Running Log - 8/Apr/2012

Today, it was a fantastic day for two reasons.

First, my hydration was super cool and second i got new pair of Asics. I have been using Reebok for sometime for my evening jog. I wanted to buy a new pair of shoes. I was not happy with my new Reebok Vibetech and started searching for good shoes. Good that i came to know about Asics. Today, i bought a new pair of Asics from Reliance Footprint and my run was sturdy. I never jogged with such a comfort. More on Asics later (after my initial experience).

Coming to the run. Today, i took a different route. Here is my run log

Run log

• 0.5km warm-up
• 7 km 5/1s runs
• 1.5 cool down walk

Yeah, i crossed 8K today and made up 9K. 8K was my psychological barrier.

Upgrades (both these made my run pretty comfortable):

• Asics running shoes
• Nike running socks

Learning

• Try to find a route that you can complete in single run (irrespective of the distance). For long distance running, repetition seems to be a scary thing. Running laps are just boring. Make your run motivating.
• Add a bit of sodium after a long run. Today, had banana milk shake. Just a pat on my back :-)
• I feel that with training (and Asics), running a half marathon (13.1mi/21K) is an attainable goal (may be in 6-8 months).

Next:

• Need to study a bit on injuries due to running and how to mitigate them
• Have to check websites on Gatorade. Should i really take Gatorade?
• Start working on half-marathon running/training plan. Get a gyan and fix a goal (which is attainable yet challenging)

Gyan that i got:

Don't run to complete 5K/10K/half-marathon or to lose weight. Run to enjoy life and discover who you are.

One more kilometer to hit 10K. As usual, my endurance was up a bit and few times in the middle of my runs, i ran really fast (due to traffic signals and traffic congestion).

Only word that hits me these days - Consistency, Consistency & Consistency.

Running Log - 7/Apr/2012

Yesterday was a rest day (and also had some work @ office. had to stay till 8pm & attend a late night call). Good that all those fell on the rest day.

Today, i jogged 8K. While leaving home, i said i would go 10K today but my father asked me to stop at 8K (asked me to increase gradually). Took, few more minutes than my previous run (5-Apr-2012) but finished with little energy left.

• 0.5 km - Warm-up
• 6.5 km - 5/1 runs @ 54 mins
• 1.5 km - cool down

Started to keep myself hydrated well. In today's run, i felt that my endurance to run 8K has increased and  today i didnt feel the uneasiness.

I closed this week with overall mileage of 29km.

So, fell like it is good going and great self-training :-)

Tomorrow, have to buy a Asics (seems like available in the city at Reliance Footprint). Reebok doesn't seem to go that well with my foot.

Running Log - 5/Apr/2012

Today is a wow. Stepped inside the shoes and jogged 8KM. Here is the log

• 0.5 km warm-up walk
• 6.5 km (5/1, around 10 sets of 5 minutes running and 1 minute walking)
• 1 km cool down walk

Observation

• It was bit difficult to run 5/1s throughout. Had to slow down in my jogging in couple of runs. As usual, finished strong. Some energy was left to job another kilometer. (run-walk-run does the magic)
• After 53 minutes of 5/1s, i feel that my endurance has go up a little.
• It is high time to do some leg toning in coming weeks (climb stairs, do some sit-ups)

Next

• Complete this week with a 6K (tomorrow) and 8K (saturday or sunday)
• Be ready to run 9K by end of next week
• Get a good pair of shoes (asics or new balance, have to check out in sports shop during weekends)
• Keeping my fingers crossed to touch 10K by end of April' 12
• Have to find some cool jogging routes near my home.

So far, have clocked 21 kms this week.

Experiencing "Running"

I have been running (rather jogging/walking) for quite sometime. Got past my target of 5K pretty consistently and every day i jog i make sure that i jog 5K. And most importantly, i finish my run with lot of energy (which is good) and i have to (deliberately) tell my legs "stop". After my evening run, i still have energy left to play with my playful nephews.

The following helps me to enjoy my running

• Use run-walk-run method (check out Jeff Galloway's website) .
• Have enough rest days (two consecutive run days followed by a rest day)

and slowly i have to

• add miles to my run
• cross training (do toning exercise or bit of cycling/swimming)
• work on my "hydration" and make it better
• work on my diet
• Run in the morning (through not very urgent)

This week, i ran 6K and 7K on Monday and Tuesday respectively. Hopefully, by the mid of May, i should run my first 10K (yeah, it is 10 kilometers in single run). Currently, i m not focusing too much on the time to complete. Being heavy, i feel that running is much more important than speed.

