5K Run (one of my dream)

Few years back I used to think, that going to Gym is waste of time, or at least I thought it was not for me. When we rented our first home in US we didn’t have any furniture and we were sitting in the floor. If I sit continuously for 30 minutes, my knee will be paining like a hell for few minutes after when I getup. Last year during some conversion with my PM I told him, that my knees are paining and he shouted at me saying at the age of 24 I should not have these issues and asked me to go for jogging and also he asked me to participate in some marathon. I didn’t take it seriously until I knew that he used to go for marathon for about 20K and I decided to start with jogging first.

It was winter time and few of my roomies used to go to gym everyday and I decided to choose the treadmill. On the first day I couldn’t even run for a mile and I was gasping like a dog. Finally after two months I was able to run for about 3 miles and at the end of winter I was able to run about 5 miles in 50 minutes. The spring season has started and we have shifted to new room and I’ve lost the touch with Gym. But Luckily because of my friend here I bought a cycle and even though I didn’t have a company I started cycling. There are lots of biking trials near to my apartment and few are mountain trails too. My interest of exploring each trial has pushed me to go for 10 miles a day for few times.

I also love to play tennis and used to play for a set after my cycling and if I didn’t go cycling play at least three sets. My body was completely fit and also I was so confident that I can run 5 miles without any trouble. Then I got an opportunity to thru my org to participate in marathon and which is for a good cause of collecting fund to the child cancer. I decided to participate in that and it was exactly one month ago. My aim was to complete the run and I started practicing for a few days. Since I was fully fit I could able to go for 5 mile run in a few days itself within 50 minutes. Within this last one moth our interest has fully transferred to playing cricket because of the number of people who appears in the park and I completely stopped going for jogging. And also for couple of weeks I got a company to go for biking, so the jogging becomes and out of touch but still I was confident that I will make it.

For the past one week I didn’t do any activities to just relax and even I didn’t play cricket. I knew that if play cricket then I cannot run, and finally the day arrives to go for this 5k run. This is second time in my US life where I am getting up before 6’O clock, because I had to leave by 6.30 from my home to reach the downtown where we were going to run. We reached the park by our company bus around 7.30 and the race was due at 8.30. There were lots of people, almost 2k to 2.5 who are ready to run and the drizzling climate was also too good for the run. When I see old people’s and children’s who are running in front of me nothing has stopped me to think about getting tiredness at all. I was running at my own pace and few minutes before reaching the finish line I’ve increased my pace little bit and completed the race in 24 minutes and 20 seconds. I was not tired and I couldn’t believe that I have complete in 24 minutes, because I thought it was 5 mile and finally I got to know that it’s 5 Km. I completed at 240^th place out of 1800 people who have completed the race and I am quite happy with this and I wish to participate in events like this every year.

US Open 2009

Finally the US Open is over after many interesting matches and few interesting new players. First of all I am really disappointed with Federer’s loss but Del Potro deserves this win just for his forehand shot’s alone. I've never seen a player with that immense force to hit the ball, it went like a rocket and he out played Federer. He is just 20 now and will become like a Federer if he continues to play well. Federer has lost this match because of his bad serve and the no of unforced errors. The reason for errors, he didn’t play against any good player in the tournament except playing against Jocovic in the semi, but in the other case Del Porto has played against all good players in most of the rounds and the match against Nadal was awesome.

I went to the women’s final and I was happy to see Kim and Caroline playing final. First of all I hate William’s sisters to come to the final and Kim had beat both of them with her experience and it’s a great comeback after a two years which many won’t get as a sports person. That too at the end of the ceremony sharing the court with his little baby girl, it was so nice to watch and may be she is the only player who was lucky enough to had a moment like that. Her opponent Caroline Wozniacki is a good player and she beat all the players comfortably, and the one match which I liked most was against the US teenager Oudin who had beat 4 Russian players consecutively including Sharapova and Demetieva and entered into quarter final. For couple of days Oudin was the headline in most of the channels.

