Official race timings

2 hours 29 mins 38 seconds!

How I managed to finish the San Francisco Half Marathon

Pre-event
----------
The morning of the event, I felt like not going because it was raining non-stop. But of course, that fleeting thought was instantly cast aside by the rational Mihir, and after having a bath (I wanted to get fresh, do some activity to restore the flexibility in my muscles) I gobbled down 4 slices of bread and a bowl of cereal. Did some light stretching. Couldn't figure out how to stick my bib number to the tee, but other than using tape, I didn't have any other ideas. Also, because it was raining I wanted to put on a water-proof jacket, but I didn't have any which were light. Just used the navy blue Cornell hoodie. After reaching the place, I had no idea where to put my backpack, plus I had no way of marking my number on it because it was a dark blue colored bag. Just left it alongwith the other bags, and joined the other runners at the starting line.

The 13.1 miles
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The rain turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Normally I start using my mouth for breathing after about 1 mile. This time was no different, but with the beautiful views around me, the rainwater constantly hydrating me (no, I was not drinking the rainwater) and running with 5000 people, I easily managed to get going. There was an uphill climb near the entrance to the Golden Gate bridge. That was perhaps the toughest part, but it was around the 4 mile mark that the elevations started, so it was not too hard to continue running. After about 5 miles, the entrance to the bridge appeared. The brilliant red towers and beams look so majestic up close. With water all around me, Alcatraz island in plain view, it was simply breathtaking, to say the least!

I continued running till the 7 mile mark. Had to walk a bit after that, to recover my breath and the feeling in my legs. People around me kept changing, with some (very few) falling behind, and some (a lot) leaving me staring at their backs. It was interesting to see their gear. Most people wore a light fanny pack around their waist with the bottle at the back. I don't know how heavy it might be with the filled water bottle, but almost everyone was carrying fluids. One girl had a backpack with a sipping pipe coming out of it!

After the 10 mile mark I couldn't keep running continuously anymore. Had to take several walking breaks. Plus, my damned ipod, which is very bulky by the way, only has a tiny clock on it, which replaces the "Now Playing" title 4 seconds after you touch the wheel. While running there was no way to keep track of the time. I couldn't have made it without the music though, thats a certainty. After 12 miles, I realised my left thigh was hurting like mad with every step. Did some quadricep stretching, and it felt better after a while. I steeled myself to run the last mile. I won't be caught walking through the finish line, no way!

Week 3, Day 1

NUTRITION
Breakfast: Milk and cereal

EXERCISE

Week 2, Day 7

NUTRITION
Breakfast: Milk and cereal, olive bread
Lunch: Pasta (no cheese, just sauce), chips
Pre workout: G Series 1
During workout: G Series 2
Post workout: G Series 3
Dinner: Cream of mushroom Soup, Veg Atta noodles

EXERCISE
10 mile run around office campus (1.2 mile loop, completed in 1 hr 40 mins)

Week 2, Day 6

NUTRITION
Breakfast: Milk and cereal
Lunch: 3 slices of Pizza, bruschetta
Dinner: Indian restaurant in SF - Bit of kofta, paneer, dal, kulcha and roti


EXERCISE
Bit of walking around on Golden Gate bridge, in the city

Week 2, Day 5

NUTRITION
Lunch: Chhole, mixed veg subzi, 1 wheat bread, rice
Post Lunch: Diet Pepsi
Dinner: Vegetarian Risotto, 2 beers, half glass of wine

EXERCISE
Complete rest

Week 2, Day 4

NUTRITION
Lunch: Salad
Pre workout: Roasted potatoes, fruit salad
Post workout: Protein juice
Dinner: Leftover pizza, pasta, yoplait, bread and olive oil dip


EXERCISE
5 mile treadmill run

Week 2, Day 3

NUTRITION

EXERCISE
Outdoor jog (about 3 miles)

Week 2, Day 2

NUTRITION
Breakfast: Milk and cereal, bread and olive oil parmesan dip
Lunch: Falafel wrap
Dinner: Bruschetta, panini, froyo
Post workout: 2 yoplait

EXERCISE
5.5 mile run

Week 2, Day 1

NUTRITION:
Breakfast: Milk and cereal
Lunch: Quesadilla
Post Lunch: Diet Sierra Mist, Coffee
Dinner: Paneer Wrap

EXERCISE:
Complete rest

Week 1, Day 7

NUTRITION:
Breakfast: Milk and cereal, 2 slices of wheat bread
Post workout: 2 glasses of iced tea, bread with olive oil and parmesan seasoning
Lunch: Onion Rava Masala dosa, Tomato onion Uthapam
Dinner: Gobi masala with tandoori naan

EXERCISE:
9 mile jogging on treadmill (jog for 6 miles, walk for 0.5 miles, jog for rest of the distance)

Week 1, Day 6

NUTRITION:
Lunch: Pizza (the other half from yesterday)
Dinner: Sandwiches (wheat bread, coleslaw, cheese, dressing)

EXERCISE:
Cross training (cycling): 1 hour

Week 1, Day 5

NUTRITION
Breakfast: Milk and cereal
Lunch: Nacho Grande
Post Lunch: Mixed Fruit Juice
Evening: Bagel, cream cheese, cheetos
Dinner: Veggie pizza (half)


EXERCISE
Complete rest.

