Adidas Sundown Marathon 2011

I beat the sun!!

Atlast the day came-May 28th and the time 10:00PM , the starting time of the much awaited marathon.My first marathon.The starting point was at Changi Expo, we took a shuttle bus from Singapore Expo at 8:10PM but the bus reached the location only at 10:35PM..oops!! I was upset, now i had to start alone may be with 2 or 3 other runners.So i did not see the flag off!

I started the race exactly at 10:50PM briskly.Ran in a consistent pace.Before the race i had planned to split the 42KMs into four 8KMs zone.So for the first 8KM i was reaching the target time and felt very good and the second 8KMs was also good but the third one was very tough.I saw flights taking off and landing at Changi airport, great scene!I did not feel any pain in my legs or any other parts of the body but felt very tired.I ate the Power gel every half hour.I took more time to reach the third 8KMs than the first two but i felt good when i gone past 21KM i.e half marathon distance.

Marathon route

I took 2 minute to stretch my body after 25KM , i was running almost half the pace of my usual pace anyhow i was not pushing myself. I saw runners vomiting ,lying down on the ground and some even smoking!!After 21KM i played songs in my iPod - music really helped me to focus more on the run than looking at the people camping in East Coast Park.I walked for a minute inhaling the fresh air from sea and felt rejuvenated.

As i mentioned earlier my 8KM zone splitting did not worked.Gradually i ran slower and slower till i reached 34KM i,e still 8KM to run.But after 34KM i started to run briskly but unfortunately i was running out of Power gel,again i waked for a minute.Luckily at the dehydration point i took a banana and ate, that gave me strength to complete the race.

Last 3 KM i ran like i used to run in my practice, straight road with without any blockade always makes me to run faster which i did this time also.When i saw the  board which showed 41KM... tears rolled from my eyes.. sense of satisfaction.. sense of achievement.. I finished the race without any injury.My first marathon gave me lot of confidence in myself that i can achieve anything if i set my mind and move towards the goal steadily.

Finisher T-shirt.. very proud to wear it for the first time

Thanks to everyone who supported me through out the training as well as in the race.Special thanks to my wife who inspite of  all the difficulties she came and stayed till i finish the race.Thanks to my parents and my friends and the volunteers.. you were all great! A special thanks to my boss who always encourages me to run and gives lots of tips on running.I need to train even harder for my next marathon.. hopefully Standard charted Marathon Singapore.

Great day and a great race!! Congratulation to all the fellow runners ..

Sailing Alone Around the World

I bought this book in Popular Expo some months back, never heard of the author name as well as the book name.I select  some books randomly among them "Sailing Alone Around the World" by Joshua Slocum was one.Luckily once again my selection was on target - great book!

This book is the experience of the author when he traveled around the world alone in a boat called "Spray".As i read the book i was entering into the world of ocean and creatures living in it.Author's detailed description of everything he encountered made this book - a gem!Before starting the voyage he lost everything he had.First he lost his first wife, his beloved one then the he lost the much loved boat-Aquidneck which was the only asset he had.

Single handedly he remade the sloop/boat Spray.He did all the measurement and did everything on his own,it was like his child.Full of hope and energy he started his journey from Boston on April 24th 1895 at the age of 52.Check out the below Google Earth which shows Joshua's journey,click and check it out.



He did not use any chronometer to find time and longitude, he used a simple clock that too was broken in the middle of the journey.He used well known method called "dead reckoning".Most of the time in the journey he did not touch the helm since Spray was capable of self-steering due to its design.

He met different kind of people along his journey ,the natives of the Caribbeans,people Brazil and Argentina ,Australians etc and he describes vividly about them.Seems to be observant as well as good observer.His description of animal life was something i cherished reading.

His passion for ocean/sea , his love for voyages made this amazing journey possible.On June 27,1898, after three years ,circumnavigating the world he returned to Newport,Rhode Island.He traveled more than 46000miles(74,000Kms)!!what a feet!Hats off to this great traveler. He was the first man single handedly sailed around the world.He disappeared with Spray while traveling towards West Indies on November 1909. Seems to be a fitting end to his wonderful life.He was officially declared dead on 1924.

A travel classic! Must read for all!

