Sankranti Fun

The Fun at Sankranti 5K was ultimate, people inspite of complaining the winter cold took the opportunity to enjoy the festive run which showed their enthusiasm to run and participate. The cold winter weather made people complain and there were some odd requests to have a late run. RunWalkIndia organizers saw the slowest registration pace for this event initially and when the organizers stuck to their schedule, people never wanting to miss the fun joined in to register themselves by the last hour and caused to a late start of the event by about 30 min.

RunWalkIndia inspired and witnessed about 130 runners participate in the Sankranti 5K. There were more than 60% first time runners who enjoyed the run forgetting the chill weather. The Start point was more than warm as the rushing runners aged from about 4 to 75 years waited for their run start and went on to finish their 5K comfortably. Only a few anxious moments were seen when the little kids rushed off their start more in a dash as if they were doing their 100m dash run and few kids tumbled down the start path, they were brave enough to get on their feet soon and get into the run.

By the time the experienced runners started their run by about 7.40am the sun too willing to join the fun cleared the fog shining bright to give the runners a challenge.

All were happy and smiling, even after the running feet gave those moments of pain in their legs. People were keen to share about their run and make suggestive comments. Also many were to volunteer to give their contacts to help us for the next events.

Painting Event - About 65 children aged from 4 to 19 shared their colorful creativity to express the “Sankranti Fun” and create meaningful and proud art pieces to boast about their joy in sharing the Sankranti fun. The Judges had a tough time to decide the prized contribution. Most of them were put on display in the evening at the JP Park Main Gate for the public to see what they missed to contribute and enjoy and for the participants to make them proud of themselves.

People from different parts of Bangalore came enjoyed this event and it was a wonderful Sunday for us to share the fun. Thanks to local news papers Deccan Chronicle, Bengaluru and Bangalore Mirror who contributed in the publicity of the event.

The digital witness is available to all to savor memorable moments.

DASARA-DIWALI 5K Report

RunWalkIndia took the oppurtunity to share the joy of festive season with several runners from various parts of Bangalore by sharing the joy of 5K run.

The Event PHOTOS are witness to the celebrations of the joy of accomplishment.

The event was reported on the news dailies such as Deccan Herald and Deccan Chronicle hearing our calls to support RunWalkIndia in our cause towards a making running a habit. Many thanks to these esteem news dailies.

Excerpt of the Articles in the News Papers:
DECCAN CHRONICLE, Bengaluru, dt.27 Oct 2008, Pg. 4 --
DECCAN HERALD, Dt. 27 Oct 2008, Pg. 2 --

RunWalkIndia 5K & Running Club

The successful RunWalkIndia 5K Event memorable Event Photos show the Joy of Running. Enjoy them and spread the joy.

The Running Club's first activity is planned to start this weekend with a weekend club run and this sunday 27th July 2008 with a group participating in the Relay Run organized by the Runners for life at the Olde Bangalore resort.

Yet Another Jubiliation !

Yes, we saw the “Women Power” at the Women Power 5K Run Event and RunWalkIndia is proud to have the Event dedicated to the Women in our lives. It was more than a Run Event which gave us immense pleasure to see our near and dear ones to show the world they are competitive and spirited. As the saying goes all good things start at home, it was good to see the women who came and declared to stand for such an event making use of the oppurtunity. RunWalkIndia through this event propagated the idea of running to more than the locality of JP Park and reached out to several other parts of Bangalore. Women runners of different age category came to be part of this event to support and say “I’m Powerful”. There were students, house managers, mothers, youngsters, teenagers, professionals and all present at the event. The event witnessed runners from various localities like JP Nagar, Banashankari, Indiranagar, Jayamahal extension, Ulsoor, RT Nagar, Sanjaynagar, Malleshwaram, Vidyaranyapura and more, which is a success step for RunWalkIndia.

RunWalkIndia was well supported by M/s.Contours International who initiated the running attitude among their club members and came in to participate in the event. Special thanks to their Directors Chandra Gopalan and Stephen Dance. And many thanks to their team who inspired and initiated others to make it to the event.
The Chief Guests Sabine Tietge and Nischal Pai presence at the event made it more inspiring to several girls and women who came for the event. The presence of the leader Sri. Nanjudappa, who is a real support to all our events and has applauded the cause of public health by running, was even more satisfying to many people. They were happy to see and know RunWalkIndia supported by such enthusiastic and wonderful people.

