WORK

1. Started going a bit deeper into Golang Internals after reading about new go version and 1-billion row challenge
   1. Maps
2. Microsoft’s 50th Anniversary – LINK
   1. Bill Gates is out with his memoir as well
3. Mukesh Bansal on productivity
   1. once in a while I binge on some productivity stuff
   2. Podcast
4. About Palantir – LINK
   1. it’s stock rose from:
      1. $34.7 in 2024 to
      2. $236.52 in 2025
5. Study Tips — LINK
   1. Rewatching study playlist from all-time favs Ali Abdaal
   2. Active Recall and Spaced repetition
6. Neetcode’s thought on future of Leetcode — LINK
   1. Follow it up with Interview Coder with the tagline “F**k Leetcode” –> LINK

 

SPORTS

1. Crossfit
   1. missed workouts
2. Frisbee
   1. yayy. had fun. new shoes. was very careful with ankle
   2. made a reel
      1. LINK
3. Tour of Flanders
   1. I usually try to skip watching live due to stress or anxiety but I have been hooked since Milano San Remo
   2. LINK
   3. next week is Paris roubaix
4. BAR Giving Back
   1. Skipped this event.
   2. Insane how fast NJ went in Merckx – LINK
5. Parshu’s podcast
   1. LINK
   2. Loved the discussion on injury, why he doesn’t like TimeTrials.

 

LIFE

1. Missed CubbonReads
2. Mistborn is going great
3. didn’t prioritise well and ended up posting this weekly update 1 week late. badly written

WORK

1. Madhavan and Sid-Warrier talk about work and stress. Insightful. Made me dig a bit deeper into work-life harmony.
   1. LINK
2. Paul Graham’s essay on How to Lose Time and Money 
3. A combination of 1&2 made me think deeply about the direction I want to go with my career.
4. Lenny’s podcast with Rahul Vohra of Superhuman
   1. Podcast LINK
   2. Product-Market fit engine
   3. Amazing story-telling. I loved the calm and serene demeanour.
5. Loved the user-onboarding series on this website
   1. UserOnboard
6. Real-time analytics. MySQL to ClickHouse with Debezium and Kafka.
   1. something interesting at work.
   2. LINK simple video I could find with a quick search
   3. LINK to Author’s Blog – yet to explore
7. Visibility over 4xx, 5xx errors on the platform
   1. LINK showing summary of HTTP status codes

 

---

SPORTS

Sheets

1. Enrolled in Academy of Strength this week.
   1. workouts have been amazing! I love the tribe feeling.
   2. Core, glutes and flexibility have been weak AF. strength as well. Optimistic for this year.
2. Skipped Frisbee on Thursday to recover from Ankle injury
3. BikeyVenky’s Insta POST on Baseline levels and peak levels
   1. While revisiting previous blogposts last week, came across this. Reiterated by Milan in the latest podcast
   2. Main Idea: have a baseline fitness and know the duration it might take to get to peak fitness.
   3. This is important now as I don’t want to spend the whole year doing cycling specific training but explore other things in life and only do specific training closer to the main events of the year usually Oct-Nov-Dec
4. Nithin Kamath POST on Weight-loss drugs
   1. LINK
5. Emotional Victor Campenaerts REACTS after Stage 18
   1. LINK

 

---

LIFE

Sheets

1. Reading is something I’ve consciously tried to spend more time doing.
   1. Mistborn is the current read. carrying Kindle along to work. Reading it during dinner. Also doing a 15-20min read before leaving back from office to home kinda resets my mood. Instead of doom-scrolling, lot more aware now
      1. reminded me of Ali’s video from 2021 – LINK
   2. Loved this article from Zerodha on starting a reading room
      1. LINK-1
      2. LINK-2
   3.  Planning to go to Cubbon Reads next week followed by hanging out at a cafe post. Let’s see
2. Ali Abdaal’s Spring Reset Workshop — LINK
   1. I started off the year with Ali’s Quarterly Goal planning. helped me reflect on things that I align with.
   2. Saturday was a workshop to assess how the quarter went. Better headspace of where I stand.
3. Use to take eye-drops before but lost the habits. Got them back again. Less dryness now 🙂
   1. LINK