More info:
Sailing Alone Around the World

Kandaen -கண்டேன்

A feel good entertainer.One reason why you should watch this movie-Santhanam.Gosh!this man has been outstanding in recent years but this movie will stand out!What a performance by him!His timing comedy made me laugh like anything.Rashmi looks good!Now come to the hero of the movie(of course Santhanam is a real hero of the movie) Santanoo , he has matured when compared to his previous movie.

The age old love story but given modern timing comedy by Santhanam and Santanoo.Santanu pretends as a blind man and earns the heroine's love.She finds the truth and started moving away from her.what we expect, the same thing happens i.e Hero explains everything to her and wins her heart back!!(How many movies we have seen this!) but the twist is the hero became really blind at one point and now the heroine explains the difficulties in marrying a physically handicap!So hero has to act like a normal person.. now the fun starts... 

Santhanam's playground

Predictable climax but still we can watch.Watch it for Santhanam.

Santanoo as Vassanth has done his role neatly,Rashmi Gautam as Narmada is good.Another highlight of the movie is Ashish viyarthi's performance , its nice to him to play a good guy.Music by Vijay Ebenezar is good, this his first movie track.Gautam menon's Photon Kathaas Music launched the audio track of this movie,their first.

Passion Run 2011

This is my second Passion run after 2009 ,once again had a great run.The event was bigger, more categories and more runners.The race started exactly at 5:30PM , i started with first wave.Since i had not ran for 9 days i felt little uneasiness for the first 2 kilometers but i met a consistent timing for every kilometers.After the first 5 kilometers , i started to run little faster and maintained the same pace till the end of the race.I was really surprised  at my timing.
I did not stop anywhere though i drank 100 Plus every 2 kilometers.I was amazed at the pace of some of the veteran runners, hats off guys!They motivated me to run little faster after 5 km.It was a perfect race.My body felt better particularly my legs.

Race route, ECP

The race route was one of my favorite place in Singapore the East Coast Park(ECP), running near the sea is something we can not express in words,amazing!Seen many family spending their weekend playing volleyball , skating and swimming, they were our spectators, in this regard Passion run got more spectators after SCMS.
Great after race events, a movie show and lots of activities..PA had done a wonderful job!.

The journey of Smoke the donkey

Smoke

When Camp Pendleton based Marines were in Anbar Province,Iraq nearly three years before, they befriended this donkey and they called him Smoke because of his color.He became something like mascot for this Marines ,everyone loved him,infact Smoke was given his own care packages and cards. But when they left Iraq they have to leave Smoke there itself due to immigration procedures.Till they get it back to US, Smoke was given to an sheik as a care giver.

One of the Marines,retired Colonel John Folsom thought that it seem not right to leave Smoke there for ever, so he with his friends and Society for the prevention of cruelty to animal's international's "Operation Baghdad pups" decided to get Smoke to US, but it proved more difficult as sheik demanded USD30,000 initially , then he dropped that demand.But to transfer the Smoke from 11,000KM away it cost between USD30,000 to 40,000/- .

Smoke was transported through cargo jet from Turkey to New York and was quarantined for 2 days.Now its in Omaha,Nebraska where he will the part of Wounded Warrior Support Organization and he would also help in rehabilitation of injured soldiers.

Hope Smoke would help and comfort the wounded soldiers.I was amazed by the kindness showed  by the marines.Hats off to them!
 

Smokes' facebook fan page
follow him on twitter : @SmoketheDonkey.

Alagarsamiyin Kuthirai(அழகர்சாமியின் குதிரை )

Rare attempt to bring a short story to a film and director Suseendran had succeeded.Kudos to him.His first movie "Vennila kabbadi kulu" brought the Tamil village's essence and his second movie " Naan Mahaan Alla" was another feel good story.Now "Alagarsamiyin Kuthirai" made him one of the directors to look forward in future along with Bala,Ameer and others.

The story starts with the theft of horse in the village temple.Without that horse the villagers can not celebrate the festival as the deity rides on the horse.They found a horse which was abandoned and they decided that it was sent by the gods.The story takes the turn when the owner of the horse came to rescue it.The rest of the story was about how the owner and horse was united and the festival itself.

