drink. sleep. Steps. repeat.

।। श्री आशापुरी देव्यै नमः ।।

Fast Five 🏃 and beyond.. drink. sleep. Steps. repeat.

a 10-day event 'Stepathon' 👣 was organized from 24-Feb to 04-Mar.. teams of 5 🖐️ were to participate.. top 3 teams 🥇 🥈 🥉 were to receive meal coupons (reimbursement) as per their standings..

that was a foreword for the readers, who are are not from my कर्मभूमी.. and now that everybody is on the same page, let's start..

yes, the title kind-of goes in the same direction as that of first article 📋 on सिंहगड (from other blog), titled Eat. Sleep. सिंहगड*. Repeat., read here.. and my friend, that, is the most important of all other cannot-be-missed ingredients from this page 📄.. drink water 🍶.. but before that,

back in Jul 2022, after 🪔 दिवे घाट - रामदरा - मल्हारगड hike (read here), रविराज was respectfully denied 'मी एकनिष्ठ आहे 😀, trekking शिवाय मला काही जमत नाही (I am loyal to trekking)..' when he'd offered to also try running 🏃.. and now, in Feb 2024, when Stepathon was announced 📢, similar thing happened - Mandar poked, 'consider me in your team'.. for the same 'एकनिष्ठ' reason, I was not completely sure 😐.. but checked later to have also received Brijesh's message (ahead in time).. giving it a second thought of 'let's give it a try' - joined the rat race 🐀.. as if all other races already running are not enough, but this was literally a 'rat race'.. and since his team was already full, could do nothing more than feel sorry for Mandar.. in all, we were लिंबू-टिंबू 🍋, hiking enthusiasts, marathon specialist 🏃, yoga practitioner 🧘 and an iron man.. 'iron man' बोले तो, 2 times half iron man..

'नाम तो सूना होगा' Rahul created a WhatsApp group, which was christened 'Fast Five 🏃', derived from the 5th installment of 'Fast and Furious' movies' series by the same name.. btw, this Rahul is different than the one (Konde) you normally read about in most of the 'घरबसल्या trekking' articles, but he (Jagtap) is indeed mentioned in the सिंहगड article shared above..

नांदेड City

by the end of 9th day, we had put a combined efforts 👣 of about 1991k steps 😊 😊 (616k mine 😊).. further details on, what was the score on final day?, did we win? etc. are intentionally missing here, because this article is about "more than that".. nonetheless, do let me know, what do you think 🤔 about this figure for a group with 2 in 50s, other 2 in their late 40s and the last one with a running 40?.. that's also the irony of life.. we only realize the importance of being physically active when our medical reports 🏥 exhibit figure(s) beyond (+ / -) the normals 🥺..

and now, if you calculate 🧮 (some of you already have), how many kms does that translate into, assuming even the default / average values of strides 📏 (length of / between your steps), cadence 🎲 (steps per minute), pace ⏩ (minutes per km) etc. affecting factors, that's not a small number at all.. not small, but not impossible too 😇.. so, here are the secrets 🪄 on how we did it.. hope, this will help some of you, excel in steps-focused physical activities कारण ह्यात सुद्धा स्वार्थ माझाच आहे 😆, as Zig Ziglar quotes, "You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want" 👏.. but before that - Rahul K, I know already what you are thinking, again.. and the answer still remains a 'no' - shoes 🥾 घालून सिंहगड ते रायगड नाही रे शक्य २ दिवसात.. वरचा आकडा (mostly) without shoes केलाय..

back to agenda.. a few days ago, had been to 'भटकंती कट्टा', where veteran Milind Kulkarni shared 🎙️ some tips, including a fine statement 'we just underestimate our bodily capacities 💪'.. this guy had my 2 cents, sooner than instantaneously.. he talked about some concept of muscle memory 🧠, which we need to regularly practice and increase.. yes.. our leg muscles "remember", and we just need to increase their memory of how much we can use them.. that's all 🤷.. there is no other complicated science behind an individual's capacity.. and while doing so, only threshold to overcome / prevent is the 'shin splints' - pain in the tissues / muscles / tendons - basically everything that surrounds your larger bone 'tibia' / 'shinbone' in the lower leg 🦵.. and for both of these (converting pain into memory), water plays the most important role.. and hence the title of the article, drink 🍶..