ShoutOut

1. Vishu had a great year running the business. Called me yesterday sharing that he’s getting a Fortuner soon ❤️

 

---

 

Career

1. Work’s been hectic with limited bandwidth on the team. Releases, patches and bug-fixes
2. Go 1.24 release notes
   1. https://tip.golang.org/doc/go1.24
3. Went over couple of essays from Paul Graham after being referenced on Sam Altman’s video on writing
   1. blog: https://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html
4. Been following Pragmatic Engineer’s blog
5. Bloom Filter, SST Tables
   1. To-Do: code implementation

Fitness/Sports

1. S&C session at Academy of Strength on Monday
   1. group class. final circuit workout was the most brutal 5min I’ve ever had in gym.
2. Frisbee on Thursday.
   1. fun day – Instagram
   2. another Lateral Ankle Sprain. Slightly worried now as it’s the 2nd time in 3 weeks. got to focus on rehab and strengthening.
   3. One of beautiful evenings I’ve had. Hangout at Radhika’s place post-game after dinner at Pasta Street.
3. Inconsistent week with weight averaging at 79.95 kg
4. Loved watching the last 1 hour of Milan Sanremo 2025. Can’t wait to get back on the bike
   Binged on the previous editions after that.
   1. 2025: LINK
      1. MVDP being a beast and Pogi showing bravery
   2. 2024: LINK
      1. MVDP getting the break in control for JPs sprint
   3. 2023: LINK
      1. another of MVDP’s ‘biblical’ attack
   4. 2022: LINK
      1. Mohoric’s crazy descent

Life

1. Felt good taking the time off on Sunday, journaling and reflecting on the past week.
   Catching up on some reading and writing which I love doing but didn’t prioritise in this month.
2. Purchases
   1. air-purifier after being influenced by the whole Bryan Johnson fiasco 
   2. meditation mat as the floor was being too hard
3. Books
   1. started reading Mindset by Carol Dweck
   2. continuing Outlive by Peter Attia
   3. Adding some items into wishlist from Rohan Joshi’s
4. Blog
   1. got inspired by Pondiman and Niraj to resume blog
      1. https://pondiexpress.substack.com/
      2. https://nirajdugar.substack.com/
   2. Compilation of Essays from Aviral Bhatnagar on startups
      1. LinkedIn
   3. 40 lessons at 40 from Pathless Path’s author
      1. Link

 

Ideas/Thoughts

1. ‘Get some tact dude’.
   1.  Reflecting on last week, could introspect ego coming in and emotions riling up at work. Not often do I lose composure but happened. Need to correct this behaviour.
   2. Linkedin
2. Context Switching
   1. revisited this article again. though problem is discussed in the article, to-do is to compose diplomatic messages
   2. Linkedin
3. Is ‘keep doing forever’ the only acceptable ‘win condition’?
   1. Linkedin
4. What actions now will free up my time further?
5. With marriage and mid-career in the horizon, thinking about things that should be in auto-pilot before so that I can auto-pilot basics while focussing attention on bigger challenges
   1. have fitness, diet and habits in sustenance
   2. ‘pay my debts’ w.r.t tech

Others

1. Binged on Solo-Levelling Season-1 and Season-2 and then went to finish the Manga
   1. Link

 

Photos

 

 

 

I started writing on this blog since end of 2016. It’s something I really want to do but end up not allocating enough time to it.
Published a total of 52 articles so far. Being in college definitely help 😄

• 2025: 1
• 2024: 0
• 2023: 2
• 2022: 6
• 2020: 5
• 2019: 2
• 2018: 12
• 2017: 17
• 2016: 1

Below are some unfinished drafts over the years which I intend to post even if the thoughts aren’t as clear as back then.

