Inspiration & Support

Many thanks to Deccan Chronicle , Bengaluru in extending their support as always and bringing out this article just before the Sankranti run (Article on 16th Jan 2009).

And lo! the RunnerGirlsIndia 's Photo too was from the runwalkindia event when they showed their running prowess at our event "Women Power 5K".

An Inspiring video - The Start

Just the thought of my first 5K and the high the run gave me itself is quite inspiring to keep me going , I really did not know about this video and today just came across it. Spotted myself at the 30th sec to end of the video in blue shorts. Ganesh is just besides/behind me and was lterally behind me to complete the run comfortably, Refer the detailed writeup I had posted after the Bangalore Old'e Fort resort run.

Click, See the Video of my first 5K, could be inspiring.



And what a time I came across this just when my inspirer and RunWalkIndia mentor-founder dear Prakash was taking off to his first Marathon in Philadelphia this weekend. Just hours left before he starts, Wish him good luck and Strong legs. Happy running.

RunWalkIndia in News

Excerpt of Article in Deccan Chronicle-Bengaluru on 14th August 2008 by Ms.Tenzin Dechen helped RunWalkIndia spread and share the joy of running.

RFL 20K Relay Run @ Olde Bangalore :-)

RunWalkIndia Running Club members enjoy the first competitive run outside JP Park for the first time in the picturesque and calm surroundings of the Olde Bangalore Resort location, situated off the BIAL Road near ITC Plant. It was a good start for the running club members to come together to run as a group in relay 20K run.

The Group consisting of four members were to complete 20K in RFL relay each covering 5K. Team RunWalkIndia had to arrive at the venue of Olde Bangalore with two short of making two teams ie., Myself, Harish H.A, Pramod, Ganesh Hegde, Nagaraj and Mahendra. A team was registered with the names of young lads.Then our call for anybody to join us was heard by Mr. Meenakshi Sundaram & Mr. Chandrashekar to make up the RunWalkIndiaA1team.

After the registration formalities and race directions by Mr.Aravind Bharati , the teams were handed each a relay baton attached with a RF Card to be carried by each runner and to pass on to the next runner in waiting.

The young team started with Ganesh Hegde and the A1 team was spear headed by me. With not much of confidence I just thought I should try and complete the 5K atleast by 40 min and that is what I told my team mates to wait for the next 30-40 min patiently for me. With a little warm up and with Ganesh beside me we ran from the start point leading out the Olde Bangalore Main Gate and headed Northwest, With Bangalore growing in the real estate business and mushrooming of several resorts in and around the BIAL it has been quite a development in this part of the area, but still the greenery has been allowed to stay put around all these resorts. The well laid roads in the green belt gives a perfect trial route for runners. Well, continued my run enjoying the cool breeze across the raw nature chatting with Ganesh who was quite stronger than me with a running practice of 7-8 km regularly. It will not be fair if I do not accept and appreciate this young lad who will grow up to be running –gentleman. Inspite of me pushing him forward to go ahead and take the lead he stood by me when I slowed and walked and when I was on the return path helped me to stretch and continue saying “We are just round the corner and we shall finish together” and what a relief for me complete the 5K quite comfortably leaving behind the pain & strain which I thought will be bygone after a good rest & sleep. The Baton was passed on and when I went on to see my timings I was more than happy that I achieved 5K within my expected 40min and my timings was 38:28 min , Our other teammates went on to finish quickly with better timings;

Meenakshi Sundaram : 32:28 min, Chandrashekar : 25:48 min , Harish HA : 29:33 min.

The young RunWalkIndia team bettered the timings covering 20K less than 2hrs.

Ganesh Hegde: 38:21min; Mahendra : 29:49min, Nagaraj : 26:07 min & Pramodh : 24:21min. (Pals if I have jumbled your timings with another please bear with me and send me your correct timings). All participants RFL relay timings are listed with some photos on the runners for life site.

Ganesh went on to do another lap not satisfied with running slowly alongwith me, I am proud to have a runmate Ganesh with whom I wish to run many such runs. Thanks Ganesh for your support, wish you will stand support to many such runners in your path.

