I'm back from an awesome weekend, though it was hectic. I was super excited and waiting for Sunday, not because of any other entertainment but to RUN! Yep, I had registered for a marathon run a week back. It was for a noble cause of supporting bed-ridden orphaned girl children of Swanthana, an NGO based in Bangalore. Event was names as 'Run For Girl Child 2.0', since this is their second year of organizing marathon to raise funds. This is the first time I'd be running in a marathon. Morning walks are quiet different from running along many others in a marathon. It was my first time, I didn't had much time to get trained either, yet practiced for 3 days with longer brisk walks and jogging. Time wasn't a constraint, since I wasn't determined to win the prize. I wanted to take it as an experience and also push myself to do something which I have never done.
The benefit out of this event is, I started morning jogging again after a gap of few months. Bangalore's cold climate is a good excuse for not going out early in the morning, yet this event pushed me out of my bed to the jogging tracks. We certainly need some excuse and motivation to do something or other(be it good or bad).
Started from home at 5am reached the venue by 5:35am, the reporting time was 5:30am. I was surprised to see so many people already there and they had reached before the reporting time. This shows their enthusiasm and passion. Few of them were with their families and kids. Kids seems to be super excited to be there with all their running gears.
If have already participated in any marathon event, you might know this already, there would be a warm up session before the run and then a cool-off exercise session later. Back here, the event started with Zumba session as warm up exercise, it was thrill to watch people making their moves imitating the zumba trainer. The sun was slowly coming out of the clouds, still it was dark. Zumba session was from 6am to 6:25am, the marathon race began at 6:30am after the host explained the route and other logistics.
There were 3 different tracks - 3k, 5k and 10k. I had signed up for 5k, without any experience I thought this would be a decent start for me. As I need to cover a distance of 5000m, I was patient in my pace, I was happy to cross many others in the beginning but yet didn't want to go faster and drain all my energy. So I was switching back and forth between running and brisk walk to catch up some breathe. The morning calmness without honking vehicles and smoke-free roads were good for running.
Since it was Sunday early morning there wasn't much traffic on the roads. I was pushing myself to do more and run some extra steps whenever I felt like slowing down. Finally after taking rounds, I was near the finish line and completed 5k in 36mins which I believe is fair for the first time without any prior experience. I wasn't bothered about the time as well, I wanted to learn something out of this(yes, I did learn alot), participate in a community event, take everything as experience.
Overall it was a great experience, I was convinced and it was a time well spent.
There was cool-off exercise followed by a self-defence workshop, it was informative and motivational. We normally take these things for granted and ignore until we face it.
Self defence workshop
Father-son duo with their coach. Father being affected by polio and 70% of his leg is not functional, yet he demonstrated his martial arts skills, it was motivational.
The event concluded with the prize distribution for winners, medals and certificate.
Award for the winners
Medals!
Swanthana is an orphanage for special girls with 46 Girls from the age group of 9-month-old babies to 15-year-old girls. Swanthana offers care and protection for abandoned and destitute female children, out of which 35+ girls are bedridden and requires a person for support to survive every minute, every hour and every single day. This marathon was aimed at is to bring light into these 35+ bedridden girls and make the lives of all 46 girls better in some way, all the registration fee collected were contributed to the NGO.
Marathon venue: Viginia Mall, Whitefield, Bangalore.
