Week 9 - Jan 14 to Jan 20

By this Monday, it was a week since the demise of my father and due to the passage of time it was easier to cope. Since we were crowded around with relatives and well wishers who were more than willing to share the burden with us, offer us encouragement and advice on how to proceed with the ceremonies and what needed to be done, it became that much more easier. Those who had already made the journey gave us solid comfort and were a great source of support and strength. It was a very refining and enriching experience to see that we mattered to so many people and that so many people really cared. I will be forever indebted and thankful to each and everyone and this period of my life will be deeply entrenched into the recesses of my memories. 

My sister and I continued to run together this week also. We did a 30 minute run on both Tuesday and Wednesday at the Jayalakshmipuram Park followed by the stretches and foot drills. This week I had severe pain in my knees, especially the left knee and also my foot. Both the days, I ran less and walked more and felt very tired. I do not know whether it was due to the mental state I was in or whether the fatigue was real. But I did keep up the stretches and the drills. Maybe I was experiencing more pain due to the fact that I was not icing my legs.

That week's Saturday run was planned to be the longest run of the season of 12 km. I missed running that run as I got deterred by the pain in my legs. But on Sunday I thought that I must not give up now. I have come this far into the training and I have run in the past two weeks through the most difficult periods. I must not stop now. Keeping aside all gloomy thoughts I just wore my running shoes and set out to run with my sister. We ran around the Lake 'Kukkanahalli Kere'. Its about 0.6 km from our house to the lake and its a   4 km route around the lake. So we covered 5.6 km that day. We sprinted the last 400 mts for good measure  and walked back home to gulp some yummy tender coconut 

and do our stretches, foot drills and Yoga. 

Week 10 - Jan 21 to Jan 27

By this week all the ceremonies were over. My sister left to the US. I could not run on Tuesday and Wednesday as I had some official work to complete for my mother's pension. I got back to Bangalore on Thursday. It felt good to be back to routine and normal life. I was all set to get back to running and was eagerly waiting for the Saturday run.

Santosh had formed buddy groups at the beginning of the training season  of runners with similar goals to finish strong. Eighteen of us who were put together called our Buddy Group 'Awesome Finishers'. During the past weeks we had all planned to get a T shirt made for our group. Mandhar took the lead to find a Printer, Bipra gave a cool design to the T shirt and the entire group chose a beautiful blue colour. The T shirt was delivered on Saturday.

The Saturday run was planned by the Ananya kids in aid of the children of Snehadaan Children's Home called 'Run Along Friend'. We had to run 6 km. It was a very chilly and foggy typically Bangalore winter morning and I felt exhilarated to be back. The Ananya kids had done a great job in organising the run and we had a very good run. After the run there was some music going on and a few of the boys were dancing beautifully. I joined them along with Rashmi and others and we went wild dancing with the boys. It felt really good to dance with young boys after a long time. As it was the Republic day, we had flag hoisting after the run and a wonderful cultural program by the children. The children had arranged breakfast for us and we distributed our buddy group T shirts decided to wear it the next day and show off in front of the whole community. 

The Sunday run was at IIMB and our entire buddy group turned up with our T shirts. We were the envy of the whole community and everyone admired our t shirt. We all felt really awesome and unique and special. We had a short warm up and form exercises. After which we did a 3 km run. I had a little difficulty in running and walked half the distance. I was among the last few to finish to great cheering and clapping from the entire group. It felt really nice and to be back and running and I felt that I am ready to run the distance of 10km. It does not matter if I have to walk or crawl, but I can do it.