Another year, another Amazing Thailand Marathon, 2025. This was my third time participating in this race.
Getting There
This time I did the right thing and took the 4:30 MRT to Sanam Chai station. There was not an inch of free space in the train. I reached there 45 mins before the gun time, but I underestimated how long it would actually take to get to the starting line. The crowd was unlike anything I had seen before; I still reached the starting line late and started right at the back.
At least there was a very nice drone show to look at on the way there.
The Race & Stats
I started at the very back and struggled throughout to get up front; eventually giving up. Because of the same reason, I did not run intervals, running at a more comfortable, steady pace.
Amazing Thailand Marathon Bangkok 2025 Statistics
Luckily, I still managed to comfortably below the 1 our mark, even though my right knee was seizing up.
I have been running for 3 years now, but after my most recent race, I started thinking. When I see others run, why does it look so much more effortless compared to how I feel (struggling & out of breath)? That’s when I found out about running in zone 2.
What I thought I was doing wrong
Having never been trained formally, I assumed that running at a faster pace always produced better results. So I was basically running the hardest I could, in every run, every week. As you can see from a typical run below, most of my runs were in Zones 4 and 5.
My typical 4.8k statsMy typical 4.8k HR Zones
As I found out with some research, running in zones 4 & 5 is sub-optimal for training purposes, because of the below reasons:
Aerobic stagnation: High intensity relies on glycogen and limits mitochondrial and capillary growth. Endurance stops improving.
Excess fatigue: Elevated cortisol and sympathetic tone increase resting heart rate and slow recovery.
Overtraining risk: Sleep disruption, low motivation, and injury risk rise.
Reduced efficiency: You burn glycogen rapidly, so you gas out sooner at any pace.
Cardiac strain: Constant high heart rate thickens heart walls instead of enlarging chamber volume—less efficient pumping long term.
Also, my running performance had more or less plateaued. It was time for a change.
Running in Zone 2
In the beginning, I found it incredibly difficult to keep my runs in Zone 2. I would consciously run slower, but as soon as I stopped paying attention, I would go back to running faster. For the first few days, I would even struggle to decide how my feet hit the ground.
Zone 2 running on Apple Watch
Zone tracking on the watch helped a lot. But what helped me the most was consciously limiting myself to breathing only through my nose and not opening my mouth at all while running.
Within a few days, running started to feel so much more easier, I increased my daily runs from 4.8k to 6k.
Example Tuesday/Saturday 6k Zone 2 Run StatsExample Tuesday/Saturday 6k Zone 2 Run Heart Rate
Day
Distance
Target HR Zone
Distance
Target HR Zone
Tuesday
4.8k
Zone 4-5
6k
Zone 2
Thursday
4.8k
Zone 4-5
6k
Zone 4-5
Saturday
4.8k
Zone 4-5
6k
Zone 2
Sunday
4.8k
Zone 4-5
10k
Free
Before
19.2k
After
28k
Running Speed over a month
Example Thursday 6k Zone 4-5 Run StatsExample Thursday 6k Zone 4-5 Run Heart Rate
I kept Thursdays for hard running, like before, so as not to lose my VO2 max and lactate threshold and to provide the necessary stimulus for speed and strength.
Example Sunday 10k Free Run StatsExample Sunday 10k Free Run Heart Rate
I changed my Sunday runs to a 10k, every week with no HR zone constraints; instead maintained a pace that is most “fun”.
Changes I noticed
Below are the changes I noticed after 1 month running with my new schedule, both short-term and mid-term.
Short-Term changes
I was enjoying my runs much more compared to before. I could look around, smile at dogs instead of just struggling to complete my laps. I looked forward to my runs much more
I felt like I have unlimited range now. The amount of fatigue didn’t build up appreciably with each lap and I felt more or less the same at the end of the run, just more sweaty.
After the run, I felt like I didn’t run hard enough, the satisfaction went down by a huge margin.
I was more conscious of my running gait.
Instead of being dependant on familiar landmarks for my intervals, I could track my heart rate instead, so I could take new/unfamiliar routes now.
Mid-Term changes (4 weeks)
Let’s track some metrics over 4 weeks.
