Run Maddi Run

On Sunday May 31st,if you were on the road at 7 a.m with your sneakers on,with a large beaming smile,chances were that you were headed towards the Kanteerava Indoor stadium.If it wasn't the sneakers, then the little rug sack with the bright sunfeast logo gave you away.In our case,it couldn't have got any more obvious.We had our pin numbers proudly pasted on our tees.The autofellow didn't need any coaxing.Nobody seemed in a hurry to get to anywhere,yet looked focused. It seemed all roads in Bangalore led to only one destination.Even if they didn't ,everybody intended to make it to the same place.For a change being just one among thousands didn't feel as bad.This wasn't a race,it was more of a carnival.
You don't get many chances of running a marathon,not winning it and still feeling like a winner in the end.



Marathon statistics

Total participants 2009 sunfeast: 23,150
Majja run participants: 13,000
distance covered : 5 kms
race war cry: RUN MAADI RUN
Total Time spent on training : 2 weeks
last time you ran a race ever : NEVER
personal race timings : how does it matter !!!
No. of smiling faces in the stadium(including the sick bay): countless
race motivation factors:Milind Soman,cameras and being captured by the media.
prize trophy:an apple,a packet of biscuits,a sweet bun that never tasted better
sweat
laughter
and loads of memories.

in the picture,in order of best timing

Anshul finished the race first in 30 mins and spent the next 30 mins looking for his mother and the next 3 hrs rubbing my(poor race timings in).Padma was extremely focussed,on tracking Milind Soman,so she came in second and Shanu and Me decided to share the third position,as we felt the podium generally accepted three positions only.