I run with your money!

I apologize to whoever originally said this, but its the simplest way to put it, pun intended ofcos. Jokes apart, let me announce my commitment to run the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon 2008. It will happen in the last week of January and I'm in the process of training for it.

If you're done with your laughing, let me get to my motivation. A few months back, i joined an NGO by name Asha. Asha is primarily into children's education. They (its 'We' now) started out strongly in Silicon Valley and with the tremendous support from enthusiastic members started out in India, where they are needed the most. Asha-Bangalore is an energetic group of like minded people and is involved in a few projects in and around the city. I was introduced to Asha by a friend of mine and being a part of it was the least i could do.

Everyone freely joins NGOs and other such organizations. But when it comes to doing the spade work, very few are able to do it. I for one am still to be involved in a grassroots level project of Asha where my actions will directly help a child improve himself/herself. But there are more sides to it. I realized that, to start with, i could help raise funds for the growing activities of Asha-Bangalore.

Marathons are a done event in The US. Its a very common physical activity and there are a lot of popular marathons which are calendar events. Awareness is very high, there are well developed training programs and it is a big Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) attraction. Asha chapters in the US have been actively involved in marathons and have raised a lot of money through individual runners who pledge to raise x dollars/mile run. Most folks of Asha-Bangalore have been involved with such Marathons while in the US.

Marathons are catching up in a large way in India. There are a few Calendar events which are participated in large numbers, including celebrities like Anil Ambani. The SC Mumbai Marathon is one such. There are also several local runs organized by dedicated running groups like Runners For Life (RFL).


So with this as my motivation and no background in running, I've set forth to achieve the daunting goal of running 42.195 km and raise Rs 20,000/- in the process. Thats roughly Rs 1000/- for every 2 km that i run.

My training is happening in full swing and since yesterday I've started documenting them here. You can also have a look at my fellow Asha guys' pages. The links are present at the left-bottom of my page.

Asha-Bangalore/marathon
Asha-Austin/marathon

My runner page on Asha Bangalore website is under construction and will be up soon :)