There was absolutely no change to my Heart Rate Recovery.
Heart Rate Recovery with Zone 2 running over a month
No change to my Heart Rate Variability, either.
Heart Rate Variability with Zone 2 running over a month
I was especially disappointed that my Resting Heart Rate didn’t change at all.
Resting Heart Rate with Zone 2 running over a month
What broke the camel’s back was that my VO2 max absolutely tanked in these 4 weeks. 6 months of progress erased in a month, after being so close to hitting 60.
VO2 max with Zone 2 running over a month
I couldn’t take it & decided to go back to my old running schedule. As expected, my VO2 max started to recover.
VO2 Max recovering slowly after going back to Zone 4-5 runs
Onycholysis is when the nail of a finger or toe separates from the underlying nail bed. Below is my experience with this condition, documented over many months.
It contains pictures of my toe with the condition. If the sight of an infected and exposed nail bed makes you feel queasy or disgusted, stop reading now.
Having seen the trailer for Predator: Badlands, I was not too excited to watch the movie. However, there was no way I could miss it, so I took the day off and went to watch it.
The Movie
The movie starts at Yautja Prime, the home planet of the Yautja. They are shown as a martial clan with strict honour codes.
Dek, is the runt of his clan whose father wants him culled. He goes to Genna to kill the Kalisk and bring its head back as a trophy to prove his worth and earn his cloak.
Once there, he “makes friends” with Thia, half of a Weyland-Yutanisynthetic. They have interesting camaraderie. Dek tries to brute-force his way through each problem, whereas Thia teaches him to work with the planet instead of fighting it.
Along the way, everyone learns that the real villain is not the Kalisk, but “corporate greed”. Eventually, Dek proves himself as worthy of being a Yautja & avenges the death of his brother, making new friends along the way.
My Thoughts
I always thought of the Yautjas as mysterious creatures who we rarely saw, always hiding in the shadows. Knowing little about them made their lore more interesting. This movie shatters all of that and brings us up close and personal with them. It was shocking to see one of them being slapped in the face by a cute monkey-like creature. There are multiple comic moments involving the Yautja. He even shares jokes and tender moments with the other characters.
That being said, the action sequences are really cool. It was cool to see Dek (deprived from his high-tech weapons) use the planet’s flora and fauna against the Weyland-Yutani synths, not unlike Dutch from the first movie. He also uses the Weyland-Yutani pulse rifles against them. The fight scene with the 2 halves of Thia fighting simultaneously was also cool. There’s even a loader fight scene for good measure.
This movie is also the first Predator or Alien movie without a single human character.
Overall, a good action movie, but not how I wanted to see the Predators.
Last weekend, I participated in a 10k running event called Garmin Run Asia Series 2025. As the name says, it is organised by Garmin every year, in different cities, across Asia. This time, the Bangkok run was organised at Hua Mak Stadium. I also participated in this event last year where I didn’t come away too impressed. However, I decided to give it another shot this year.
One of the main problems with this event is that it starts too early in the morning. The guns go off at 04:00 and they asked everyone to report by 03:00. This meant I had to wake up by 02:30, which is almost inhuman. When the alarm went off, I almost didn’t get off the bed.
The Race & Statistics
As before, I rode my motorcycle to the venue; parking was easier this time. We kicked off on time, as you can see below.
I didn’t understand how everyone else had so much energy at such an ungodly hour; singing, dancing, taking selfies. I felt like shit for the first few kilometres, considering going back home, but somehow continued. After the first few kms, I got into a groove and set a personal record for the 10k.
Garmin Run Asia Series 2025 Route
As you can see, I shaved off almost 9 minutes from my previous time and almost 50 seconds off my previous pace.
I maintained a HR higher by 10 bpm and burnt more calories.
Garmin Run Asia Series 2024 vs 2025 stats
As you can see, I started out strong in the first few laps and then slowed down a bit, but maintained a consistent pace, not letting my pace go above 6:00.
Garmin Run Asia Series 2024 vs 2025 splits
I ran mostly in Zones 4 and 5, instead of 3 and 4, like last time.