My first gyan from this renewed habit is - "Size doesn't matter".

Philosophy of Being Naughty

Any philosophy to be called as a philosophy should primarily have two attributes. It should withstand the test of time and there should have been enough counter perspectives [contrarian views]. If you accept something simply because it has been rolled out by the CEO, you will do more harm to the philosophy than good. If you don't rebel, there are two possibilities. The philosophy could be so great but you missed to understand it. The second possibility is that the philosophy could actually be crap but you would be wasting your time on something which is useless. So, when in doubt, question. When in doubt, do not co-operate. When in doubt, be naughty.

In some cases, obedience is height suicide. Disobedience can lead to great self satisfaction and most productive for the company. This point itself could be a philosophy. Philosophy of being naughty (by naughty i mean not taking the casual route, naughty could be not fearing, naughty could be not trusting until there is a proof, naughty could be trying to be rebel).

By being naughty, if you don't buy in to the philosophy, it just fine. Because, you follow "Naughty Philosophy"

Unstuck and Get a Life

I never thought that this blog would turnaround my life and make me think big. You the readers have been my source of inspiration in many ways. I only hope that i live up to my own potential of being an human being.

Here is March '12 performance card of my jogging {i put together a tiny personal tracker/website in my laptop and till will take a while to make it online}

Points:

• Restarted to jog. {started and stopped the habit many times in the past. Every time i start, i vow to make it a part of my daily life. nothing changed this time}
• Training myself for a 5K run. {as of now today, i can comfortably jog 5K with 4/1 strategy. 4 mins jog and 1 minute walk}. 
• From mid of March, have jogged a total distance of 40 K (yeah, it is kilometers).
• In the last day of March, did few 3/1s, two 9/1s and a warm up (5 mins walk)/cool downs (10 mins walk).
• Next would be reaching 10/1 gradually and build endurance.
• Next 10 days, i would be working on hitting 5K consistently, every day that i run.
• From the end of April, i would be training for a 10K and hoping to hit 10K once with 10/1 strategy.

Learning:

Have enough rest days. Allow muscle to repair itself. Be tough to be consistent and be gentle while you run.

Hope to put up a better post on first of next month.

[By the way, don't think that this is fools day post. It is just a coincidence that i started this on March '12]

See you later.

Random Thoughts on "Add Value"

Having been in the industry for quite sometime, i took a lot of time to understand the true meaning of "add value" and practical meaning of "add value". I never shy away from being bold and often share my candid opinion with a caveat that i could be wrong. When i share, i understand my limitations in my own thinking and offer to correct my thinking flaws when an argument is made with evidence. This post need not necessarily my experience at my workplace. This is just a "how the world can be" thinking. 

Many people who manage people use these tricky words - "add value". I think, the statement "add value" is so abstract. Can you make it concrete so that understanding becomes easier? When you go abstract, you become more philosophical. The abstraction has to be an outcome of one's own thinking. It is outcome of your thinking when you play with few concrete things and you understand them. It can and should never be taught. When we say "add value", what do we mean by that? Have we clearly said what is basic expectation and what is value addition. Being in an industry where there is large human churn (due to attrition), being sticking to a company for few years is basic expectation and  serving the company for long years is adding value. can the mere presence be considered as "adding value"?

How will you convince a worker who is so passionate, who maintains a very low profile who thinks that he is doing something what is expected out of her. Here, "adding value" is built in. You cannot differentiate such worker and value. How can you define "add valuing" to such a person? Will you exploit him when she says "she is normal guy".

Why is that adding value never be practiced? When you have so many people under you, it is much easier to make noise, can you step up your contributions through critical thinking? Are you dare enough to say, "come on guys, fire my thought process, let us learn something new, thinking fresh is more important than value itself". You know, being an example takes a lot of pain and we have to endure a lot of pain. The commitment to remain painful is a way to "add value" to your folks. For example, you have endure the pain of no results for many months before seeing something. Are you prepared for it? When your team is in incubation, will you rally around it?

Unless we have such a commitment towards shaking up status quo, we can never be "adding value".

With my little experience, i infer that only rebel can add value in words and spirit and i also believe that the value driven out of such a person will never be visible. Because such a value will lead to paradigm shift.

