Boring analysis of the 5 kilometer run

My gym here announced a sort of a club/scheme a couple of weeks ago - rather unimaginatively calling it the '5K club' - where it displays weekly lists of members who manage to complete 5kilometers on the treadmill - in various timeslots / ranking members based on runtimes and so on - iam sure one gets the idea.

We've been trying to punch in decent times - the idiot sibling and I

While i normally do 4 ks in around 25/27 mins as part of regular routine - the real revelation turned out to be IS - the normally, treadmill avoiding, gym skipping asshole suddenly warms up to the challenge and starts taking out my previous times, reporting it back to me and pissing me off on a daily basis.

This has been going on now for a week now - he broke my day before yesterday's 29' 10" (5K) with a 28' 10" (5k) yesterday evening - i nearly gave myself a cardiac arrest to set a 27' 45" earlier in the morning today.

The thing is that now that his Postgrad/Admit monkey is off his back - and he has this free month - he has only few things to do all day - eat, sleep, watch TV, Gym - so hes well rested and nourished - whereas ive been doing horrendously long workdays at the plant - ive gone to gym only 4 days out of 10 - and out of running form most of the time - atleast for the last fortnight or so..

I am not complaining though - Plant work burns sufficient calories to keep my weight loss program on track - it currently stands at close to 14 kilos - with about -um, 8 kilos to go.

Okay - quick analysis:

My time of nearly 28 minutes, works out to an average of close of 10.7 kmph for the 5k run - and as blokes who have previous experience on treadmills will know - at high speeds - kicking it up even 1 kmph for 25-30 mins takes atleast 10 days / 12 days of conditioning - higher the speed - the tougher it is - so for me to bring my time down to less than 25 mins i'll need to average 12 kmph+ for the whole time - (Refer to published spreadsheet)

So i am afraid that to take my time below 25 mins - i should:

a) Fix my ipod

b) Hit the gym daily - light warmup - then hit the treadmill and clear 30 mins at 11 kmph for 3 consecutive sessions - then 25 @ 11 + 5 @ 12 - then 20 @ 11 + 7 @ 5 and so on.. until thinking of starting off at 12.

We'll probably review it again in 10 days - but until then doing better than 27ish times on the trot appears impractical.

On the brighter side - aligning the weight loss goal with this 5K time goal is a win-win - I CANT possibly do 30 mins @ 12 kmph unless i shed another 5-6 kilos i guess.

Hmm hmm, i now wonder under what time @gulpanag does her daily 5Ks ?

The Loveguru speaks :x !

Had this terrific, stress busting gtalk session with Harimama (a.k.a 'Loveguru', from today) on various things - nearly all of them centered around the above captioned subject.

Over 500, extra-long lines long loaded with Hariisms*, sensitive advice capitalized where emphasis was deemed necessary and carefully selected anecdotes from his own vast experience.

Most gameplans appear to involve several things which normally would make me pee in my pants - including 'regular calling', 'casual' calling and 'casual chatting' about 'hobbies' 'interest' and so on.

My protestations claiming that i am naturally 'shy' are dismissed brusqely - 'you are shy when youre 18. You are not shy when youre 25'

Quick round-up of key observations:

- In general the consensus seems to be that i am too late to be involved in such puppy trash (i agree)

- Successful bladefying is a painstaking excercise, requiring diligent effort, often developing / even faking an interest in things that one normally never ever thinks about (i disagree. Successful mutual bladefying is a 'chemistry' related thing - might sound hillbillyish - but i think its true)

- It is extremely VITAL - before committing oneself into a project fully - to collect basic fundae on the subject - thereby avoiding waste of energy & needless unpleasantness. (FULLY agree)

- Refrain from using 'geeky' language, anecdotes and so on (typical examples that were mentioned are most of my blogspots) - while,um, engaging, the subject.

Well, we'll see - wont we ?

Notes:

* Sample Hariisms:

8:51 PM Hariharasudhan: dude girls r like sphagetti

9:04 PM Hariharasudhan: dude its like nadal not in wimbledon. ADV Federer. USE IT!

Other key lines

9:06 PM Hariharasudhan: dont go too deep into the relationsihp PLEASE

9:08 PM Hariharasudhan: dude its all a learning experience thats good and thats bad too

P.S - i had a brief chat with another friend a few minutes before, a female in this case - mostly jokingly - she thought i am 'as usual confused' 'chumma joking with her' (talking about hobbies/interests) and finally " Loosu, Nee solradhu paadhi onnume puriyalai da." (when i try faking sophistication)

So much for all the earlier analysis - a few mins spent trying to chat up P brings one crashing down to earth. :x

On Angst, Capability gaps and Pragmatism

In case i havent mentioned before, i have been, for the last 3 months or so - have been sort of trying to fit into the typical role within our business thats overall expected of me - like in the general sense - i.e - take up a key role running our plants, essentially try and fit into some sort of role which will eventually lead to a scenario where i'l have to end up replacing the boss with me+a bunch of systems/people.

Somewhere during these last few years - i might have been guilty of treating / talking about a business as just a bunch of numbers / each transaction or product as just a function of money - i cant be more wrong.