Garmin Run Asia Series 2024 vs 2025 Heart Rate Zones
I rode back while it was still dark and was home by 5:30, to watch the sun rise after a shower and with a mug of coffee.
Garmin Run Asia 2025 Finisher MedalGarmin Run Asia 2025 Finisher Medal
I have been streaming content on Apple TV 4Ks for quite some time. This post is about an issue I discovered specifically with the 3rd Gen Apple TV 4K. When streaming high bitrate 4K HDR content on Plex, it overheats and starts stuttering. If you keep playing, it eventually halts, as shown below.
Apple TV 4K (3rd Gen) has overheated
Now, I was playing similar content on the Apple TV 4K (1st Gen), but never saw these issues. The difference is, Apple removed active cooling on the 3rd Gen model and slimmed down the unit. As per Apple, the SoC is efficient enough to not require cooling. And while that may be true for normal content streamed from one of the many streaming platforms, the passive cooling simply isn’t enough when streaming high-bitrate content like Blu Ray rips on Plex. Even though using the Air Conditioner partially alleviates the problem, it doesn’t solve it completely.
I briefly considered selling it and buying a 1st or 2nd Gen used. But then, I realised that wasn’t a sustainable solution long-term, so decided to take matters into my own hands & improve the cooling using a heatsink. I also decided to do proper tests with different modes, for science.
Test Methodology
Baseline : Baseline is the temperature of any passive component near the Apple TV 4K. In this case, I chose the TV stand. The aim is to abort the test till the baseline temperatures are within a 2C window.
Standby: Temperature of the Apple TV 4K in standby mode doing background tasks only (As a HomeKit hub, it needs to track all the HomeKit devices in the house and process and upload surveillance videos from 2 cameras).
Video: Measure the temperature of the Apple TV while playing various kinds of video with different configurations at different intervals.
All measurements done with an infrared thermometer from a distance of 15 cm. The spot measured is the middle of the Apple logo on the top of the unit. After each test, I waited for the Apple TV to return to its standby temperature and stay there for at least an hour (For the internal components to cool down, too). This meant, most days, I could only do 1 or 2 tests and it took days to finish everything.
Apple TV 4K (3rd Gen) at 64 C
Test Results
The test results were not surprising.
Apple TV 4K temperature over 1 hour
Netflix : As expected, the unit worked well with no stuttering or freezes for both 1080p and 2160p content. The temperature rose to 9C above standby in both cases but stayed stable afterwards. This is not surprising because streaming content has comparatively low bitrate and if there was an issue here, it would be detected & reported by many more people.
Infuse : I tested only high-bitrate content on Infuse. The temperature went up 6C higher than Netflix (considering the bitrate is 10 times more) but surprisingly stayed more or less stable over 45 mins. This proves that the Apple TV 4K itself does not struggle with playing high bitrate content, as long as the app is correctly coded.
Plex : This part shows how bad Plex is at decoding video. Even the 1080p video showed the temperature rising continuously till the end of the test, not stabilising at all. In fact, the temperature with 1080p rose to 54C, even above high bitrate 2160p on Infuse.
High-Bitrate 2160p video on Plex yielded pathetic results. The temperature crossed well past 64C and stuttering started around the 42 min mark. It didn’t shut down in 1 hour, but I am sure if I had the time to continue the test longer, it would have at some point.
Apple TV 4K temperature graph over 1 hour
Adding a Heatsink (small one I had lying around) actually caused the standby temperature to be slightly higher than normal, probably because at this stage it is also blocking some heat dissipation. Eventually, it seems to delay the heat and hence the stuttering, by around 15 mins. I am not sure if it would completely prevent the Apple TV from shutting down.
Apple TV 4K (3rd Gen) with a small Heatsink
I could buy bigger heatsinks and connect them to both the upper and lower surfaces of the Apple TV and place it horizontally for maximum effect. But why should I mutilate my gadget further because Plex doesn’t work well?
If Plex doesn’t fix the issue by the time it runs out of warranty, I may consider opening up the Apple TV and connecting the heatsinks directly to the internal components for the best heat disipation.
