Usually I run alone, but of late I have added in some buddies to keep me company and help me keep the running rhythm. Well I am just trying to be cute, I started to listen to music while running and find is strangely appealing. After a few runs, I am starting to get the feel that some music works better than others. There is a need to find ones natural rhythm and find music that suits it.

My first best was to load up the iPod* with a bunch of tracks that I thought are good for running. Some Pop, some Rock, some Jazz, some Dance and some I have not heard in a long while.

Michael Jackson: This was a surprise. The songs are either too fast or too slow for me. I guess they are designed for MJ to dance or as ballads. I cannot keep up either way. However, I realized there is a lovely funk riff in Scream, which incidentally will go into my running playlist.

Thelonious Monk: A definite No. I guess most jazz is going to be difficult to run to. There is a strict emphasis on rhythm but Monk’s music is very fragmented. It is great to listen to but running to fragmented rhythm is not something I want to do. Needs lot of experimenting to find the right songs, but I guess it is all part of training.

Mahavishnu Orchestra: This is a surprise, I thought it too fast, but I can actually run at half the pace . I will experiment a bit to find the right songs…

Weather Report: Same as Mahavishnu Orchestra. Too fast but just nice at half pace. And the music is crazy wonderful.

Placebo: I never thought I would listen to placebo for more than a few minutes. But they seem to compose music at the right pace for me. Many many songs work well for the run.

U2: Ugh. I love the band, but their pacing is so inconsistent song after song, I find it very distracting to run with.

Simon & Garfunkel: Good pacing, especially when I want to take it slow, but the motivation drains. I will have to intersperse placebo with S&G and get some interval runs (though it seems yucky to play them one after another).

Wir Sind Helden: Another shocker. I got their albums from a friend and they found their way into my playlist by chance. But it is another band that plays just for me to run. Good pacing. It also helps that I don’t understand German

There is a lot more music I can think that will be good to run to. Soul, funk are areas I have not experimented yet. REM seems like a running kind of band. Have not tapped into electronic music yet. Not that I have particular interest, I may end up discovering new music through this process too. I am kind of liking the idea of music motivating the running and run motivating new discovery. It can only be good I think.

* Note: iPod is synonymous with “a music player”.

I love deepzoom. I posted an earlier image out of my window to try out the technology. It is pretty addictive

So when I went to Coonoor recently, I shot a bunch of panoramic images hoping to stitch them and share. Here is one of them…

I don’t have equipment to shoot a technically perfect panorama but flaws aside, I think the technology allows to share extremely large images with exceptional details. Enjoy exploring the nice vista and have fun finding all the flaws…

To those interested, the panorama is made of 21 raw files and stitched together in photoshop elements. Each image was shot on a Nikon D200, with a 35mm f/2 AIS manual Nikkor lens. I shot them in a sequence by standing in approximately the same place and turning a bit for each shot. Shot hand held and approximately the same exposure settings. Had to adjust exposure to match the brightness of each shot. Some minor exposure adjustments (eye balling) were made in Photoshop Lightroom. The stitched image it a 500MB Photoshop (psd) file and when saved as a high quality jpeg, is about 70MB. Converted using the deepzoom composer and hosted on this site.

If you are reading via a rss reader, please visit the site for the deep-zoom content.

You might have noticed, interspersed among ramblings about cycling and commuting, I do a bit of running too. I am not a fast runner and usually do not feel the effort required to transport myself to and from races is worth it if I un for less than an hr. So I usually sign up for longer runs. That way, I can exert for longer with support (water bananas etc) which is not possible when I run (train) on my own.

Milk Run on the other hand is a short race that I have been involved in for a few years now. Though it is short, I don’t mind as it is for the sake of charity. Beyond is a primary beneficiary and it is nice organization conducting number of programs for children. The organizers have been learning the ropes for conducting a mass event and have improved much over the past few years. They were lucky too as the weather turned out much cooler and breezy this year.

I signed up for a 9.4Km run but was a bit delayed getting to the starting point. So I decided to join the community 6Km Run. While I was pacing around the starting point, the Kids 6Km Dash was starting and I figured I would downgrade myself once again and joined the kids group . As I used to be a volunteer with beyond, I recognized a few kids and some of the staff too. I blended in pretty well and I figured I can take the time to motivate some of the kids. One of the little girls took to me and wanted me to accompany her. I continued my run at the kids walking / jogging pace and motivating her to keep up and making sure she can get to the end point.

Well long story short, It took about an Hour to complete the 6K but I completed with the kid. She felt a sense of accomplishment and I felt good for doing a good deed. Happiness all around and I suppose that was the intention of the event. Great success!

It is a kick start for my training to the half Marathon in 6 weeks time.