I’ve already mentioned about Serena’s foot fault reaction in the previous match and in the semi she went to an extra step and scolded the line umpire for a minute and she got a penalty point which happened to be a match point for Kim. After the match during the press conference, one reporter has asked, "Does that line umpire deserve any kind of apology" and she didn’t answer that question and for some other question she said she may meet her. After winning the doubles championship during the press conference she asked sorry to that line umpire, maybe because she won or else she might have scolded the main umpire in the doubles match as well.

Watching the match live from the stadium was a real good experience and I wish to go again if I am going to be here for the next UP Open.

Florida..

It was a much needed break for me, though I didn’t work hard in past few months. Neither we didn’t plan well nor we didn’t stick with a single plan, but still it was a good trip with most of the plans executed.

We planned to go to Keywest(KW) on Saturday and go for Jet Ski, Scuba diving and Snorkeling. As per the plan we started early on that day and the climate didn’t look feasible for these activities. But we had to go since we don’t have any other Plan except sleeping in the room (Plan B) which nobody was interested in. Once we reach KW we had lunch and it’s stopped raining and we found an agent who helped us to get the Jet Ski and boat for snorkeling which was ok for rest of the day. Jet Ski is one my top favorite activity which I wanted to do it again and again, after the ski we went to snorkeling and on the way back to sore we have seen a nice cloudy sunset. We were lucky that it didn’t rain in the afternoon, after the sunset we were heading towards Miami where Kamal was waiting for us. We managed to reach there by midnight and did spend an hour before we sleep and for the next day morning we went to Everglades Alligators National Park with Kamal’s family. We did see a few Alligators but we were disappointed that we could only see the trained ones. Everybody has enjoyed the Air boat ride which they used to go around the park and it was fun. We really didn’t have any plans for the evening so we decided to go to Naples Beach which is famous for its sunset which is four hours drive from the place where we had lunch. Kamal’s family had to go for shopping and going back to home, and as per the plan we had to go back to his home to spend the next day in his area. While we drove to Naples we took a “Loop road“for some trailing and hiking activities, it was mud road for 15 miles and it took around 3 hours to cross that 15 miles in car. We reached to Naples on time for sunset but again we couldn’t see a nice sunset because of the cloud. Sometimes cloudy sunsets will be so beautiful than the plain sky but on that day it was not good. We had to drive back to Stuart which is 4 hours drive from Naples. We reached around 12 and the next day morning we went for a short ride to the local beaches in Ford Mustang (convertible). It’s a good sports car and it’s not fit for more than 2 persons and I was wondering why they have the back seat when even the kid cannot sit comportably. We returned home at 11 and had superb breakfast with some new combinations like Pongal with Chicken Gurma. Just try this combination it’s delicious. We had to have some space in our stomach to have lunch so we went beaches and spent an hour to digest the heavy breakfast that we had in the morning. We did go for fishing but we didn’t have any luck and we were back home by 2.30 and had wonderful lunch with chicken, mutton, egg and with home made curd. Since my flight was at 6.50 and the airport is 2 hours away from his place we had to rush and luckily we didn’t get any ticket this time and I was on time for the flight. It was wonderful trip and I felt that I have been into my home for a vacation.

US Open

For the past couple of days it’s really interesting to watch TV because of the tennis. As we are playing tennis regularly it's become even more intersting to see the plays of big players from all over the world. After the first round it was very good news for Indians, for the first time Indian men and women has moved to the 2^nd round. Sania had won the match after three sets and she said “I am ready to play with any seed players now”, but unfortunately she lost to a seed player in the second round without even winning a single game. I am looking forward for Dev’s play to win the second round and go further, he is really having a very good season in US. The third round between Federer and Hewitt is going to be a tough match and I am looking forward for that. Now I am watching the match between Serina and CZink, William is really dominating. This is the first time in 23 years where men’s match has completed before the women’s match in the same court on the same day. And this time the price money for men’s and women’s championship is going to be the same. Quite surprisingly both William’s sisters are having foot faults during their serve. But today when the younger served a foot fault (it was an ace) she started starring at the person who called as fault for almost 5 seconds, on the other hand when the elder sister had too many foot faults, she had asked politely to the person who said fault “which leg was that”. From the seed list Ivonvic has lost in the first round itself and Maria is back into the game with her own style. There is a huge fan club for her dress alone and i am one among them :). I am sure it’s going to be a great entertainment for the next two weeks.