how many lengths per day I need to get to. So I got to the point where I'd do over 50 laps of a 25m pool, most of which would be consecutive, with all of them being at a leisurely pace. That focus on volume (lengths/distance) over speed, taught me how to get into that flow state where I could just get lost in the rhythm of motion, and within my own thoughts.

But once college started, or maybe even before that, I managed to lose touch with swimming. So many years later when I started running, I found myself in a similar state of flow and rhythm that I had completely forgotten about! Funnily, I didn't even make that connection immediately. But it ultimately hit me why that feeling felt so familiar.

Anyway, glad to reconnect with swimming, maybe I need to get back to more regular swimming, this summer.

Alright back to vacay mode for now. Ciao!

Reliving the awesome, awesome with the official race pics! I know, I know, I've been sitting on these for a while! But it's hard to believe that this was over 10 weeks ago! I'm still riding that post-race high from this event. 😁🤷🏻‍♂️

I guess the other reason for the delay in posting these, was the fact that I didn't buy the photos right after the race. I was contemplating whether I should be spending any more money on this race. 😄 Of course, I too knew that I'm going to buy them but just wanted to ease myself into that decision. So while I was trying to convince (read fool) myself that I make financially prudent decisions, black Friday came around! So decided to pull the trigger. 😄🤷🏻‍♂️

This race was one of the toughest, yet funnest races that I've ever run! I guess that's the reason it was also one of the most memorable and rewarding experiences of my life, so far.
So, of course I was going to buy the pictures! 😂

I love how these pictures capture the pain and the joy I experienced while running this race. The landscapes, the noise, the music, the people, the weather, the vibe, it was all just electric! And while pictures just can't do justice to that experience, they work as stimulants to trigger rather vivid memories and the associated emotions, for me. I really hard time picking just 10 photos for this post. There are some where I have my game face on, some where I'm just ecstatic, and others where I'm just in the , miserable and angry at the friggin race and the stupid elevation! 😂

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I absolutely loved this race. 😇🫶