Edition 202 - Pleasure and Happiness, Brotherhood of Athletes and Coaches

When I finally start my cult of runningbaba, this message is what I will start with. 4 min of wisdom about the distinction between pleasure and happiness.

Last week, I was travelling to a coastal town in the Indian state I currently live in. As I was there for more than a day, I went looking for a place to run and found a mud track, perhaps the only one in that town.

I ran for about an hour. It was quite warm and humid but I enjoyed the run as I usually do. As I was stretching after my run, someone who looked like a strongman walked up to me and began chatting.

Within a 10min conversation, I knew about

- the rivalry of the town with Udupi

- his speciality (hammer throw and he is a former middle/long distance runner!)

- how girls drop off after engg/medicine

- why athletes who are science students have issues vs those in other courses

- what matters in the long term for the long term success of the athlete (this is his distilled wisdom from over a decade of coaching multiple national level medallists)

- his brother who’s a gifted 400m runner, his brother's coach, differences in lifestyle b/w Ooty and Bangalore (where his brother travels to frequently ), main source of protein, monthly costs for an athlete, etc

I was quite blown away by how free flowing the conversation was (and I didn’t do much of the speaking). All this because the man saw me put in some honest miles. The brotherhood of coaches and athletes can be lovely sometimes. When was the last time someone shared so much with you in such a short span of time?