The event saw all category runners such as starters, first timers, regulars and experienced women who supported the event and inspired all others. The Men & Boys came in large numbers too to encourage and show their support to the runners.

Young girls of 5-6 years were many among the runners and the Eldest who inspired and took the accolades was Mrs.Janaki Dorai, 82 years.

Check out all these and much more of the memorable event photos captured by dear Nandish. And few more on the RunnerGirlsIndia.

I conclude this posting with a satisfying smile that RunWalkIndia has grown much better in several aspects and yet the best is still to be delivered which I am sure will happen very soon. Dear Friend Prakash wasn’t that really happy on the count of runners as he had looked forward to 500 Nos. But definitely the joy and inspiration RunWalkIndia has spread in all our events will definitely bring in more participation to our further events.

Congratulations !!! RunWalkIndia spreads the colours of joy

“The Jolly Colors 5K organized by RunWalkIndia on June 15th 2008 at the Jayaprakash Narayan Park in Mathikere, Bangalore was a tremendous success!! Amazed at what my RunWalkIndia team members have acheived” – Prakash Murthy, Chairman-Founder RunWalkIndia said in a mail response.

94 people - most of them School kids and first time runners - completed the 5K Race, and 101 people showed off their artistic skills in the painting competition that followed! Check out the Photos of the Event on Flickr.

The Event was a successful on the organisation part too, the efforts to attract and involve the Education institutions in the nearby area was the key to the success. RunWalkIndia successfully initiated the running attitude to bring out the talent in the kids to make better champions of life for the future. It was quite difficult for many of the children to wakeup early on their day off but the joy to share their talents brought them to the Park and enjoy themselves. Each kid seemed to have planned well for the event. Cheers! to them all ! !

As planned we gave away the finishers medallions immediately after their reaching the finish mark which added to their joy of accomplishment. Many thanks to Dr. Ashis Roy who gave us this fantastic way to congratulate each of the finishers and encourage them.

The turnout for the painting event too was good and many of the kids who had run the 5K enthusiastically participated after taking a short break and good that we thought of arranging the Painting event to start at 8.30am many of them complained of the late start but thanks to some patience it was rewarded with lots more smiles.

The Painting event participants were given themes “Health is Wealth” or “Save Earth” to choose from to express themselves. The children who spilled out their feelings in colourful pictures showed us the bunch of the next generation who can take over from us and spread the Jolly Colors joy to the world and make a better place to live in.

I happened to meet a artist whom we had seen doing some paint work, sketchings, Number plates, Signboards etc., at a nearby place on our way to school, when we were into our preparations for the event and I had taken that special effort to explain him about the event in sign language and write and show him that he was invited to join the event. He was more than happy to come for the event and sketched out a beautiful picture of a woman which showed signs that he might have had intuition about our next event. He also came to the same place where we had met on that day after the event and asked the Shopkeeper to call me and enquire about the results and other programmes. I missed the joy on his face when the shop keeper infomed him “A special prize awaits for you” , surely waiting to capture that joy once we give the special prize to this special person.

The after event reponse has been great encouraging our Team to do much better.

June - the month of monsoons arrival in this part of India missed the rains from skies but sure it has started puring in runners for events not only at our event it seems the running high is catching up throughout India. There have been lots of events happening like the regular RFL runs and coming as a surprise was the one orgainsed from Deccan Athletic Club at Mandya which was on 15^th June and one coming up by the same organisers at Chikmaglur on June 29th. So happy days are ahead for Indian runners to add s-miles.

Coming up RunWalkIndia event is dedicated to the Women in our lives which can be celebrated with Women Power 5K Run on June 29th.

Sunfeast RWI Runtainment Feast @ MajjaRUN

The Sunfeast World’s richest 10K made us RICH too, with the wonderful experience of big event participation. Hats off to the organisers to be able to achieve a pleasant and happy event encouraging Bangalore Runners to get together and call in several groups to RUN. The Event buzz was built up well before the event and runners could train and plan well ahead for the event. The Event saw a lot of first time event runners and made their debuts memorable adding the FUN quotient.

RWI team consisting of 25 runners and about 10 supporting members made this a memorable one. The BIBs and the goodie bags were collected on the previous day waiting for the confirmation of the runners upto the last moments of possible registration. The team would have had more young runners if they all had confirmed in time.