The first half was hilarious and very funny specially the scene in police station where the village heads go to complain about horse thought... laugh ride... and the side track of  "Minor" .. the romance scenes were shot wonderfully.Cinematography by Theni Eshwar was wonderful, he brought the village alive with his top angle shots, great work. Music by Ilaiyaraja was excellent, many people mentioned that music was not upto the mark but for me  excellent, the three songs and the background were scored beautifully. Even though story takes place  in 80's the background music was still good. The initial "Kadam" score for the song " Poova kele" was wonderful  i liked it.Fight sequences by Anal Arasu was natural and fits to the story.Though the second half was not as good as the first one but still we can watch and enjoy!

Appukutty and Charanya Mohan

Appu kutty as Alagarsamy fits perfect to the role and he did a commendable job. Prabhakaran as president's son did a good job.The two heroines charanya Mohan and Advaita have done their role neatly and of course they both were looked beautiful in this movie. All the characters were perfect! Great work by director. Suseendran has done it again!

Director Suseendran

One can ask many questions on the handling of this story but the actors wonderful acting and dialog writer's apt dialogs compensate those things. Overall a good movie! 

Top 20 Strongest Banks in the world:2010 fiscal year

Bloomberg Markets magazine used a number of criteria to compile this list.It assessed 70 banks with total assets of at least US $100 million.

Rank	Bank	Country
1.	OCBC	Singapore
2.	Svenska Handelsbanken	Sweden
3.	National Bank of Canada	Canada
4.	Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce	Canada
5.	DBS Group Holdings	Singapore
6.	United Overseas Bank	Singapore
7.	Fifth Third Bancorp	US
8.	Banco Bradesco	Brazil
9.	UBS	Switzerland
10.	BOC	Hong Kong
11.	Banco Santander Brasil	Brazil
12.	Toronto-Dominion Bank	Canada
13.	Credit Suisse	Switzerland
14.	JPMorgan Chase	US
15.	Standard Chartered	UK
16.	Citigroup	US
17.	Royal Bank of Canada	Canada
18.	Hang Seng Bank	Hong Kong
19.	Bank of Montreal	Canada
20.	Sberbank	Russia

I felt very sad that none of the Indian banks was there in this list (may be they are not eligible??), but felt happy to see that OCBC ,DBS in that list.DBS's customer care is excellent, i had many good experiences with them.I have never heard of some those banks on this list.

Click here for more info : Bloomberg

One dish wedding possible in India?

When i read an article in "Outlook" sometimes back about the Union food and consumer affairs minister Mr.K.V.Thomas's intention of creating a model or guidelines for how many dish(es) can be served in marriage and other functions, i was intrigued and i thought it can be done(need full details of the proposal),even though most rich people will oppose this idea.In today's world we can not think of only one dish for wedding lunch or dinner, its nothing wrong to have many dishes but it is immoral or unethical to waste food in great quantity in those functions, thats the ministers point.

India ranks 67th out of 122 countries in malnourished countries list.40 million people go hungry everyday.But some rich people marriages are having more than 200 dishes. As per the article , last year rotting of food grains in Punjab and Haryana could have fed over 1 crore people but the government was unable to channel it to public distribution system.The central and state government should channelize the food distribution in a proper manner and they should make sure that the food supplies reaches the poor.I hope after the implementation of MNIC (Multipurpose National Identity Card) through which government can keep track of everything a citizen gets through PDS, that food supplies will reach the poor on time and in good condition.

Come back to one dish marriage , i think we as a guest in marriage or other function never satisfy with one dish but if we all can eat only whatever we can and never leave the plate with any food item, then we can help the whole system.Another big advantage of having one dish (call it as minimal food) is reducing the financial burden on host.10 years before in my village only Mutton curry and rice was served in marriages but now Mutton curry, Chicken fry, egg etc, this trend of serving many dishes forces  the poor people to borrow money and arrange marriage.(You can ask why like that but the reality is if they do not follow the trend their reputation(prestige) will spoil).I have seen many people paying credits after their or their son's/daughter's marriage ,though they do not have any credits before arranging marriage.Of course the cost of gold is the main factor for borrowing  but if we have one dish or less number of dish we can reduce the marriage cost somewhat.

