The Final Sprint @ Monthly Cours
(18/06/2023)

TL;DR, 📝📝
Insane vibe @crankmeister 🙌🙌🙌
Meticulous planning by @shaurya @ashwin and team
Adrenaline through the roof

TS;WM 📝📝
After the end of Round 1, Vikram suggested I build the momentum into the start the of the sprint. I asked Venky if I could get a countdown for 38 seconds, as that was my Round 1 Sprint timing.
Low on fuel (thanks to Imaad for the bar), I expected to have a worse timing than R1. 🥲

Good start with momentum, I wanted to do 5 second on(off the saddle) and 5 second off but my mind had zoned out and I couldn’t synchronise with Venky’s voice 😴

The familiar mind-chatter of

• you are empty on fuel
• you are competing against a stronger rider
• there’s always a next race. save your legs for that
  🤮🤮

During school, whenever there was a sprint and it was close I used to shout my lungs out and it always gave me that edge to push through.

Back to the race, I shifted to a higher gear and screamed through a couple of strokes and tried to maintain the momentum till the end.
I couldn’t hear Shrinidhi’s shouts of “drops and sprint”, else I could have gone all out in the last 10 seconds off the saddle and end up with a better timing.

All in all, a great sprint. A huge confidence booster. 😄

TL;DR,

I’m a huge admirer of Venky – the longevity in the sport , the sheer amount of content he pushes out (blogs before and podcasts now)
and the legacy he’s been steadily building with Bangalore Amatuer Racing (11th year now). 🙌🙌🙌

A great coach helping out with building up my base, fine tuning for target-race performance; race & pacing strategies, post race analysis and
nutrition tips and also helping out with equipment when needed. ♥️♥️

The calls we meet up is just truckload of information. 📝📝

If I had to describe Venky’s coaching style in one line, it would be “simplicity and fortitude” (haikyuu)
Lot more races coming up in July. Lot more potential to bring out of myself.
Cheers to Coach! 💪💪

TS;WM

“Without structured training, you’re just spinning your wheels.” – Greg LeMond

I’ve been riding a bike since end of 2016, started with community rides, then a 200 BRM, then a SR series, then another and a bit of racing mixed in between with @HyderabadRacingCircuit and Ending with a Paris Brest Paris finish in Aug’2019.
From COVID until Oct’2022, I spent very little amount of time with the bike but that changed after the time at Telagana States 2022. The adrenaline rush and the community pulled me back again.

After recovering from the crash, I got myself a indoor trainer at the coolest bike shop in Bangalore @VeloStudio. Spent the whole of January with random but consistent rides and finally went on my first group ride in Bangalore at the end of Jan 2023.

Meet coach BikeyVenky.

Post ride, hopped on Venky’s website. Booked an appointment.
Had a good long call about background and goals. We started working together since Feb, 2023.

“The key to structured training is consistency.” – Alberto Contador

BAR ITT in Feb was the base check. BBCH IIT was a bit of a mixed feeling. did it Merckx. might have finished on the podium with TT bars but felt a bit risky as I was not used to it. Good base building in Feb, Mar and April ending with Ooty trip.

BBCH Hasan express was the most fun I’ve had in a road race. Felt super strong on the bike but a hub issue prevented me from a standing sprint in the finish. June was the most eventful with 2 podiums. One @TheMonthlyCours and one at @BAR Criterium. Finishing up with my 1st Nandi climb at Namma Nandi 2023.

At the end of 150 days, we come to the BAR ITT which was the event we started with 🙂

With the main race approaching, focus is on being sharp on that particular day mentally and physically!

If I had to advice, one of the best things you could do at the start of your endurance journey is prioritise working with a coach than worry about
equipment and purchases.

#trust-the-process

#journey-over-destination

September 4 – September 10 (Sun – Sat)

Week Summary

1. Career || Work
   Work
   => A mix of work from home and office due to Bangalore rains 🙂 got home a monitor and a new extension.
   => continuation of lot of meetings, follow-ups and mentoring sessions
   Career
   => I was looking for any meetups to kill time on the weekend and I found one focussing on DS-Algo and System Design. Last sunday was on Binary Trees and it was very informative.
2. Workout || Diet
   Diet
   => 1100 cal: we entered the last 6-week phase of cut with a 1100 calorie diet. And I hit it 95% of the time 🙂 though I had many cravings in between.
   how did I handle? instead of ordering something I put a time and had 25% whey scoop followed by water 🙂
   => Adding taste: I used to just boiled chicken (haldi+salt) marinated for lunch. started mixing it up with soy sauce this week. I’ll start documenting good recipes which are healthy, tasty and calorie-mindful.
   Workout
   => missed 3 days of workout 😕 on Thu-Fri-Sat for being lazy
3. Personal
   => Bangalore rains 😄 you must have already seen a lot of memes. our street was water logged.
   => Even mobile signal was not working and I was chilling with my flatmate on the terrace. During a half-day power cut on Monday, cleaned up my room and it helped in decluttering my mind a lot.