Conclusion
Plex is very inefficient at decoding video. Apparently, Plex uses a CPU decoder instead of Apple’s Metal API. For high-bitrate content, there’s runaway heating causing stutters and eventually causes the Apple TV to crash. This post says Plex has been working to correct this, but that was almost 1.5 years ago, so no idea when this will actually happen.
Apps coded properly like Infuse have no issues handling high–bitrate content. The temperature rises initially , but stabilises after some time.
The Apple TV 4K (3rd Gen) struggles with heat dissipation with the CPU operating above a certain threshold, especially compared to the previous generations equipped with a fan. Adding a Heatsink to the Apple TV helps with the heat dissipation somewhat.
I travel to Kolkata frequently and it is such a backward city, none of the bigger airlines service it, only low cost airlines like Indigo, Thai Air Asia, Thai Lion and Spicejet. What’s worse, all these flights are red-eye flights which I hate. So I was pleasantly surprised to see that Bhutan Airlines runs regular flights between Bangkok & Kolkata, and they are daytime flights! Bhutan Airlines is a small airline company and Bhutan’s first private airline. In fact it is so small, they just operate 2 aircraft on 2 routes.
What I like
So what’s to like about them? As I said, the main factor is, they run the only direct daytimeflights between Bangkok and Kolkata.
They are also the only airline on this route which doesn’t charge you extra for every little thing. In fact, proper hot meals are included in the fare. They also serve alcohol, but I have never had it.
Lunch aboard Bhutan Airlines flight from Kolkata to BangkokTomato Juice aboard Bhutan Airlines flight from Kolkata to Bangkok
Anyone who has travelled from India to Bangkok would know what kind of people travel on this route. 90% are sexually-frustrated men who have lied at their homes and are heading to Thailand for some Snu-Snu. But since this flight uses Kolkata just as a middle stop between Paro and Bangkok, the amount of such people on-board is comparatively few.
They don’t have seat-back entertainment, but they have a system called Tashi Skynet where you can use your own device to connect to the on-board Wi-Fi and play access their entertainment content and their flightmap.
Flight map on Tashi Skynet
They also have an in–flightmagazine Kuzu Zangpo La, reading which surprised me with the fact that their chairman is a doppelgänger of Jason Alexander.
Kuzu Zangpo La In-Flight MagazineWangchuk Dorji or Jason Alexander?
The flights are always early, if not on-time.
The aircraft’s, although not brand new, seem to be well-maintained and clean.
They have great customer care. During a recent trip, I accidentally cancelled my flight by mistake, but I was able to contact their customer care and reverse the cancellation without any penalties.
What I don’t like
Their pricing fluctuates a lot. Within days, their prices can become half or go double. My observation is that their pricing is lowest 2 weeks be for a trip. However, I am too anxious to wait till there’s only 2 weeks left to book a ticket.
Probably because of their agreement at Suvarnabhumi airport, they don’t have jet bridge access and rely on buses to take passengers to and from the terminal, which adds time, especially when returning to Bangkok.
That’s it, not too many negatives. Overall, I am thankful to have this fight
Credit Card transactions at PoS machines require a PIN.
Credit Card transactions at online merchants are not seamless, making recurring un-attended transactions impossible in most cases (Eg you cannot associate a credit card with your Apple account and buy things with 1 tap).
Cannot enter Airport without showing a valid ticket.
X-Ray machines, metal detectors at shopping malls. They even check below your car to see if you have a bomb strapped to it.
Some merchants allow very limited quantities of some items. Eg, I wanted to replace the bulbs in my room and Blinkit won’t let me order 2 of any one type of bulb. Eventually I had to select 2 different makes.
Hospitals make you pay before you even see a doctor.
People are paranoid about security, even in gated societies, even with the above authentication. See example below
Personal gate in a gated society
Why has it come to this?
Now, I am not arguing that the above steps are not required (they most certainly are), but why are they specifically required for us?
Barring security issues which are courtesy terrorism, most of the above comes down to how un-trustworthy we Indians are. Surely, we have been stealing others’ Uber rides, package deliveries, credit cards long enough that they had to come up with all this.