2025

• Ultimate Frisbee: Current Favourite Sport An attempt at running and failing
• Thoughts on taking a break from cycling
• Trek
  • 7 day Sandakphu trek

2024

• 2024: Reflecting on what feels like the worst year I’ve ever had
• 2024: Books, Blogs and more
• Rollercoaster of a Quarter from Jan-March
• Tour of Thekkady
• National Championships
• Race Reports
  • HCL Cyclothon Hyderabad Edition
  • Telangana State Championships’2024
  • Nandi Epic
  • Namma Nandi
  • BBCH Hasan Express

2023

• 2023: Reflecting on what feels like the best year I’ve ever had
• 2023: Books, Blogs and more
• What went into becoming the Telangana State Champion
• Race Reports
  • Telangana State Championships’2023
  • BBCH Races
  • BAR races
• Bananthimari trek

2022

• An attempt at Getting Shredded
• 2022: Books, Blogs and more
• RaceReports
  • Telangana State Championships’2022
• Trek
  • Skandagiri
  • Mulki

2021

• MNC -> Startup: Moving from ADP after 3 years to MyYogaTeacher
• Moving to Bangalore after 25 years of staying at parents
• RaceReports
  • BAR GivingBack Duathlon

2020

• An attempt at Bulking
• RaceReports

2019

• RaceReports
  • 1200km Paris Brest Paris
  • 1000km Brevet
  • Hyderabad Racing Circuit

2018

• RaceReports
  • 42km Airtel Hyderabad Marathon
  • 42km run to college

2017

• RaceReports
  • 21km PurpleRun
  • 42km biking to college

 

Resources

• Internet Blogs
• Blogs from people I personally know
• Fiction Books
• Non-Fiction Books

 

Around the start of the new year 2025, I was watching MKBHD’s 2024 rewind. Although I knew he played Ultimate frisbee, the mention of him taking a long break from Youtube to spend time playing pro Frisbee intrigued me.

So I went around and checked if any Ultimate Frisbee community existed in Bangalore.
A quick Google search led me to: Bangalore Ultimate Instagram Page

The Instagram page had a link to ‘Bangalore Ultimate’ whatsapp group, where one of the member posted a link for a game in ‘Koramangala Ultimate’ group.
A bummer that I could not make it to that week’s game as I had Sandakphu trek with Indiahikes coming up in a week. Once I was back, I immediately signed up for a game on the last Thursday of January. 

Koramangala Ultimate hosts games at Coolulu Turf Park every thursday from 8pm-9:30pm.
Hardik and Pranav host the games. When I met Hardik at the court, he was surprised that I found the community through a google search, as most players are referred by friends. 

The evening went something like this

1. Warmup and Drills
2. Game
3. CoolDown

1: Warmup and Drills

•  Warmup had couple of sprints, leg openers, heel-up runs, team sprint drills, alternate leg swing touches, etc
• After that, Hardik paired us beginners – Saurabh, Prashanth and Sujith. We practiced our forehand passes and captures. Did a drill of 50 non-stop passed and played a mini-game of 2v2
• The other experienced players were meanwhile doing some drills on offense. 

2: The Game

• We were 16-17 players in total and were split into teams of 5/6. Couple of players were participating in the FastFive tournament and they were group together. 
• I was on a team with Natsu, Amitesh, Sharath, Saurabh and Anoop. 
• We played 2 games. I don’t recall the result of the 1st game but we definitely lost the 2nd one. The opposing team was a bit too strong and very coordinated. 
• Though 1st game was good, I quickly ran out of breath in the 2nd game. HR was ~190bpm. I got a couple of reminders from my teammates to slow down, survey the field, and make passes more deliberately

 

3: The Cooldown

• After a picture, we all gathered for a cool down. This was, hands down, the best cooldown I’ve ever done. Period.
• We formed a circle holding hands and then took a step back. This created a tension and was a great stretch for the shoulders
• We did neck-to-toe stretches, some shoulder rotations, cat cow, hip-90s etc.

 

 

Running is something I’ve always loved, whether it’s during morning runs or football matches.
I consciously reduced the number of football games as I started getting worried about injuries after 1-2 bad experiences at games with players doing scary tackles and pushes. I moved on badminton post that but after playing my 1st game of frisbee, I’m very inclined to play a lot more:

• it’s a no-contact sport. I could feel minimal aggression in player (unlike football) during the games
• it gives me the similar rush as in football (can’t yet compare the rush of scoring a goal as I’m yet to play my first real game)

 

Additional Reading:

1. https://gully-games.notion.site/What-to-Expect-on-your-First-Day-f873147cfdef4255b15d068fece2dcb9

 

 

 

 

 

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.

---

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?

---

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

---

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?

---

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 🙂