I just ran the New York half marathon this morning. I negative-split the race right through and finished the race with quite a bit left in the tank; that's is a pretty obvious corollary if it's known that my pace was 10:30 a mile.

Distance,Time,Split,Pace
5k,0:33:50,0:33:50,10:53
10k,1:06:48,0:32:58,10:37
15k,1:38:50,0:32:02,10:19
20k,2:10:17,0:31:27,10:07
Full,2:17:29,,10:29

It was quite fun to run right through the heart of Times Square; the map of my route shows my GPS watch getting very confused about where I was, since the skyscrapers were in the way of its satellites. (No sane person runs over buildings, of course.)

A 2 hour long video of the race is available here; I recorded it on my DVR as well (new TV, heheh) and will update this blog again if I actually find myself anywhere in the feed.

I'll get my hands on some photographs as well, soon enough.

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Update: I finish at 2:32:46 in the downloadable 466MB-sized finish line video. I also spotted myself at 1:38:10 of the produced race coverage, elbowing a live TV presenter out of my way while wondering why she was standing in the middle of the road, blocking everyone. Fun fun fun.

I bought myself a new TV last week and had to get rid of my old one. Since it's a pretty old TV and probably not worth much at all, I decided to use FreeCycle New York City to give it away.

I wrote an email to the group saying "Here is a TV. Who wants the TV? Please pick it up." And these are some of the replies I get. Why, God, why?!

Can I please have your tv I need one for my babes to watch her adore I would pick up monday thanks in advance

I will love to have the TV for my father, he is very sick and his room is his favorite please to be, he doesn't have a tv and I can't afford one right now for him, I will love to have that TV can I pass by tomorrow please, I will appreciate this very much.

My wife and I recently lost everything due to a tragedy and are in a NYC family shelter and the TV would be a tremendous blessing we could pick it up at your convenience

Last Name

First Name

Sex/ Age

Bib

City

State

Overall Place

Gender Place

Age Place

Finish Time

Split Time

Pace/ Mile

AG Time

AG Gender Place

AG %

BHARDWAJ

MANU

M25

5625

NEW YORK

NY

3674

2548

675

56:06

0:28:43

9:02

56:06

2891

47.8 %

Summer's about to start, and it was my first race in shirts and shorts. I wanted to break my last 10k time of 56:38 @ 9:07min/mile, so even though it was way warmer and I was way underprepared, I decided to go for it. I did break it, but NYRR unfortunately categorized me at 9:02 pace even though my watch told me I ran an 8:45. Sucks.

Financial markets in India have always loved that golden phrase "irrational exuberance" to the point that India always bottoms charts about the stability of different emerging markets. The Indian government has traditionally never believed in libertarianism, so it always comes up with exciting and unfathomed ways to regulate it, such as a total shutdown on futures trading. Of course, there is no such thing as an independent Central Bank in India, but what's worse is that nobody has even thought about suggesting such a concept yet.

But things are improving: Reverse mortgages, for example, are actually recognized by elite urban citizens in India today: with a mortgage, you live in the house for a few decades and slowly pay the bank its cost and the interest; with a reverse mortgage, you sell your house back to the bank and continue to live in it while they pay YOU until you die... at which point the bank either takes it over or your children pay the bank and buy back the equity in the house. Fantastic concept, that.

The United States, of course, has an established history of loans and mortgaging: savings; the government always spends more than it earns, peoples' saving rates are often negative; money is lent credit card, car and house and then repackaged (which is OK) but then leveraged (which is not) and then sold. India's getting there: Anil Ambani managed to IPO a shell company for $2.8 billion using not his reputation (he doesn't have one, of course) but his dead father's.

To contrast this with that other big country, 96 percent of Chinese cars bought in 2008 were paid for cash down.