full moon 🌕, हत्ती डोंगर - खंडोबा टेकडी

the event was perfectly scheduled just at the cusp of winter and summer.. and a full moon 🌕 night to start with, obviously meant a night trek or at least early morning.. so, the kick-off happened at खंडोबा टेकडी - हत्ती डोंगर - back same route ↪️ (25 kms).. while in the first half of the day, Fast Five 🏃  led the board, by the end of it, something just did not feel right.. mornings of next 2 days were well spent at तळजाई (15 kms).. evening rounds next to home contributed another 50% of morning rounds, but these were still not helping 🤨.. something different had to be thought of, as the achieved numbers were indicating good enough, that sticking to our individual commitments, would soon kick us out of the competition 😔.. and, just in case you missed it, this was no more 'an event', but 'a competition' for Fast Five 🏃..

freelancer - the one who has no obligations 😎.. as we gulped down the individually committed numbers 🎯 in just 4-5 days of the event competition, we were now free to donate the steps at will, with no targets.. a bit of 🍱 lunch walk was added.. and the slogan was changed from "हर एक कदम दिलाए जीत का आनंद 🥰" to "दिल खोलके steps दान करो 😜"..

तळजाई

Google Fit - whole of the event was to be trusted on the figures claimed by GFit.. and same as every other thing in this universe, that's also 'not' perfect 😬.. to illustrate, if you check the entries per minute (on the app), you may observe one or the other missing 🥴.. trying to find some pattern, the learning was, GFit swallows every 13th entry.. may be issue specific to my smartphone 📱, where steps count is captured every 65 seconds 😉.. if not, it meant I was losing 7.7% of the steps and had to walk 8.3% extra to meet the targets.. why not the same % numbers? the reason is same as that of the difference between 'free' and 'discount' 🧐.. but the part funnier was, for that missed entry, GFit never missed any 'Heart Points' (60 secs / min).. how perfectly 'not perfect' is that 🫤

07:39 hide-n-seek

Heart Points 💚 - another new term.. GFit awards either 1 or 2 points for every minute of the physical activity depending on your cadence.. as recommended by AHA (American Heart Association), CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and WHO (World Health Organization), an individual's minimum requirement per week is 150.. 🙃 should that not be different depending on age, territory, lifestyle etc.?.. असो,

another observation was to confirm the doubt 👽, if GFit actually calculates the daily count as an aggregate of the minute-wise recorded steps' count?.. with the help of Google Takeout, this also was verified to be a bug.. and without going into details of the complete process, will just share the conclusion - no, it doesn't - the daily count does marginally fall short of the summation..

एरंडवणे

Shiv then suggested to use metronome, also sharing one of his own compositions 🎶.. now you are wondering, 'आता हे काय?' 💭 - same was I.. it immensely helps to maintain the desired cadence, by following its every beat 🪘 - basically, consistency.. also available online 🌐 - give it a try and realize the difference - 'wonders' it is..

Rahul suggested later, we take half day leaves 💻 on Thu / Fri.. I was like - if we divide ➗ even the first prize within 5 of us, we earn more with leave encashment 💰.. that's more like, paying higher interest to save taxes of lesser magnitude.. and the idea was parked aside.. but now you know (if from the same कर्मभूमी) what my CTC is not less than - oops 😜..

by now, we were just adding kms.. but was that the actual target?.. Shiv and Brijesh shared some inputs on how to walk continuously, yet stay fresh 🌝 and not get injured (in addition to already practiced warm-up and stretching).. like, use a pair of socks 🧦 only once, stay hydrated, apply oil 🛢️ to your fingers 🦶 and in the groin area and reduce the strides / take baby steps 🐣.. and you must have guessed by now - I'd hit the jackpot 🎰.. I'd found my secret ingredient.. simply stopped using shoes altogether and stopped going out of the society premises.. started with floaters within the society 🏢 or on rooftop, bare foot + socks inside home and that's all.. bottom-line being, same as every other story in our lives, we just unnecessarily get involved in complexities.. 'overthinking' 🤯 - the most dangerous नशा - we just never pay any good attention towards curing this disease..

demo

as the work week ended, Shiv shared a daily plan 📑 for the kind-of decider weekend.. in addition to all we were doing, this one emphasized on 'ice bath' 🧊.. as the name suggests, it's about washing with ice cold water.. but what? - the paining areas of the legs (shin splints), which in other words, basically is fooling your muscles to not feel the induced nuisance.. sounds 'dangerous'? ❓ not really.. that was the final missing piece toward achieving what happened next.. a combo of a 1k heart points 💚 and a 100k 💯 steps - one each on Sat and Sun.. this was the most precious takeaway from this contest.. a thing to cherish for a lifetime, along with many other learnings / different experiences on the way, to perform better on any पायवाट 👣..

hope, some of this text helps in the direction of doing it right ✅, so that you enjoy it by staying motivated towards adding years to the life..