The track timer management has to be highly appreciated which helped us to know our timings managed by techie Mr. Madhu Shetty, Director, M/s.Indigo information systems. They used a RFID system which tracks & reads the cards on the baton and registers the timings on the system placed at the finish.

Wonderful experience for the RunWalkIndia team who participated in the Olde Bangalore trial run and many congrats to my fellow runners. My heartfelt thanks to the RFL team who arranged this event in a very friendly manner making us feel comfortable throughout the event. It also gave us the oppurtunity to know many enthusiast runners.

First Event : Royal mess, and a Super Duper Success!!

The first event under the RunWalkIndia banner was conducted this Sunday at the JP Park. Being the organizers of a race for the first time, we messed up quite a few things, but more importantly got the important things right!!

Hats off to all the members of the organizing team and the volunteers who made this an incredible experience for everyone!

The numbers at a high level are as follows:

Number of registrants : Around 200

Number of Starters in the 5K race : Around 100

Number of finishers in the 5K race : 76

Number of children in the Kids dash : Around 60

Youngest finisher in the 5K race : 9 years

Can you believe it?!!! Since his name is Prakash it probably is believable

Oldest finisher in the 5K race : 77 years

While there were so many memorable and enjoyable moments during yesterday's event, the one which will be with me for a long time is of a 2 year old kid giving me a million dollar smile when I congratulated her and gave her the medal which her brother had got. Thanks to a bit of organizational bungling, this girl had not got the medal we were giving all the participants in the kids dash, and was inconsolable. So her mother had taken the medal from her brother and requested me to felicitate her. On putting the medal around her neck, and congratulating her, she gave me a huge smile. That made all the troubles worth it for me!

Awesome start!! We got 100 people to run yesterday. Only around 1.3 billion more to go. May the Fair winds blow our way all along the road!

More information, photos, newspaper clips, etc. to come......

More people benefiting from running

Dr. Rajat Chauhan - Head of sports medicine department of Manipal hospital, Bangalore, and a strong supporter of our efforts- has an inspiring post on his running blog about one Mr. Mohan who battled to lose 16 Kilograms in 15 months, and brought his diabetes under control by jogging 3 KM a day, and a proper diet on a regular basis. Amazing!

Last year, Little India magazine had an article which looked in depth at the high incidence of heart related diseases among people of Indian origin. The article was titled appropriately as Killer Belly. In the context of many in my family and friends back home do have a 'killer belly', I am much more convinced about the need for making running as a sport popular in India, and leading the majority of Indian population on the way to a healthy life style.

Dr. Rajat's blog has quite a few other inspiring nuggets for non-runners and runners alike. I was inspired and amazed by reading on his blog about the marathon run on a treadmill, the Half-marathon before participating in the Delhi Half-Marathon and of the Rajasthan Desert run this year (at least one marathon per day for five consecutive days!).

Also check out the blog of Madhu Avasarala - one of Dr. Rajat's companion on the Rajasthan Desert run.

Run to get Health & Wealth

Great News for Runners in Bangalore: You can be healthy and wealthy too.

Check out the announcement about the richest 10K event which will be held in Bangalore (Yes, our own Bangalore city!) on May 25th.

Pot of Gold indeed

I have named one of the blog labels as Pot of Gold inspired by the expression pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Google informs me that the original expression is Crock of Gold at the end of the rainbow, and it is from Irish folk lore. Interesting!

I am using this category to identify all posts with details on the long term goals of RunWalkIndia initiative. The posts under this category will provide the details of the possible future RunWalkIndia will create and make happen and live into. These posts are meant to guide & inspire everyone involved with this effort over a long time to come.

Apart from the symbolic meaning, there is also a couple of physical pot-of-gold I hope to convey through this term.

The first real pot-of-gold is the prosperity it will bring to everyone involved in the effort. Whether the effort will turn into a non-profit or a for-profit business model, the firm should be able to sustain and provide for the livelihood of the employees of the firm. There are going to be quite a few people working full time with this company all over the country, and ensuring their happiness would be a very critical goal for the organization.

