Tuesday, June 02, 2020

Lockdown Dairies

How I engaged the physiological (stomach), the physical (my body), the mental (my brain) and the metaphysical (my soul) during these lonely times.

On March 21st, I waved my family a double good-bye, with both hands, little did I know I would spend the longest time away from them, ever – 72 days. Like Tom Hanks in Cast Away, I went into a transformation, while he grew a beard, I grew a Mohawk!
As the goalpost of their return kept shifting from Lockdown 1.0, to 2.0 and so on, I took up multiple “projects” to keep myself engaged.

The Physiological – “that which is related to the physical upkeep”

For most of my basic requirement of food, I relied on my mom, lunch was the only time when I would get to talk to them. I ate there and brought home the sambar for my rice + egg burji dinner. But I did a few experiments in the kitchen – including baking a banana cake for my 40th birthday! The pic does no justice to how good some of these tasted!


The Mental – “that which is related to the brain”

The easiest project was to pick up a popular series such as the “Family man” (talk about irony here) and binge watch. I admit, I got a prime membership and watched 6 episodes, mostly out of curiosity. But dropped it, when I saw how easy it was to get hooked to this.

I then tried to learn the Vishnusahastranama, got till about mid-way. But I completed 2 certification programs for a data mining course. It did come down to the wire during the 2.5 hours exams that I had to endure, right down to the last question to decide if I would cross the line. In the Dhoni style, I hit the last ball for a six! Binge learning, way better than binge anything else!

The Physical – “that which is related to the body”

I took a long break from running after the Bengaluru Ultra in Dec, nearly 10 weeks of ZERO mileage. Just when I was getting back to running, COVID hit us. 

Not the one to take “lockdown” as an excuse, I continued to run responsibly – alone and in a 1 km stretch of a road that goes nowhere, near home. I put in mindless runs of 5km, 10kms, 30 mins or 1 hour runs just building an aerobic base. It was too early for me to take part in the quarantine backyard ultra – a great concept in these times, details here.

But when NEB sports and Sunil C came up with the Kanyakumari-Kargil relay run (#KanKar), I was ready. The plan was simple – each member of the Indian team for the 24h and the 100k runs as much as she or he can, each day from 21st of May. You log the mileage, the total team mileage for the day is marked on the Indian map, from Kanyakumari, all the way up to Kargil. The goal was to complete this 3815kms in 15days, to get the sponsors to contribute to charity. Each day of early finish, will get more money into the charity pot.

Of the 22 runners who began, the cyclone Amphan, the over 40 deg plus weather in Delhi and the seal down orders in Mumbai, meant no running for a few of our athletes.
Namma Bengaluru had no such issues – the evening downpours ensured that the mornings were cool till about 8AM or so. I was looking to log some consistent mileage, my wife and I decided that 30k should be doable. From day2 onwards, I stuck to a routine – wake up at 4:15AM, start the run at 5, run for 2.5 hours or so, 25kms. Notably, all my runs were done
  1. In the 1 km long road, up and down 12 times each morning
  2. In about 2:27mins to 2:40 mins
  3. In the same set of singlet and shorts (washed immediately under the shower to rid of the Novel C19)
  4. On an empty stomach, only sipping from a 1 liter water bottle once every 4kms
  5. While passing a set of morning walkers and runners - with a nod, or a wave or a good morning!


The evening “recovery” run was almost always 6k, somedays I ran a couple of kms more. En-route, I logged my best weekly mileage ever at 223kms. As we approached Kargil, well before schedule, on the 10th and the last day, I decided to take it up a notch, ran a 4:15 full marathon distance, again on empty, same loop, same singlet, same “hi”s and “hello”s!

My mileage count for the 10 days
Leaderboard
May 21
May 22
May 23
May 24
May 25
May 26
May 27
May 28
May 29
May 30
Manoj
307
12
32
34
31
31
31
32
31
31
42

What was truly remarkable was the fact that my injuries did not flare up, especially the high hamstring injury that has been irritating me since the last 24hr run in Bangalore. My recovery was fantastic. I continued to have early dinners, slept as early as I could, sometimes as early as 8:30PM, this must have helped the rejuvenation. More importantly, I enjoyed every single run, barring a few patches. I told my sister one day “there will be difficult days. To do the right thing on a day when you are not totally up to the task, is what endurance is all about.”


… and finally,

The Metaphysical – “that which is beyond the physical, of the soul”

The truth is – I missed my family. And there were days of a weird sadness. But thanks to these “projects”, I pressed on, going from one distraction to the next. But what gave me most joy, was this one. Inspired by my friend, P, who drew a mural on her wall at her home in the bay area, I decided to give a go to draw my kids portrait on their room wall. I tried a few things, lots of innovative hacks, youtube vidoes, photo prints on transparencies, but eventually drew this with charcoal. They haven’t seen this yet.

After 72 days, they will be back tomorrow, the look on their faces will touch my soul.

Hope this has touched yours too.
Stay strong, Stay safe. Remember, now you got to wash your hands before you dig your nose! Cheers!


Update 12/06/2020: