Half a Marathon, and Indian Highways

Today we were supposed to run 10 miles, but thanks to Zack not realizing that the baseball field which we were supposed to see just before turning back was obscured by bushes, we ended up going a "little" over and the entire run was finally 13.1 miles! Here is a link to the path.

Now since a marathon is 26.2 miles, I think I can say that I just finished my first hald marathon! The time taken was 3 hours and 15 minutes, and I hope to improve it in time for the real marathon, but boy... it was fun! The run was along the Los Angeles river and it provided a nice atmosphere, although a bit stinky sometimes. Sad to see a river reduced to a drain.

Huge thanks to Mary Ann, who kept pushing me to keep running, and waited for me in the many times when I stopped to catch a breath. Thanks buddy!

In other news, I came across a nice article in the New York times yesterday [or today super-early morning] in the New York Times about the recent construction of the highway system in India. Read it here. If it asks for registration, use bugmenot.com :-).

From the article

The highway itself brings change. For a nation inured to inefficiency, the improved interstate saves time - for Kailash Pandey, a milk-seller, one-third off a 90-minute commute to market; for Imtiaz Ali, 15, half off the bike ride to school; and half off the travel time for Sarjeet Singh, a trucker.

These micro gains make for macro benefit: some $1.5 billion a year in savings, by one World Bank estimate, on everything from fuel costs to faster freight delivery. More intangibly, the highway may turn India into a society in a hurry, enslaving it to the Western notion that time equals money.

Also, make sure u click on the "interactive feature" link ... nice audio commentry.

As usual, comments appreciated :-).
-A