For Dr A, Lynner and Star Wars Nerds Everywhere!

Much of the credit for today's run goes to my dear friends Dr. A and Lynner. Their support of me over the years and their generous donations (follow this link) went a long way to provide the motivation to get me out on the streets this morning. It means a lot to me to have them be a part of future kids' experiences at YMCA Camp Miller. It's an important place and the Ty Taylor Memorial Campship is an important tribute to an incredible influence.

And now, today's run - one of my favorites!

"Fast ship? You've never heard of the Millennium Falcon? It's the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs."

 by Doug Kline

I've been waiting for today's run since September 27, 2013. That's the date that I created the 11 mile Kessel Run. After a few years of running Mother Theresa Cresent, I noticed that the curve around the back of the Rashtrapati Bhawan might just be the beginning of a good picto-run. With just a bit of playing and some lucky roads off of Safdarjung Road and I had a workable reproduction of the Millennium Falcon, complete with the cockpit! 

The only catch was the fact that it was an eleven mile route. In the fall, I just wasn't able to get my mileage up to the 11 mile range. Everything's changed. Now my mileage is up and I've been keen to do this run for a while. Today I got my wish! Extensive emails were sent to the runners group to drum up interest and I was able to sway Bernie. He was worried that I'd try to cut several parsecs off of this route, but he agreed to come anyway. For which, I'm grateful. It's hard to do the longer runs by yourself. I'm also glad that he didn't shoot first. 

The morning was nice in Delhi. It's surprisingly still not too hot. There were three groups of runners this morning, which bodes well for the next several weeks of training. I expect to have lots of company as I move through my program. My primary concern for this run (apart from the distance) was not getting lost in order to preserve the appearance of the Falcon. I really didn't want to take a bunch of wrong turns and end up with some wonky approximation of the beauty that "will make point five past light speed."

The cockpit was the first piece of the drawing and it was all on new roads for me. Sure enough, we got a bit turned around, but the overall effect is still close. You can see my wrong turn here. The next snag came at mile 4. I had to ask Bernie to stop so I could take out my phone and double check the turn. I didn't want to mess up the GPS art! With the turn successfully negotiated, we were on our way on another brand new street. We ran past the Vice President's House, which got us talking about the government of India. We knew that there is a Prime Minister and a President. We also knew that India has a parliamentary democracy. Our tour had introduced the new data of the existence of the VP (or at least his/her house). Yesterday's run was focused around the upcoming elections, so I decided a bit of research was in order to clean up these confusions. Side note - this has been one of my favorite side-effects of running in Delhi. Most days I get home from a run and immediately get on-line to find information about something I saw on my run that day.

Here's the brief outline of today's study:

• The Vice President of India is Mohammad Hamid Ansari and he has a house on the Kessel Run
• He makes $2,808 per month
• India is actually a "federal parliamentary democratic republic"
• The PM is the head of government an the President is the head of state
• There is a bicameral legislature with an Upper House (think US Senate) and a Lower House (think US House of Reps)
• The elections being held this year are "not really" for Prime Minister
• They are for the "Lower House"
• The majority party in Lower House elects its leader as Prime Minister

Sorry for the civics lesson, back to the run. We passed the Presidential Palace and headed through the forward hold into the second fork of the Millennium Falcon. Another 180 degree turn and we were completing the outline of the ship. There were a few hairy moments crossing the street today, traffic seemed to be busier than normal. It was almost like piloting through an asteroid field to attempt escape from Imperial pursuers.  Almost. The next big site on the route was the Gole Dak Khanna, the round post office from April 28's run from last year.

As we turned onto Mother Theresa Crescent to complete the drawing of a smuggler's modified Correllian Engineering Corporation's YT 1300, my phone rang and I received a request to stop at a pharmacy on the way home to pick up some medicine for the boy. Not a problem, as it was on our way.

On the final turn out of the Falcon's outline, we spied one of the other groups that had left for a run with us in the morning. We all had a laugh, exchanged hellos and kept running. As Bernie and I approached the pharmacy winded, struggling, tired and sweaty, we must have been a sight. We were laughing and happy, satisfied with our run and looking forward to seeing the route pop up on our MapMyRun dashboards. When I asked for the medicine, the pharmacist must have thought it was for me and that I needed it ASAP. Assuring him that I was fine, it took all I had to not say,

"She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid. I've made a lot of special modifications myself."

This run belongs to Dr. A and Lynner! Thanks for answering my pleas for donors!

I'm dedicating runs to raise money for a campship in memory of our friend Ty Taylor at YMCA Camp Miller. Click here or here to donate. Please make sure you choose the Ty Taylor Campship option. And please let me know if you've made a donation so I can thank you!

RUN STATS:
Distance - 11.12 miles
Time - 1:03:16
Soundtrack - Hip Hop mix of Das Racist, Digable Planets and the Digital Underground