Assam model possible?
I was surprised to read that there is a law called " Guest Control Order,1973" which states that only 25 people for parties and maximum of hundred guest at wedding and funerals can attend!! but as usual no one follows this law in fact many of the policemen themselves do not know the existence of such law.Im not sure this can be applicable to all over India, since for e,g if a marriage happens in a village like mine our close relatives itself count more than hundred.

Conclusion :
Personally i  think that this proposed changes by the ministry will have small(atleast they will think,what to do with leftover) impact but not a big(arranging less number of dishes and for exact number of people)impact on our wedding celebration specially with eating food but one thing the ministry can do ,create awareness among the people specially the rich about the wastage of food in these kind of functions and channelize these food to poor people around the country.

Received one forwarded mail from my friends, check it out:


"Germany is a highly industrialized country. It produces top brands like Benz, BMW, Siemens etc. The nuclear reactor pump is made in a small town in this country. In such a country, many will think its people lead a luxurious life. At least that was my impression before my short term business trip. When I arrived at Hamburg , my colleagues who work in Hamburg arranged a welcome party for me in a restaurant. As we walked into the restaurant, we noticed that a lot of tables were empty. There was a table where a young couple was having their meal. There were only two dishes and two cans of beer on the table. I wondered if such simple meal could be romantic, and whether the girl will leave this stingy guy. 


There were a few old ladies on another table. When a dish is served, the waiter would distribute the food for them, and they would finish every bit of the food on their plates. We did not pay much attention to them, as we were looking forward to the dishes we ordered. As we were hungry, our local colleague ordered more food for us.As the restaurant was quiet, the food came quite fast. Since there were other activities arranged for us, we did not spend much time dining. When we left, there was still about one third of unconsumed food on the table. 


When we were leaving the restaurant, we heard someone calling us. We noticed the old ladies in the restaurant were talking about us to the restaurant owner. When they spoke to us in English, we understood that they were unhappy about us wasting so much food. We immediately felt that  they were really being too busybody. "We paid for our food, it is none of your business how much food we left behind,"  one of my colleague told the old ladies. The old ladies were furious. One of them immediately took her hand phone out and made a call to someone. After a while, a man in uniform claimed to be an officer from the Social Security organization arrived. Upon knowing  what the dispute was, he issued us a 50 Euro fine. We all kept quiet. The local colleague took out a 50 euro note and repeatedly apologized to the officer.The officer told us in a stern voice, "ORDER WHAT YOU CAN CONSUME, MONEY IS YOURS BUT RESOURCES BELONG TO THE SOCIETY. THERE ARE MANY OTHERS IN THE WORLD WHO ARE FACING SHORTAGE OF RESOURCES. YOU HAVE  NO REASON TO WASTE RESOURCES.´”  


Our face turned red. We all agreed with him in our hearts. The mindset of people of this rich country put all of us to shame. WE REALLY NEED TO REFLECT ON THIS. We are from  country which is not very rich in resources. To save face, we order large quantity and also waste food when we give others a treat. THIS LESSON TAUGHT US A LESSON TO THINK SERIOUSLY ABOUT CHANGING OUR BAD HABITS.


My colleague Photostatted the fine ticket and gave a copy to each of us as a souvenir. All of us kept it and pasted on our wall to remind us that we shall never be wasteful."

Energizer Singapore Night Trail 2011 ,12 KM

This race was my second trail run after Salomon X trail run in 2009 at Tampines. I expected to be a good race and it was a great race.The race route was hilly tarmac and gravel trails around Mandai area.I was surprised by the location as i never expected that kind of place in Singapore.Wonderful place to run.

Race route

Race was flagged off at 8 PM by Singapore One Arm Runner ,Adam. All the runners had their head lights switched on, it was a wonderful sight.I started the race briskly but felt uncomfortable with my headlights.First 5 KM i ran in a consistent pace but after climbing the first hill(sort of vertical climb), i felt very tired but i never gave up, then after 9KM there was a rope climbing i.e a steep hill with mud sliding due to water, i crossed that too quite easily but to cross the next hill i walked , i heard fellow runners saying "we paid to suffer like this!!" i felt that was true.

I finished the race without any injury or other pain.It was a wonderful experience to run in the dark with headlight fully supported by the nature and its weird sounds.The volunteers were excellent, they encouraged and guided the runners with their lights,hats off to them.

Unique race and a Unique experience.