Running a Manufacturing Op is tedious, needs super wonkish dedication & loads of energy.

The advent of IT, Emailing and broadband has actually made the manufacturing business EXTREMELY competitive - makes old marketing organization concepts obsolete & puts more pressure on you to actually excel at the manufacturing skillset - because the other aspects of the business - contacts, information & so on - have become that much more accessible & easy.

With rapid pace of client addition, increased size of product portfolios, longer costsheets, transaction sizes, geographical spread and so on - we have - somewhere in the middle- reached a stage where we've suddenly gotten boggled down by capability gaps on the shopfloor - low frills, relaxed, bindass plants - have suddenly started appearing unwieldy, slow & incapable.

While in the past, i have always been vocally critical of the Old man's sudden change of delivery schedules, packing, logistics schemes, specifications, new client addition policy and so on - now when im given charge of a similar production line - more often that not - ive ended up doing the same things - sometimes doing worse.

There are always 100s of things to do - that reactor system to be optimized - that water system to be SOPed - new machine ordering to be supervised - and that quality complaint from half across the world to be attended to - all while maintaining financial/ethical integrity, smiley face for local netas who come for donations and not yell at your mother when you get back home.

And while youre trying to keep your head above the water tackling routine-ish chores - there are the long term things to be constantly worked on - registrations, regulations, market visits and so on..

My old man appears to have managed all this and more - for decades, enduring harsher physical strain / brutal working conditions - brilliantly balancing the boss's role & line manager's role with patience, ease and panache.

In fact, i can unconditionally declare that in the next 5/6 years if i somehow manage to earn a reputation / develop confidence in managing operations - even at the expense of not growing in size at all - i would consider it to be a worthy achievement.

On fancy children's names and related consequences

Um, this is pretty worthless shit, i know. Please do not proceed further you have better things to do.

This week we had visits from various relatives from all around - and in most cases with small kids in tow -

There was 'Manasa', her sister 'Mahima', then 'Shashank', 'Dharshan', 'Shriya', another 'Sriya' and of course my favorite babe, 'Aaranya' (-who at a mere 8 years of age has already lived in Madras, Pune, Chicago, Detroit, Toronto - and has taken to our Time-Life encyclopedia set like a fish to water) and her cousin, 'Dhanya'

Point is - while none of these names are not exactly RAD (as in naming a poor boy 'Aadhiseshan' or a baby girl 'Trisha' ) - for conservative tambrahms - these names are certainly odd to carry around. No ?

Zeenat thinks that when times change and these fancy named kids grow up - these names will sound less rad and normal (as how 'Abhilash' 'Abhishek' or 'Arun' or 'vinod' or 'vikram' sound now).

While she may be partially correct, I think that naming a hapless, innocent little baby is a big responsibility - it always is a good idea to stick to the 'Common minimum program' themed names - even if it feels conservative - rather than burdening the kid for life with some ridiculous name.

For example, I know this Parsi lady called 'Lovely' who works for a big MNC pharma firm in bombay - Zeenat always sniggers when the poor female calls - 'Dei, Un Lovely pesaraa da' -

How she must suffer, for that brainless act committed by her parents all those years ago, and how she must hate them for it!

P.s But Abhilash is a studly name as everyone tells me and i am forever grateful for my meddling uncle A who named me - and Zeenat for putting up with it. After all, she says, if my old man had had his way i would av been called 'Muniyaandi' or 'Karuppupandi' in true Madurai fashion :x

Rambly miscellany

Has been two weeks since i wrote anything - backbreaking work and my general unfamiliarity with work involving spending extended hours on sites etc. is taking a toll on my lifestyle, free time etc. - To compensate i've started working sundays too - sit at site and do up pending work. I, in fact, am at site now. Might leave early today - i need really long sleep really really soon.

I briefly passwordified this blog page - its open to everyone now though -

There was this person who i know from work - from whom i got a ping on gtalk - this freak, during the course of our chat dropped fairly heavy hints on stuff closely related to what i write on the blog.

The idea that some jerk, who at best worth a hi/hello phone call - happens to also take an interest / comment on all the Juvenile Trash you post online - and the effect of this on one's working relationship makes me quite queasy inside.

While this particular case turned out to be a false alarm - this adds another twist to the issue of why such-blogs-like-mine exist.

Because i HATE the thought of most people reading it - but still miss not having something to write into. You know what i mean ?

Blogger burnout

Was reading this NYtimes article on how 95% of blogs in existence havent been updated in 120 days etc., so im writing this up to make sure that i am not guilty of 'blogger burnout' too.

(Although as the writer mentions somewhere in there, i am wasting my efforts on one of those 'blogs which have just an audience of one')

The article raises this issue of anonymity - of how most people decide that it suddenly got too public to spill too much on long, rambly personal / classified info - and that acting as a deterrant etc.

I actually cant quite put the finger on why i write stuff here on and off - and not subtly promote it and slowly develop a social following around it - makes a fairly solid case to stay off too much embarrassing personal detail and switch to posting stuff / issues of general interest.

Hmm hmm. Lets sit on this thought for another week maybe..