I just Run ... ========= “My dear Runners, it is a great morning and we are gathered here for Kaagaz Rajyotsava Run’s promo run. Today the route is our route number one, keeping straight at 1.5 kilometers and heading towards Harvest School and Silk Technology institute…” and I continued explaining about the route and it greatness. Shared the reason why I appreciate this route. I also explained that the 1st one Km is a trail and then while returning the same one km is trail again; so asked runners to be careful and since this is just promo run suggested that they stay focused on preventing injuries. Once the instructions were clarified in detail, the run was flagged off. I started 3 seconds late as the run tracking app that I use, started slow. As it kicked in with the rhythm beats my legs automatically synchronized with the beats, my breathing aligned with my legs and my inner-self awoke. I suddenly felt life getting pumped into my body. I remembered someone saying, “I run to live”; thought how true it can mean – date September 13, 2014. The 1st one km is normally crowded and being the trail, people are also careful and slow, but as I completed the climb and got past the railway gate, got more open space to run which gave me space to be with myself and get organized. I started to think, what is happening to me and why so… I clearly remember that sunny afternoon, Gourish and I were sitting next to each other in a not-so-interesting meeting, started a side conversation on ‘let us do something’. We quickly threw ideas at each other and settled on a common theme ‘fitness’. I told him about joining a gym or some outdoor sports, and after some discussion homed on to running – “how about that” and I said ‘yes’. Gourish mentioned that he has not run before, on the contrary I told him that I run every year once and that is in TCS10K. We decided to give it a try and sent an email in our township mailing list; to which we got more than fifty volunteers. We were super thrilled. We decide to meet after a week for the 1st ‘running session’ led by me, it was July 13, 2014 and started with seven of us. We called ourselves the Suncity Runner’s Club. As usual, I was there with my little gyan on this subject which was good enough to impress the new joinees. We had our first small run in the neighborhood and then decided to meet three days a week. We started small but the list grew, though hasn’t reached the full running strength of the subscribed list. Our 1st public participation was Go Green Run sponsored by Decathlon. Gourish got the group excited and we decided to participate in numbers. On July 27, we came in early to Decathlon, I was anxious, had to put up a good show, as I was the self-appointed technical leader this group. It was a good run for me with PB of 59 minutes. I was happy, that I gained 3:30 minutes from TCS10K in May. It was during this event that I met Sijo; I call him an angel – anyone who takes care of you during your journey and gets you safe. We talked and got into a small relationship, which has only grown ever since. During the small conversation that day, we talked about making running a regular event in Decathlon. The proof of this is Veeresh taking the leadership and we have Decathlon Sarjapur Runners club. ‘Thank you’, Veeresh. Ever since there has been no looking back; it has been 9 weeks now and I have logged more than 430kms, have retired 2 old pair of shoes and got a new one. I have gained 7 more minutes in 10Ks. I ran my first 15K, 20K, 21K with Decathlon group. As I was gaining confidence in my running I set a target of 2:00:00hrs for Bangalore Marathon 21K, fortunately with so much support from my family, friends and run-buddies, I finished IBM BluMix 21K in 1:50:47hrs. I have also logged a 30K with 2:53:20 in Bengaluru Marathon - Pipeline Road Training Run; it was a WOW experience :-) I owe some credit to my dear wife; after clocking 62plus minutes in TCS10K 2014 I was very upset, this is when she told me “if you want to get something that you have not got before, then you will have to do something that you have never done before, so, dump the treadmill, go out on the road and run in the open”, it wake up call for my core. These days she comes with me to run, so that I don’t miss on my commitment. In this journey I have made many friends, Sijo [my angel], Shekhar [there is fun when he is around], Veeresh [the leader who got us together], Charan [the barefoot Dude], Ruchika, Thomas Boby [my inspiration] to name a few. My run-buddies that have been there 6 days a week, through my highs and lows – Gourish the motivator, Prashant the running machine, Niraj and Ashish the endurance runners, Rk always pushing, Somil and Rashida ways encouraging, Nikhil, Ravi, Ashutosh whose message is the 1st one every day to get ready and start. Sonali, Bharati, Eeshika, Shrey, had their contribution in my success; not the least, Rinku my wife and Decathlon-Sarjapur Road my training ground … While I am happy with where I have reached, I am so proud of the folks in my club. Non-runners 9 weeks ago, is planning to run 21K in a few days - it is just amazing... Today when someone asks me, what I do for living, I say, “I run”… I think I live because I run :-)
Posted on: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 13:00:08 +0000