Open Gyan - The Commitment

This year (till now), Open Gyan, has conducted two workshops on Linux. We planned two more workshops in different colleges (DS/algo, JVM Internals and Linux) but we decided to push those to next semester as we felt that it would be little hectic for the students to prepare for their semester/labs and attend our workshops. All these workshops would be scheduled next semester along with few new workshops.

Visit us - http://www.opengyan.com

I would like to share couple of ground rules that would instill our long term commitment towards Open Gyan, its values and long term goals.

Since we are receiving the workshop requests moderately but we are very selective. At Open Gyan, we are interested to have a specific format (in delivery, hands-on and do it yourself) on selected topics. We don't want to repeat what the students have already learnt (or will be learning). We can certainly customize our workshop based on the students' exposure but we would not be interested to cover the entire syllabus (we feel that the college should be doing it). We welcome workshop requests that enhances the thinking/programming skills of the students and we aren't interested in merely repeating some text books and syllabus. We want to do workshops that shapes up thinking and to people who are passionate about computers/programming and conduct workshops (to curious minds) that challenges our own thinking. With this, we will also be challenged enough and knowledge sharing will be two way street.

The second issue is that many are asking for financial commitment. With the best interest of Open Gyan and its members, it is correct time to clear the air. Open Gyan will not be charging anything as fee. Our workshops are free (free as is in Open Source). Our companies pay us enough to have a moderate lifestyle. This initiative is driven out of passion. So, if you are looking out to cash something through us, i think, it is better to say "Open gyan will be truly open". Open Gyan will remain non-profit now and in FUTURE. Another caveat is that if our workshops require over night stay (which is very rare), we expect accommodation be arranged. With this, our original and true intention are preserved and our values won't get diluted. This will also help us to set expectation with any new members who join Open Gyan.

We are pleased about the response for Open Gyan. We have been meeting people and contacting them (through referrals and personal contacts). It would be great if you can share this with your friends specifically who are in academia (they could be professors or students). 

You can do two possible things 

• Forward this post using the link at the bottom of this post or copy/paste this post in a email.
• Visit/like our Facebook page (post this on your wall). In order to make your job easy, i m sharing couple of links.

Open Gyan - http://www.opengyan.com

Open Gyan@Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/opengyan

Email: ping@opengyan.com

Once again, we thank you for the support. We sincerely hope, "Together, we will make something meaningful to the community".

Have a Great Week.

Cheers,

Open Gyan Team.

Commitment Vs Compulsion

There are two ways by which you can complete a work. 

The first way is to complete it because you are committed to do it. You love to do it and in that case the work itself becomes reward. You don't expect anything back when you do such a work. 

The second way is to complete it out of compulsion. You complete it as you don't have any choice left. If you do it this way, the work will be so much incomplete even though it is complete.

You, only you can decide which work is "compulsion" and which one is "commitment".

So, decide. It is never too late to do the work that you would love to do.

Stretching the limits - Why

Have you ever stretched your limits? If you have done it, why did you do that? What did you infer by stretching the limits? Did it make you happy? Did you feel so good? If you felt good, why did you feel good? If you felt bad, why did you feel it that way?

So many "silly" questions.

By stretching, i didn't mean slogging in office for more hours. Now, you understand that this is not that "silly". By stretching, i mean - the thinking, your thinking (damn serious?).

Why should we stretch our thinking?

I feel that one should keep stretching their limits to infer that we are limitless.

It is not expanding the boundary or expanding the thinking envelope. It is experiencing that we are limitless.

So, let us stretch the limits and become limitless (got the gyan?)

Top of the mind Thinking

Whatever clever we are, we just do most of the things from top of the mind. We do something when others watch us and we tend to do totally different thing when there are no one around us[another variation is when you are near a person know to you versus when a stranger is watching you].

You can have any value system (it evolves or degrades over time, i m not commenting anything on the value system) but make sure that it is available at the top of your mind. In a very passionate/emotional situation, we tend to do things from top of the mind. If you happen to do something against your value system, just don't feel sorry. But make sure that you make an initiative to bring the value system to the top of your mind.

More than thinking, "top of the mind thinking" is more relevant in day-to-day decision making.

Once you do that, you will never feel sorry in life (buying certain things that you dont need, deciding on your next job, taking an extra scoop of ice cream in Baskin Robbins, dieting and life style changes that we are trying to alter everyday etc).