The one thing that's being completely forgotten in the chaos that's the tour of the Olympic flame, is the group of participating athletes that make the games. Four months away from the Olympics, they are in the peak of their training schedules and even if they wanted to say something, they just wouldn't find the time to! Some people do, of course... like Milorad Cavic at the European Swimming Championships last month. I'd love to say that the Olympics is ultimately non-political, but with eternally fresh memories of Berlin 1936 and Munich 1972, nobody can ever say something like that.

Here's another sad and simple truth: Tibet could have been freed from China perhaps one generation ago, but that just isn't possible anymore. With the forced migrations of the Hans to Tibet over the past fifty years and with the infrastructural connections like roads and the famed train line to Beijing, it has been wholly integrated into China and isn't separate from any other part of China... except geographically, of course.

What's really at stake here, and what can be changed, is the human rights situation in China. When foreign companies want space in China, the poor are relocated to make way for them. When dams like the ones in the three gorges are built, a million people are forcibly relocated. That's always the story in China: forcible relocations of the poor to make way for "development"; this sort of situation can only implode.

The Narmada Dam Project in India was supposed to have a 6.5 cu. km. capacity and was expected to displace 100,000 people: that war against the project has been fought for 30 years now without getting anywhere. It took 15 years to build the Three Gorges Dam in China: 6 times as much capacity and 10 times as many displaced citizens. India is still thinking about that ambitious plan to link all rivers, while China has managed something far grander with the Yellow River. It cost twice as much to build Heathrow Airport's Terminal 5 in London as it did to build the new Beijing Airport.

Students in Berkeley and San Francisco again don't think about what they are protesting about; what with all the mass hysteria and holier-than-thou attitudes prevalent. An excellent photograph of the San Francisco protests I spotted was of a passive Chinese supporter being shouted at by an angry white protestor. That photograph said so much.

With commodity prices soaring, India's also going gung-ho at Africa while ignoring human rights... but then, India's a democracy and its people have historically protested with their vote. That should be fun to watch.

So these guys walked up to the Jefferson Monument in the middle of the night and started dancing. The cops came and shut them down. A few of them got orgasmic at the thought of being accosted by cops and started to shout out exciting slogans about freedom and liberty . Unfortunately, one (admittedly well-connected) woman got herself arrested, earning herself the arresting martyr nickname "The Jefferson One."

She now has a blog and a fund for her defense, and even a twitter feed with an amazing 25 followers when last checked.

How is this different from shouting fire in a crowded theatre? When you bait the cops in this land of paranoia, you can only expect that sort of response. The participants now really believe they were there to "pay Jefferson respects", and by echoing that same thought to each other enough times, they convince themselves that they actually were there for exactly that... and not for something less prestigious and more run-of-the-mill like a plain ole' flash mob???

This argument is not going to get anywhere because nobody is going to take them seriously. They aren't downtrodden and they were barely harmed. The right response today is to dance again... but by letting the cops know first. It's really difficult to expect the cops to both keep them safe and keep the "terrorists" away.

It is a good library that allows me to borrow Watchmen for a fortnight.

416 matches in, it still astonishes me when Tendulkar wins an ODI for India by scoring a century while batting second. (He's done it 14 times in this career, remaining not out half the time, but last guided a successful chase 7 long years ago.)

What was certainly the stronger achievement of the day was India's loss-free romp to the U-19 cricket World Cup trophy. Clinical!

How succinct. This newspaper even publishes a wonderful and readable Style Guide with writing tips.

I came across this excellent PDF where Pakistan's Telecom Authority decided to block all of youtube because of one offensive video, in the process creating chaos across the Internet. (That video has unfortunately been deleted, but I can bet it was blasphemous in some way or form, just like everything else on the Internet is.)

As usual, they misunderstood the difference between a single page and a whole website. When will these damned Big Brother governments learn the difference?

Due to the unexpected snowstorm, my second scheduled race with the New York Road Runners is now no longer designated a 'race': "Due to unsafe road conditions resulting from inclement weather, the NYRR Al Gordon Snowflake 4-Mile has been designated a fun run. Registered entrants will receive credit for one of the nine races that are part of the eligibility requirements for guaranteed entry to the ING New York City Marathon 2009. ChampionChips will not be used for the fun run."