Recently, I participated in a 10k running event called 12th August Half Marathon 2025, also called “Run for mom“. It is organised on the Thai mother’s day every year on the birth day of Queen Sirikit, the Queen Mother of Thailand. The event is held at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center also bearing her name.
The run was quite fun because we had to go over 2 flyovers and the last one had a view of the river, although it was a bit too dark to see it.
Here’s a comparison with the same run last year.
12th August Half Marathon 10k 2024 vs 2025
I was able to shave 9 mins off the overall time, same date, same route a year apart.
12 August Half Marathon 2025 10k HR Zones12 August Half Marathon 2025 10k splits
As you can see the splits, I had a slow start because I was stuck behind slow runners, but was able to pick up the pace in the 2nd and 3rd km. After that, I healed a steady pace, but slowed down for kms 7-9. I was able to push through on km 10 and finish the race.
My heart rate was in Zone 5 most of the time.
12 August Half Marathon 2025 10k finisher medal12 August Half Marathon 2025 10k finisher medal
Depiction of farang as a stone guard at Wat Pho in Bangkok; circa 1824–1851
As per Wikipedia, the word Farang loosely translates to someone of caucasian descent. In practical use in Southeast Asia, it is more widely used to refer to white men; less frequently women.
In this article, I cover a specific class of Farang living in Southeast Asia – The ones who consider themselves authentic (travellers, not tourists kind) and come to Asia to (re) discover themselves. Most of them are jobless, mooching off social security in their developed countries or have remote jobs and stay here on tourist Visas. In my experience, they constitute less than 10% of total white people living here.
For most of them, the bubble bursts real soon and they end up leaving, but some of them survive for years.
Now, my problem is not with how they themselves are, but with how judgemental they are about others and how they think that anyone who is not like them is a fool. Not to forget, their colonial mentality.
Using my guide below, you too can become one such insufferable Farang.
Exclusive Guide to be an Insufferable Farang
Eat tasteless, flavourless bland food and judge others for eating different. Lecture them on how asians don’t have evolved taste buds that can appreciate finer tastes only they can.
Hainanese Chicken & Rice, the staple dish of Insufferable Farangs
Ride around on extremely busy roads on e-scooters or monowheels and if a crack on the road or a gentle sideswipe sends you sprawling on the streets with broken teeth, go cry on Reddit.
A group of Farangs with e-Scooters in Bangkok
Show great enthusiasm for learning the local language and/or Muay Thai and judge others (who have actual jobs to do) if they can’t. The hypocrisy is that after the initial phase, most of them maintain the same 20 word vocabulary for years. Occasionally, pretend to enjoy Thai-dub movies.
Eat in street side stalls & judge others who prefer going to nice places. Then, when you eventually get diarrhoea, go beg on Reddit for free local medication recommendations because you can’t/won’t afford to go to a doctor. Also, drink shitty bottled beer in windowless joints.
Judge people for going to shopping malls, because shopping malls are huge symbols of corporate greed and hanging out on the side-streets is what authentic people do.
Get beaten up by prostitutes frequently. Bonus points if the prostitute is a ladyboy.
Educate others on how they should live their lives at any chance you get. But be considerate by prepending your sentence with “I am not showing a colonial mentality but….”
Live in cheap shitty hovels and hostels. Judge others if they do/want to live in nice places.
Bad mouth Indians all the time, but if you need help with work, feel free to ask them.
If married, dump your white wife and share (unknowingly) a Thai girlfriend with 10 other insufferable Farangs. When you find out, cry on reddit.
Hail taxis off the streets. Judge others for using ride-hailing apps. Then complain on Reddit when you get ripped off. For bonus points, pick a fight with the taxi driver and cry on reddit when your teeth get knocked out.
Use the cheapest phone possible (if possible, with a cracked screen and a battery pack permanently taped to the back) and judge others if they prefer nicer phones.
Judge people who don’t participate in adventure sports.
Bash Nestle whenever you see one of their brands anywhere. While not knowing why you’re bashing it, in the first place.
Get restless if you haven’t been in a swimming pool for more than 48 hours.
