Category: Fitness

GokyoRi Trek Day 01: Reaching Kathmandu

25 Sep
Raju Alluri 1 Comment Entertainment, Fitness, Fitness (Other), Misc, Trekking , , , ,

Our GokyoRi Trek started with our Day 01 flights to Kathmandu. From Hyderabad, we took a two hop travel via Mumbai to reach Kathmandu by late afternoon on 02nd September.

Travel

Looking back at our 200,000+ steps of trekking, this ramp down on escalators at airline departure gates feels like an interesting start.

Despite all the morning rush at the airport, our flight to Mumbai was pretty smooth and uneventful. Immigration related queues during the second leg of travel were very smooth too. Once we came out of Kathmandu airport, our tour guide sherpa team welcomed us with these nice scarfs and guided us to the bus to our hotel.

In about an hour from that time, we settled back in our rooms at Radisson Kathmandu

Food

One of the biggest challenges of early morning flights for me is to pick a breakfast location. Breakfast at home by 4am is not convenient, breakfast before boarding is too rushy and breakfast during flight is not so encouraging. So we decided to take our brunch during transit at Mumbai airport. Using a wide range of a la carte choices of food and mostly unoccupied food court, we killed the transit time with ease.

With the kind of foodie group we are, there is no dearth of food/snacks, even while flying at an altitude of few tens of thousand feet.

Our dinner is at Thamel area at this well known pizzeria. We liked the food taste and ambience. This place is recommended by our repeat trekkers of the group and it kept its reputation in tact.

Shopping

A multi-week trek requires good amount of shopping that mainly consists of procuring the right gear. Being a first-timer, I spend ample time on gathering the gear for my travel.

Despite all the preparation, there are still a handful of things that are left to buy at Kathmandu. Primarily because I wanted some expert advice on choosing the right level of the gear.

Based on my conversations with seasoned trekkers in the group, my shopping list to buy at Kathmandu is reduced to one single item: hiking poles. At Thamel area of Kathmandu, we did some window shopping while most team members procured necessary gear for the rest of the trip.

Most of us also bought local SIM cards after producing necessary paperwork, so that we have network connectivity as long as there is cell tower coverage. I intentionally didn’t enable roaming on my India phone, leaving my family with ample connectivity methods to reach out to me and cutting off the rest of the world for these few days.

After dinner and shopping, I decided to walk back 2km to hotel, just to stretch my legs on this relatively inactive day. Thanks to Sunitha for joining me during this walk. We waded our way thru fast moving yet rule following late evening traffic of Kathmandu with ease.

Our GokyoRi Trek Summary: September 2023

24 Sep
Raju Alluri 2 Comments Entertainment, Fitness, Fitness (Other), Fitness Training, Trekking, Walking, Workouts , , , , ,

Trekking for me has been a short time affair, either trekking Angel Island near San Francisco or scaling the 600 meter Mission Peak (read here, here, here and here) in Fremont, USA. These treks always started with a comfort and ended with a comfortable car ride and home stay right after. This year, the notion of trekking has changed for me. For the first time in my life, I ventured into a multi-day GokyoRi Trek spawning over a couple of weeks. Lucky to be part of a fifteen people group that has a large number of experienced trekkers and a few novice people like me.

Preparations started as early as May 2023 and we started training for the trek. Trek training was a side stint to me, given that I was training for a Marathon that I ran less than a week before the start of the trek. However, a conscious focus on breathing, leg strength and endurance during the Marathon training really helped make the GokyoRi trek manageable.

The GokyoRi Trek trip started on 02nd September with a multi-hop flight from Hyderabad to Kathmandu.

The real trek started a day later from Lukla airport, one of the most dangerous airstrips given its location, elevation and length.

About ten days later, we are back in Lukla, having trekked for eleven days including acclimatisation stays on the way.

Those ten days made me to bond with the group members as a family, exposed my body to different weather conditions, fed my tummy with various themes of food, strained my legs in a happy way, made my mind understand the cultural and social elements of humans around us, and served my heart with breathtaking views of Himalayas. There are some painful moments as well, like missing out the last leg of the trek atop GokyoRi after reaching Gokyo Village, due to rainy weather.

In the next few posts to come, I am going to give the salient details of our journey. Stay tuned.

My Focus Shift Towards Structured Training: A Look-back

24 May
Raju Alluri 0 Comment Fitness, Fitness Training, Running , ,


This is the third consecutive year in which I am seriously participating in a 100 days of running challenge. As of 25th day of this edition of 100 days, I am retrospecting on the focus shift so far.

During my first year, the focus was to get as much distance as possible into my runs – every day and every week during the 100 day span. The second year brought in a few variations to my runs. The focus was not just the run distances, but run quality (e.g. intervals, pace runs, slow runs and long runs.) This year, I am taking on the program in a different way.

This year, my focus is to leave enough room for training rather than for running. I am not acing my training schedules and sessions, but this year is a good beginning. Based on the schedules laid out by my coach, I am keeping 3-4 days a week aside for my training and rest days. During these training and rest days, I am rather leisure walking to keep the spirit of 100 days continuing, but giving enough time for my leg muscles to train and rest.

As of now, I completed one fourth of current 100 days challenge. My current mileage is about 10% less than 2022 and 35% less than 2021. However, the ease with which I am running now a days is far better than that of the last two years. Credit goes to systematic training plans laid out by coach.

I am not yet acing my training sessions. Not sure I will ever be (that is the advantage of getting a coach that pushes you.) But I am really happy for the focus shift the last few weeks brought in to my overall fitness schedules. Due to the focus shift, I am able to focus on my runs on exclusive run days. You can follow my activities at https://strava.com/athletes/rajualluri and see how well distributed my activities are.