I guess I'm reasonably happy about it: I was only planning to run it since it would count as one of the 9 qualifiers for the 2009 NYC marathon, since after all, 4 miles is peanuts. On the other hand, I haven't run for two weeks now and was yet planning to sprint it all the way; I might just do that even though it looks like I won't get a registered time. I hope I won't hurt myself. (Update: I ran the 4 miles at an 8:58 pace.)

I still need to lose a lot of weight to get up to speed, though.

( The screening of 'The Spirit of the Marathon' )

I have cousins who've lived for years and years in cities across the United States, but haven't ever lived in a Super Bowl-winning city. In my second year here, the city I live in did; every car is streaming across the roads of Manhattan blaring its horn in celebration. This feels GOOD.

I spent this weekend last year in a freezing Chicago; somebody predict who the Super Bowl teams next year will be, and I'll buy tickets right now!

I ran a real slow 8 miles a few hours ago; given that I ran it at 10:30/mile pace at 27F (-3C), I'm not feeling tired at all. I expect to run a full 10 miles this time next week: I'll try and run it at 9:30 pace.

That will hurt.

( Gruesome questions )

I'd been running quite a bit the past few years in Bangalore; but in August 2006, my first run back after my southeast Asian trip ended up giving me a painful left-knee injury. I quit for a year, and somehow managed to gain about 10 pounds in the meanwhile in spite of all the swimming.

Anyhow, with some inspiration from my brother Hari, a two(and a bit)-time marathoner, as well as some motivation to kick this guy's ass, I'm back to some running again.

With a new iPod Shuffle (and daily podcasts from the BBC, the WSJ, the NYT and the Economist), an excellent pair of Asics GT 2130 shoes and a cool Garmin Forerunner 305 that I bought for cheap, I ran my first Central Park run last Saturday.



Winter weather in New York is just perfect. You never tire.

It's interesting to see how quickly the body adapts to stress. I've only been running for 3 weeks now; my first run was a 2 miler and every part of my body was screaming at the end of that run. Just last week, I ran a 5-mile NYC Marathon qualifier really slowly, and was rather tired at the end of it. But yesterday's run was a 6-miler and I only had to stop because my running partner was exhausted. It's a nice feeling to improve so quickly.

I've started reading Al Gore's Earth in the Balance, and he makes some memorable points about moral authority. The first is the enduring rhetorical question: if a person drives a car to a global warming conference, what can she possibly do at that event that can ever be considered justifiable? He also recites Mahatma Gandhi's sugar anecdote(PDF) about how a person can really only expound if he practises what he preaches. Before preaching, he says, it's imperative to work to get to that point where the moral authority has first been earned.

Can one ever remain disinterested while trying to understand a subject comprehensively? He writes of how it took him years to understand the need to separate local environmental issues from global ones (e.g., trash in Napoli versus global warming.)

I waited and waited and waited for Apple to upgrade its MacBook. Soon as it did, I walked up to the retail store nearby and bought myself a Leopard-equipped book to replace my fast-dying old machine.

My first few days were torture because I found I had no clue how OS X worked. That feeling isn't something I'd wish on anyone... "isn't this supposed to be the best interface in the world?", but I've finally started figuring things out.

- Dashboard (the copied Konfabulator) is a beautiful F4 key away.
- Expose on F3 is just as good.
- iChat is a beautiful piece of software.
- Single finger: move the mouse. Two fingers: scroll the window.
- Single tap: left-click. Double tap: right-click.
- iTunes integrates wonderfully, as expected.
- The machine is FAST and light, and the battery lasts forever.

I guess I'll call her Bobbie.


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Update: T-Mobile Internet with EDGE off my phone, and I am now permanently online.

Man, I'm only 25. Where did everybody go?