Week 1, Day 4

NUTRITION
Breakfast: Milk and cereal
Lunch: Salad
Post lunch: Coffee before meeting
Pre workout: Roasted Potatoes, fruit salad
Post workout: Protein bar, vitamin rich juice
Dinner: Subway veggie patty 6-inch
Late night: Left over malai kofta, wheat roti

EXERCISE
Jogging: 2 miles in 20 mins at average of 6 mph
Football: Intense running around for an hour. Played a great game too, must have been running till the end.

Week 1, Day 3

NUTRITION
Breakfast: Milk and cereal
Lunch: Papaya and strawberry fruit salad, harvest peach yoplait and macaroni.
Post Lunch: Diet Sierra Mist
Before jogging: 2 bags of corn chips
After jogging: 1 protein bar, 1 carb bar.
Dinner: Tomato Soup, paneer tikka, 1 roti and a bit of malai kofta.

EXERCISE
After stretching, started jogging on treadmill at 5 mph and continued for 5 miles, gradually increasing speeds (final speed 6.5 mph). Walked outdoors for 10-15 mins. Returned to gym and stretched my muscles. Light cycling for 1 mile to loosen up.

Week 1, Day 2

NUTRITION
Morning: Milk and cereal for breakfast
Lunch: Enchilada, potatoes and fruit salad
Post lunch: Diet Sierra Mist
Dinner: Dhokla, aloo subzi, dal, rice, matar subzi and 3 rotis.

EXERCISE
Evening: Stretching before jog, ran around the lake (must have been about 3 miles, not sure) and stretching after jog.

Week 1, Day 1

Complete rest! Tonight I looked at the 12 week plan and 10 week plan that rookies should follow to complete the half marathon. Nutritional information, warm up and stretching, the right running shoes, measuring your running distance, taking appropriate rests.

The One just before Graduation

Cornell life is almost over. Just 5 days to go! The lingering feeling that I didn't make the most of it academically will remain. I could have done better on some exams (Machine Learning, IR, E-commerce), but some of my efforts just didn't come to fruition. Tough luck! I am really proud of the learning I gained through live objects project work, and through the courses as well. Undoubtedly, it has been the most incredible learning experience ever. Being the self-critic that I am, I will add that I could have done more.

I met some great people, some weird ones, came to terms with my laziness, let myself go occasionally, came to know myself much better, gained some much needed self-confidence, realised mistakes that I should not make in the future, faced failures. All in the space of 9 months. Oh, and I played a hell lot of sports as well :P

I am incredibly glad and feel lucky that at least I have a job offer in hand, a great offer in fact. Sometimes I become paranoid and wonder if I earned it all. How suddenly life has changed, and how easily a lot can be snatched away from me. Is it completely inconceivable that Oracle will wake up tomorrow and tell me, "you didn't get good enough grades, we are revoking the offer"? I guess I am bitching about this because I just learned that I got a deserved B on LSI, and a completely unjust B+ on E-Commerce. I did all the fucking assignments, wrote a decent exam, and I get a B+, while Mehant did jackshit and got an A. (I am sure I will laugh about my immaturity when I read this 10 years later, but I am just crazy worried that such poor grades don't come back to bite me in the ass).

Played football today. Was surprised at my stamina, I guess all the tennis, football, racquetball, walking uphill to school have paid off! Caught the series finale of 24, no great shakes. Season finale of Chuck was also on air, but that disappointed me as well. House continues to be extremely well thought out and intelligent.

Graduation is on the 30th. Got 7 wonderful people cheering for me when I go up to receive my degree. The lingering feeling I talked about earlier will persist, but I will squash it down with some trademark "eternal optimism" :-)

The One after Oracle

Cool title eh? :-)

After failed final round interviews with Microsoft, Capgemini, Next Jump, finally got a job offer from the Oracle Fusion Time and Labor Group! Its a HUGE relief...I shudder to think what the situation would be if I didn't have an offer by now. Will be joining on 1st July. Got an on site interview with Cisco a couple of days ago, but since I have accepted Oracle's offer, I guess I won't be going to San Jose. Funny how things work out...I never thought I would be working in a database company during my undergrad, and Cisco was my dream company at that time! I seriously hope the business applications domain turns out to be interesting, and if not I will try to move to a group involved in virtualization, or cloud computing.

Live Objects has been the most interesting work this semester. In the beginning, I invested a lot more time than I did last semester into LO project work. Even Krzys liked the effort I was putting in, and he is a difficult man to impress! Dan is a great guy to work with. I like the weekly meetings which keep me on my toes. After completing the shared folder module for the Air Force Research Labs project, I was asked to develop a video for the demo. Initially, we had looked at a time frame of 2-3 weeks to complete the video, but its been 6 weeks now! The problem is, its a little difficult to motivate yourself to make a VIDEO, for fucks sake. I like how it is shaping up now, and I am sure this experience will help in the future with presentations and all.

Next step is to help Qi Huang and Dan on a paper they are writing. My task is to help them set up the experiments and testing environments on Emulab. It will require generating traffic, measuring latency, jitter and creating multicast routers. It promises to be a fantastic learning experience! Am really glad I decided to stay with this group, and not choosing the easy way out.

Have been playing a lot of sports this semester. Tennis, badminton, table tennis, cricket, racketball, football, a little bit of basketball...the course load is less, only live objects keeps me busy! Have had a lot of fun!