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 !!

Once at the venue Mr Tharoor took off seamlessly over how he joined politics and what got him to twitter. Mr Tharoor’s unassuming self, his amazing sense of humor with his brilliant timing at it and his positive attitude would grab anybody attention. I found him appealing because he was normal, more for the sense in what he spoke rather than how he spoke and more of the Aam Aadmi around him rather than security guards. so unlike our other netas, here was a leader I could connect to. A refreshing difference in our political class.

At the informal setting (pic by Soham)

Mr Thaoor got to fielding questions varying from Politics and Cricket to Social Causes, It was great watching him at ease and how well he tackled the question around his twitter controversy. Sample some of these..

Audience : You should suggest that twitter should make manditory for all minister ?

ST: “I’m not the right person for the job”

Audience : How do you manage to stay so positive in spite of being in the Indian Political arena?

ST: “If you want to make things better you have to believe that things can get better and stay positive”

Audience : How would you want the younger generation in India to change

ST: “I’m not the sort of  person who would  want to change people”

Audience : Describe yourself in 140 chars ?

ST: “Lets not even get there”

Now with the time for Questions over and he was getting ready to leave to Mysore for the TED Conference, I asked the minister “Can i hitch a ride back with you to Mysore ?” And genetly came the reply with smile “Sorry, Its a official car..so I wont be allowed” So there I missed my ride to Mysore with the Mr Tharoor. But what a tweetup it had been. And I managed to get his book The Elephant, The Tiger and The Cellphone (Which i bought the day I quit my job to start Royal Mysore Walks .. and have been using much of its stories to keep my guests entertained on India Autographed, another reason I was at the tweetup.

Tweeple with the Twitter Minister (pic by avid00)

It was a great effort by dhempe, tinucherian and santoshp to bring together the tweetup. A lovely choice of venue at TERI, Domlur. It left me thinkning, we need more minister like Mr Tharoor  because being normal is a rarity these days !!