Happy Employees, Productive Company, Successful Business.

The second real pot-of-gold is the improvement of India's position in the Global Sports Community. To increase the number and frequency of Indian nationals showing up on the Podiums of Olympics and other world sports events.

I am one of the many Indians who are ashamed of the virtual absence - and sometimes slim presence - of Indians on a list of winners in a Global Sports Event. Sure India has a few sporting Golds to be proud of - in Cricket, in Chess, and I can't think of any more examples. However, they are indeed very meager.

One key byproduct of the RunWalkIndia effort I would like to see happen in the next few decades is India moving up the Olympics Map - the world map depicting Average Olympic Medals won per Million inhabitants.

As an Indian, I am ashamed by the fact that India has a cumulative total of three medals in three Olympics between 1996 and 2004, but rather than not highlight this fact, I would do something about it - and that is what RunWalkIndia is all about.

A challenge to aspiring 5K race organizers

Keeping an eye on the possible realizable shape of the future filled with innumerable short distance race events (5K, 10K, 3M, 4M,...) all over India, I will set the following challenge to all aspiring 5K Race Organizers:

Find your personal best time for a 5K or a 10K

Mark the distance in any park or sports stadium. Run and/or jog and/or walk the entire distance. Use a sophisticated timer or an ordinary wrist watch to time yourself. You don't have to break the world record; you just have to complete. And in case you have any aspirations of breaking the world record, you will have to finish the 5K distance in less than 13:00 minutes.

My personal best 5K time is 32:30 minutes. I am trying to cut it below 30 minutes for a long time with not much success!

The Couch to 5K plan has a workable plan for those who have never formally run to prepare and successfully run the first 5K.

2008 : A banner year for Run Walk India

Of course it will be a banner year for this idea; this idea will be realized in early 2008 with the first few events happening.

The first event:
Family Fun Run Event
Location : Jayaprakash Narayan Park, Mathikere
Date : Sunday, March 30, 2008
Time : 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM

Let's make it happen!

This is an inspiration...

Well, it could happen then. It could happen now!!

THE STRATEGIC PLAN

"We have a strategic plan. It's called doing things" . Came across that quote in Ben Casnocha's book.

Simple and very true. What really drives something forward is to do things. Strategizing and long-term planning has their value. However, without action a great idea will remain just that.

Here are my thoughts on what should be accomplished in the near future as part of the Run Walk India project:

Short-term, in the next one month - By Jan 1st 2008:
A. Put in place a plan to organize the first event or series of events in March-April 2008.

B. Get right people involved to make the first event happen as well as make the idea grow big.

Medium-term, in the next 6 months - By May 1st 2008
A. Successfully make a few running events happen. (Few == Minimum 4; two in Bangalore, and two outside of Bangalore. Bonus : One outside Karnataka!)

B. Put in place the foundations for the organization and make it self-sustainable

Long-term, in the next year or two - By Jan 1st 2010??

A. Make Run Walk India a national phenomenon in India and an Internationally recognized concept/brand.

B. Successfully make a Kanya-kumari to Kashmir relay-run happen. And the Ahmedabad-Arunachal Pradesh run

C. Make profit for the people involved in the project!

There, the strategic plan is complete.

Time to go ahead and do stuff....

Birth of an idea

I have been running in 5K races in US for the past year; have run in 7 or 8 races so far. I find these events to be a good way to be physically active as well as get to know people. I am proud of accomplishing something significant by the end of the run. I also enjoy the fun ambiance at these events. The 5K run, the kids run, the 1 km walk, the bazaar-like atmosphere, the refreshments, the sense of contributing to something bigger than myself, etc. all make it a wonderful experience.

Got to know about people organizing Ultra-marathons in India. This idea - with an objective to popularize running in India - seems to be totally misplaced!

When majority of the population have no time for "wasting" on health-related "luxuries" of even devoting 15 minutes of their day on exercising, promoting Ultra-Marathons only serve to make the sport even remote for the majority of the population.