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Starting Too Fast in a Race:

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What is too fast? Too fast is when you start your race much faster than the overall race pace. So for example if your average pace required for each km according to your target is 7.00 per KM and if you start your race by running the first 2 kms at say 6.15 pace, {which is quite possible} you may be in for a rude shock at the mid point or near end of the race. Your pace will suddenly drop and that will mean that you may land up slower than your desired time. This has been proven in various races and by studying a lot of runners over the last few years.   Why does it happen that we tend to start fast? There are multiple reasons behind this: 1. Surge of adrenaline – standing at the start line of one of Asia’s largest Running event will surely have an impact on the excitement levels. If anyone of you uses HRM, you should check your Heart Rate even before you start your race just when you are at the start line and you will be surprised. This is due to adrenaline. 2. Good T
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Selecting Your Best Running Buddy - SHOES!

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Many a times, I am asked the question - How do I start running. The answer to this question, that I have often provided is - In order to run, all you need is Legs(these days we have blade runners too - all respect to them), Road, a pair of running shoes (these days we see a lot of barefoot runners as well - more about that in the article), a runner's heart. The next question more often than not - what kind of shoes should i wear? Now that is a tricky one. There are various things that go into selecting the right pair. I have been a minimalist runner for the last 6 years and hence my recommendations are on those lines.  However, in this article, I will try and address what are the different types of running shoes and how should you select one. Many a times, if you are already a runner, you may face a situation where you may find a shoe to be perfect when you buy it in the store. You try it, may try taking some strides in it etc. However, the real test of the shoes i
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Too Much Too Soon – Most Common Running Mistake

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We are in the era of instant gratification and we are used to getting appreciation instantly for whatever we do today. The Social Networking sites are facilitating this. Likes, Comments, Shares etc from various networking sites are helping this. In a matter of 20 years we have moved from no mobile connections in our country to 478 million internet users in June 2018. We moved from hardly any internet connection in late 1990s to 4G internet connections in late 2010s. In 1990s most of the country relied on the newspaper the next day to get breaking news – today we get it within seconds of a happening. Back then if we wanted information, we would ask some people, read some stuff and try to get the information – today this information is available to us within seconds on our mobile phones. Most of the times, back then, if someone asked – who is the singer of – “Mere Desh ki Dharti Sona Ugle? And if we didn’t know the answer – we were completely OK with not knowing it – today the n
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Child's Play

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RunBurn's Kidzathon Flag-off As a child who grew up in the 80s, I spent a lot of my time in the playground in the evening. It could have been because of the lack of other things to engage like – TV, Play Stations etc. Back in those days, we had pretty much 2 channel available for entertainment which played cartoons or children’s entertainment program only for a meagre 2 hours. I categorically remember getting a shout out every evening from the friends and we would get out and play games like Cricket, Football, Marbles(for that matter), but those hours were definitely spent out in the field. As we grew old and technology started playing its part, all of us started getting confined to our own mobile phones. A lot has been written on this subject by a lot of bloggers and authors. However, What I intend to talk about here is how, we as parents are not pushing our kids in to the field. Even when we spent most of our time there as children. As a parent of a 6 year old, h
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Breaks from Running and the Restart Button!

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How many times has it happened to us that we start a fitness activity, do it diligently and then post a festival or off season where we take a break, it becomes difficult to restart. It has happened to me for sure. This happens to a lot of people here in our country on following occasions: Post a long festival season – (Navratri, Diwali, Christmas etc) Post Monsoon – Strange but true – a lot of runners take a break in monsoon Post the main running season is over (October – March every year) a lot of runners take a break to come back and start training again for the upcoming running season. While we don’t really have any off season these days in the large cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi due to the number of running events happening each weekend, it is still true for a lot of runners that they take a break from April to September. Major life event – wedding or becoming a parent Break due to injuries The challenges faced by most of us here could be as follows: Lack of mo
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1 Detox day per week – It can work wonders!

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This thought came to me the first time in the year 2010. This is when I started travelling a lot for work and most of my travel brought me all the irregular and junk eating habits that I struggled to give up over the next some years. In the year 2009 after I changed my job, my new assignment in my new organisation would require me to travel in states like MP, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Goa. All of these travels would include meeting with partners, employees and customers from these regions. Since it was new job responsibility I spent about 3 days a week traveling outside of the home town. This also meant, late night team dinners and flights at wee hours. Team dinners would mean – Liquor (yes in Gujarat too) and a lot of junk food. Being a complete foodie, I would look forward to this trips as it gave me opportunities at treating my taste buds with savouries like Fafda and Jalebi in Gujarat, Fish curry, Bebenca, Dodol in Goa, Malpua, Poha Jalebi in MP and Tambda Rassa Pandhra R
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