Routine Post

Coming back after a long time ... (like Lance Armstrong and Michael Schumacher, but a much shorter period):

• My training for the full marathon has been going good. I'm in the 9th week of training and I had a pretty fulfilling 30 KM run last Sunday. Everything went according to plan and I did the distance in just over 3 hours -- including water breaks. My prospects look good for the Kaveri Trail Marathon.

• The dates for the 2009 Tour Of Nilgiris have been announced and I have decided to participate. Unlike last year's TFN, this time around the distances per day have been reduced to 80 KM from 150 KM. It still poses a challenge and should be fun. As part of the training, the longest distance I have done till date is 70KM. But I think 80KM shouldn't pose much of a problem. Of course, if you put hills in between, it's a totally different ball game.

• I had been avidly following, for the first time in my life, the Tour De France. Lance Armstrong came back this year and gave a good performance. It was not a fairy tale ending for him, but he did manage a respectable 3rd place -- though no individual stage wins. The 1st place was taken by Alberto Contador, Lance's teammate and rival (oxymoron-ic, but true). Armstrong has already announced that he is coming back next year with Team Radioshack. My suspicion is that his team will have Mark Cavendish, the British sprinter, who won 6 stages in the tour this year. Here are some beautiful pictures from the event.

• I have been reading Jared Diamond's : Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee. A book which answers "why humans are the way they are?" The book tackles the question by drawing from various sources: evolutionary biology, history, anthropology, archaeology, etc. In spite of having little knowledge about those subjects I find the book extremely readable.

That's all for now. Till next time, it's bye bye.