Team RUNWALKINDIA went out to the event with added springs in their feet but then a small mismanagement pulled us back to reach the event place only in the nick of time, Starting together as a team was not accomplished but then all runners under the banner of RUNWALKINDIA were in no mood to see any obstacles but put their best feet forward and enjoyed the Sunfeast Majja RUN. Some traffic blockades for the event misguided us to run on the 10K Path much before the Majja RUN start which made me think how could this happen even at a big event like this too. We were warming up for the MajjaRUN on the 10K Path and nobody stopped us there but in turn added encouragement. Then at the Start of the Majja RUN people were just flocking sheep at the Gate which was sorted by me to some extent (In the attire of Bangalore Builder NaadaPrabhu Kempe Gowda) Major running teams from the Reliance Group & DHL for the event were made to turn their heads at the entrant of the Team RUNWALKINDIA.

With this enthusiam the 5.7K RUN was too short and the whole team enjoyed every bit. Thanks to the coverage of the run by the CNBC-TV18 and TV9 Channels who gave me an oppurtunity to talk about RUNWALKINDIA and cheer my fellowrunners.

The whole team got together after the RUN to discuss and share their experience at the event. And not one had sore feet or feeling. Everyone enjoyed the Sunfeast biscuits which were distributed quite generously to one and all. Children enjoyed collecting friendship bands too.

But were in no mood to leave the event which prompted us do a victory lap at the Kanteerava Stadium before we left the venue.

Some memorable moments have been shared herewith which keeps us going…running.

"Our Park JP Park" 4th May '08 RUN EVENT - Another Feather in the Cap

The 4^th May Event of RUNWALKINDIA “ Our Park JP Park” towards a Clean Green environment proved how people will to love for a Clean Green environment , Not only the people who are environment conscious but who are running enthusiasts who could not get to run in the event were thrilled to join in the cleaning party, with elections round the corner in Bangalore, Karnataka Party RUNWALKINDIA can give any party a run for its votes which cleaned up election pamphlets strewn in and around the park.

Anyhow yet another feather of achievement, which attracted runners of all ages and 100% race finishers who came in to participate.

The Run Events started pleasantly at almost the scheduled time which had runners taking up their places as per their expected finish timings with a bit of warming up guided from veteran ex- Hockey player SS Chauhan who has been a real enthusiastic member of Team RunWalkIndia.

The Event saw a participation of about 100 people of various age groups.
All participants had a jolly good time in the event as reciprocated by their own comments which adds on to the value of efforts put in by team RWI.

A memorable day for an young girl of 7 years who ran for first time in a run event was overjoyed to complete the RUN.
Senior Citizen Strongest Eldest Runner of 72 years, Mr. Ranganath went on to finish the RUN comfortably and was full of energy left in him to give a inspiring talk to the onlookers on race finish. He called in his fellowmen to join in the future Runs and said “Run to boost up your life value to live as a winner”.

The Clean Green Event participants and Running ethusiasts inspired by Mr. Somashekhar also accepted his Chief Guest speech full of ears and everyone present went on to take an oath to maintain a Clean Green Environment.
It was also a humour tipped talk which everyone enjoyed gracefully.

Congrats to all Runners who stood for this Event to be a success.

DIGITAL PHOTOS of the Event/show/ will give you an overlook of how the event was enjoyed. Don’t miss all this fun at the RUNWALKINDIA’s next event.

Digital memories of the second event

The all knowing and ubiquitous THEY said that no one in their sane mind in India will pay to run a short distance running event. We ignored THEM and proved THEM wrong by organizing one very successful event - Come Run The 5K event - on 20th April 2008 in JP Park Bangalore.

THEY were chastened and down, but not out. THEY fired back :

OK, you got it right by fluke once. No way it is going to happen again in this park and in this city in the next six months.

We let THEM go about THEIR expert opinions and focused on organizing the second event one week later.

One Week. Not One Year. Not One Quarter. Not One Month. One Week.

I invite everyone including THEM to see for themselves through these digital images how the second event - Prakash Farewell 5K - went. Wonderful job by our official event photographer Nandish Basavaraju to provide exceptional coverage of the event.

Now I am throwing down the gauntlet at THEIR feet by declaring that starting Sunday May 4th, there will be one RunWalkIndia event at JP Park every weekend - come rain or shine. I would suggest that THEY see our team song before THEY talk about the success or failure of our enterprise.

Oh Mitwa.. sun mitwa.. tujkho kya dar hai re... dharthi apni hai.. apna ambar hai rai..

First Event : Fond memories in digital format

Check out the photos from the first event Come Run the 5K on the Flickr Site. If my intentions are fulfilled, these scenes will be played out a million times all over India in the coming months and years.