Another 75 days of the current 100 days challenge to go. About 12 weeks of Marathon training to go. Hope to continue the current distribution of runs and training routine.

Why My Focus Is Shifting To Strength Training

21 Apr
Raju Alluri 0 Comment Fitness, Fitness Training, Running, Workouts , , , ,

For about two years, I have been running decently long distances – a.k.a half marathons and more. After taking a one year gap between my first half marathon in 2020 and second one in 2021, running a full marathon was on top of my list.

In October 2021, I ran my first full marathon. It is a local long run, not a timed running event. The preparation for that run was decently good and I think I ran it well. However, the next two marathon runs after that are not satisfactorily efficient. I didn’t focus much on my strength training during the training weeks of these two marathons and the impact is very evident.

This year, my focus should shift to strength training. The reasons are very trivial

  • Strength training helps to prevent injuries
  • Strength training can improve running form and efficiency
  • Strength training can help increase endurance

The next 16+ weeks are an opportunity for me to focus on Strength Training than running pace and/or running distances. Hopefully the time is ample enough for my strength training and I could see good results.

Change

17 Sep
Raju Alluri 0 Comment Fitness, Running ,

Change is ineviatable.

Change is good.

Sustainable positive change reinforces confidence, helps set larger (read long term) goals and helps in incremental improvements in life.

Here are my running pics that are 11 years apart.

Two run pics that are 11 years apart – 2011 and 2022

These 11 years have seen some interesting changes in my running habit. The following list gives a summary of highlights

  • 2011 – 10k run is for fun; no time target
  • 2018 – first timed 10k run; failed to qualify for Half Marathon
  • 2019 – Qualification 10k run for Half Marathon
  • 2020 – First Half Marathon
  • 2021 – Second Half Marathon; Also First Marathon after a handful of Half Marathons
  • 2022 – Sustain Marathon running energy (and enthusiasm)

The highlights might look simple, but they had an undercurrent of several personal, financial, career, health and circumstantial changes that resulted in these outcomes. More details later.

Happy to experience this positive change. I am sure the change continues.

Looking forward to!

Bicyclone-3

29 Mar
Raju Alluri 0 Comment Bicycling, Entertainment, Interesting

Hyderabad Bicycling Club (HBC) and World Wildlife Fund organized Bicyclone-3, the eco-friendly cycle ride today. The response was awesome. Good to see so many school kids turning up for this event.

I opted to rent a bike for this 20km ride, so that I could avoid the 30km commute to/from the venue. That turned out to be a bad decision, both for the time it took and the height of the bike I got. However, I am very lucky to get hold of a basic bike for the ride. I switched to the 10km path of the ride, given the low height of the bike.

Met my niece Manu and my co-worker Kalyan at the ride. Managed to click a few pics before and after the ride.

2014-03-Bicyclone-03

It is a great experience to see people of all ages turn up in good numbers for such a good cause. Congratulations to all the participants and thanks to HBC.

 

Copenhagen Wheel

06 Dec
Raju Alluri 0 Comment Bicycling, Entertainment, Interesting, Technical

What happens when a premier academic institution teams up with the City of cyclists? You see one of the best inventions getting now into mass production.

MIT’s SENSEable City Lab and City of Copenhagen bring us a pedal assist electric system called the Copenhagen Wheel. The wheel can be retrofitted almost on any bicycle. Superpedestrian, the startup that has exclusive production rights for the technology, is now accepting back orders for the wheel. The wheel comes both in single speed and multi-speed variants. The wheel itself may cost lot more than an average bike, but I think the wheel is really worth it.

How does it work? The prime factor of the wheel is its regenerating braking capability. The rider can use the exercise mode, pedaling against the motor and charging the battery in this process. Or the rider can use the motor assist mode, in which case the battery power is used to help the rider pedal easily thru, say, slopes. Each of these modes will have 3 levels and the modes/levels can be selected using a smart phone that communicates to the wheel wirelessly. Not sure if the modes switch automatically using the torque sensors in the system (my guess is it would be so, but we need to wait for more details and see.)

The wheel may be a costly affair in the initial days (the wheel is much costlier than average bike on streets) but offers a great potential for bicycling adoption. Excitedly waiting for mass production and global availability of this wheel.

Bicycle, Joy Rides and Mudguard

18 Aug
Raju Alluri 0 Comment Bicycling, Entertainment

Its rainy season, the season of potholes, puddles and muck on the road. Unless you are very lucky, you don’t get to see fresh water on the road when you are pedaling. Excluding the mud factor, this is the best season for joyful bicycle rides (especially if you have a mountain bike).

My bicycle doesn’t come with a mudguard by default. In my recent trip to US, I got this entry level mudguard (the one I can find in a sports store in the last minute of my shopping) made by Blackburn. The model is called Splashboard rear fender. I installed it last week (in a matter of a couple of minutes) and my early morning bicycle rides are much pleasant now.

The fender is effective only around the speeds of 15kmph and for heavy dirt. I still see that the light (ash-like) dirt manages to fly to my shoulder level when I pedal at about 25kmph. Given the low number of stretches that allow me to pedal close to 25kmph, the fender is doing an okay job for me. The amount of post-ride helmet, dress and hair cleaning is drastically reduced now. With the fender, I am enjoying my biking along dirt roads a lot better.

Here are a few pics of the fender and more importantly, the dirt on my bicycle. Good indication of the great mornings.

 

Bike-Mudguard-2013-08

BTW, if you are looking for monsoon maintenance tips for your bike, you should read this blog post by The Bike Affair. Simple and very useful, as always.