December 10 - December 16
Yet another week began with the arrival of Santosh's mail. But I could not do the Tuesday short run nor go for the Wednesday.
The Saturday long run was at Cubbon Park and we had to run 8 kms. It was a very large group on Saturday and the run was full of fun and good amount of friendly bantering on the way. By now I was running at a good steady pace and could run for linger distances before I had to stop to walk a few minutes. Also the time I required to walk and catch my breath was also becoming shorter. I also noticed that once I was nicely warmed up, I could run with longer strides and a little bit faster. 
We ran the first 4 km around the Cubbon park in front of the Central Library and the 4 laps around the Queen's park. After the run we had core strengthening session conducted by coach Chandra and Srini V. Earlier, I used to be so stiff that these exercises used to be very difficult and I used to get catches at various places if I tried to stretch even a bit. But of late I am becoming a bit more flexible and am able to bend just a few millimetres more and stretch with a little less catch. After the core strengthening coach Ajay had scheduled a session of Pranayam that helps us to improve our breathing during the run and get into rhythmic breathing and thus increase our efficiency during running. 
However I was unable to stay for the entire session as my friends who I had car pooled with wanted to go to eat breakfast at Konark Restaurant. So I chose the gastronomical outing to deep breathing. This is what makes running fun and interesting. After running and burning calories, we immerse ourselves into unabashed gluttony and indulge our taste buds to various delicacies that are available at every nook and corner of Bangalore. Hot idlis, steaming hot vadas in yummy sambar, lovely masala dosas that are the best in the world and soft as sponge and tasty set dosa or piping hot pooris with saagu. These are the things that motivate us to run with that extra vigour so that we can enjoy the delicacies and not feel guilty about the amount of calories that are going in.
The Sunday run was to generate awareness about the special needs of physically challenged children prganised by Rotary club at Govt. Girl's School Malleshwaram. The run was through Malleshwaram roads and amidst dense traffic. The beginning was good as we were running downhill on Margosa road and than once we took the turn at 4th cross and turned left the run was uphill on Sampige road. I had to walk through most of this stretch. After we took another the left and came back on Margosa road, the run became easy as it was downhill again and we could complete the run to loud cheering and applause from cheering squad of fellow runners.
We did a quick dash to the nearest eatery Shri Sagar or the erstwhile Central Tiffin Room or more popularly known as CTR. It is always surprising to see half the Runner's High fellows at the chosen eateries. We had to wait a good 30 to 45 minutes to get the coveted table only to discover that the tables had been occupied by fellow Runners all this while. Once we got the tables, there was no stopping us. We dug into all the tasty eats and rewarded our taste buds with every dish available and flushed it all down with two cups of steaming hot and strong south Indian filter coffee. Our very boisterous group caused much amusement among the waiters and they served us with good humour and great flourish and even greater efficiency.
All in all it was a very rewarding week of running with good food for the tummy and even greater and satisfying food for the soul. It brought even bigger smile to everyone's faces and the grins only got wider.
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