The Sunfeast10k run took place last weekend in namma Bengaluru, Your Walker decided to run for a change  After deliberating for a while to register, I wasnt exactly sure I would take part. Having religious done it over the last 2 yrs. The reason for so much thought was the excessive barley water I have been have over the last 2 months in the pretext of the summer heat n yes all the whiskey with ice too, Like my friend Naren says, Guess its all tht ice that has taken a toll on my fitness Anyways the plunge was taken. The Walker was now destined to run. No looking back !! because there was left for just 2 weeks to the race day!! but then some of you out there might says, 14 days is helluva time to prepare, well those some are the ones who dont take their barley concoction as seriously some of us here

It had been more than 6 months since I had gone running, Yeah I know I do Walking Tours for a living but then Running is a totally different ball game. And the first day I went running I cursed myself for registering ! It felt like I was carrying a barrel all along. But then if entrepreneurship has ever thought this Walker anything it is to ‘Never Give up’ So there I was every morning doing about 5/6 kms whenever there wasnt a Walking tour to do !! And I found the amazing android app My Tracks on my Google Nexus one fone which uses GPS to track your route gives you some great stats on your running like speed, timing, plotting graphs on your performance etc etc !! So it really helped to show how much I sucked !! I know you must be thinking that did I need that app to tell me that ?? I know I know, but then having spent the cost of almost half my kidney on this fone I better use it in whichever way possible than just voice and text thts another thing biz teaches you, makes the most of your moolah , if you have any left thts is

Anyways getting back to the running, what really helped was running up Chamudi Hills, An 8 kms uphill track takes out all the juice out of you but then I would its still say its worth it, considering the amount of respect this atheist got on completion from the god fearing and the devout  near the temple  So doing this uphill track twice was a good test for my endurance. By now I had begun to enjoy the running and just a couple of days before the THE day, decided to run on the periphary on the Kukkarahalli lake (where the greatest Indian English writer, RK Narayan took his evening Walks cooking up stories of Malgudi) with my friend Suraj, who was also preparing for the run. Did two laps of the lake and was fortunate that Suraj dint beat by a lap, the man runs like a manic, his body gives him a better mileage than mine because it runs on fresh cane juice and not on Barley water But few tips from him surely helped, like for example start slow and then slowly build up speed and more importantly keep your mouth shut while running (some have advised me to do it all the time too !! )

Friends sporting Ts of the next Year's sponser apna Royal Mysore Walks

The run was on Sunday the 23rd, but was in Bangalore a coupla days before just catching up with friends and in the pretext of loading up carbs for the run ended up eating quite a bit. I must say, collection of the bib (your running number) and the goody bag was quite well organized at the Kanteerava Stadium unlike last year when there was a mayhem, where you could have easily mistaken it to be a sabji mandi with well dressed customers !!

The run began at around 8 am at the Kanteerava Stadium, with more than 7000 runner participating the atmosphere was electic ! It reminded me of one those Nazi Army procession held by Hitler !!  It was great to see so much energy together. The 10 km route was sketched in the heart of Bangalore and thanks to the number tress in our Garden City the blazing sun dint do much havoc. So morons in the corporation, Stop cutting Tress !! All along the route you had people cheering for you, right from Amry jawan to general public and trust me it really helps you pull up and with so many people running you tend to run a tad faster than you normally do, after all we all like to show off, dont we So I ended up finishing it in 70 mins, was hoping I would do a gone in 60 mins but looks like that movie is still under production

and the Winner is .... !!

In the end it was a great experience, considering one of my friends Raga came down from Singapore fir the race., No No, he dint come running from Singapore, the airfares now are so cheap that people might even come down for an haircut with our local hajam Anyways good to know that I’m still mobile !! Oh and yeah !! It sure is a great personal high !!