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Thoughts/Ideas

1. Scheduling Learning
   I like to listen to podcasts in the gym and take notes as well. But sometimes I don’t have any podcast in queue and I end listening to music.
   => Why not queue up interesting things at the start of the week like newsletters, blogs, etc to read
2. DS-Algo Mnemonics
   Just like we have mnemonics for vocabulary, why not try doodles/mnemonics for popular ds-algo questions? Any resource you know?

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Resources

Podcasts/Youtube

1. A YOUTUBE short on 2 chrome extensions
2. Another YOUTUBE short on applying Atomic Habits for night skin-care routine 🙂

Saved Content

1. Another QUORA post on importance of accountability.
2. A QUORA post where the author emphasises building a career by solving problems and another QUORA post in being the top 1% aka linchpin.

Reading

1. Superhuman by Habit Continuing this 🙂

Writing

1. Finishing up a post on Amma 🙂
   Her birthday is on Wednesday, September 14th

August 29 – September 4

Week Summary

1. Work: It was a usual work week along with a holiday on the occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi. Nevertheless I went to work as there were no interruptions and I could code in peace. Currently working on “referrals” on our platform along with reading up ‘URL Shortening’ architecture and a couple of topics from “100 Go Mistakes and How to Avoid Them”. Also got to explored datadog and videosdk platforms. Friday ended with some carrom and chess games🙂
2. Workout: I had a huge overload of calories on the weekend and that spiked my weight by 2kgs. It was damage control throughout the week by keeping diet in check along with the workouts🙂 One day, post the workout and pranayam session at the gym, Ashish introduced himself. It felt good when you see people making a conversation pro-actively. Need to pick a thing or two from him🙂
3. Personal: Stacked flossing as a habit in the night. Let’s see how the consistency goes

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Thoughts/Ideas

1. Minumum Viable Habit
   Rather than focussing on getting the perfect workout, meditating 10 min day, all 5 breath work in pranayam, etc this week has been better by focussing on the bare minimum Ex: just 2 mins of meditation and I will tick it off on my habits tracker. Same with gym. Just the 1st exercise
2. Deal with juniors/interns
   The amount of context-switching has been insane with assisting younger folks at work. Trying out a couple of things to handle these efficiently and more importantly, emphathatically.
   Any suggestions here?

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Resources

Podcasts/Youtube

1. An amazing podcast on Product Management by Shreyas Doshi on YOUTUBE. Explored topics like pre-mortems, LNO frameworks, product metrics etc. Extremely insightful. You should definitely follow Shreyas Doshi on LINKEDIN
2. I revisited Awaken the Giant Within audiobook by Tony Robbins during evening walks around the office. Tony had a big impact on me during college.
3. A SPOTIFY episode on `Time Management for Engineers`. Explored topics like boundaries, context switches among other things.

Saved Content

1. Are you struggling with handling meetings along with your daily code work? A LINKEDIN post helping with a couple of things you could try.
2. An INSTAGRAM post of street calisthenics engaging the passersby 🙂
3. A QUORA post where the author brilliantly humanises our organs and their fear. (aren’t organs already human?)

Reading

1. Superhuman by HabitCurrently re-reading this book and summarising them on Notion. Maybe that’s why you see two blogposts coming out this week😄

Writing

1. Favourite Sports Anime ft. Haikyuu!!

I Haven’t watched Any Anime

Naruto. One Piece. Attack of Titans. Bleach. Hunter X Hunter.
and a lot lot more.

I used to listen to these names from my friends right from school. Though my elder brother used to watch them, the only anime I watched was Dragon Ball Z during Cartoon Network days. But…

I have watched Haikyuu!! and I loveeee it. I have been revisiting the scenes/episodes multiple times😄

What exactly is Anime?

Anime is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. (all anime shows are cartoons, but not all cartoons are anime.)

And, what is Haikyuu About?

Haikyuu is about a Karasuno’s high school volleyball clubs journey from the bottom to the top and captures the metamorphosis of various characters (and Hinata Shoya in particular)

How it Started

I enrolled with a coach on FITTR for the #GetShredded goal for 2022 in June and to have a hook that wakes me up early in the morning (#RGV), I started watching Haikyuu! after a recommendation from a colleague.

The series has 85 episodes in total spread over 4 seasons.

Why I love it

1. A sports anime and I naturally gravitated towards it.
2. A perfect underdog story. Characters alone and together defying all odds. Evolving through the episode. Each episode moved me.
3. It doesn’t focus on a single characters. Though the pace might seem slower while covering other characters, the payoff is incredible.

Favorite Moments

1. Hinata challenging Ushijima. YOUTUBE
2. Tsukki having his moment after blocking Ushijima. YOUTUBE
3. the characters uttering “mo ikai”(one more) in intense scenes.
4. the episode of Hinata going to training camp uninvited. YOUTUBE
5. Hinata’s view from the summit. YOUTUBE
6. Season 1 conclusion where characters are taking in the results.

What Next?

1. Haikyuu season 5 is coming as a 2 part movie in the later part of 2023. can’t be more excited 😀
2. I started watching other anime
   Kuroko’s Basketball and Baki which didn’t keep me hooked
   and finally settle upon
   Diamond No Ace: YOUTUBE
   Hajime No Ippo: YOUTUBE
   A place further than the universe: YOUTUBE

Will be back with those posts 🙂