It all started with a small presentation in my office. The BU (Business Unit) Head’s personal fitness trainer was enlightening us on how much important it is, to keep fit. It was a detailed presentation with Q&A taken by the BU head himself, who himself is a fitness freak and always participates in Mumbai Marathon, atleast.It was decided to reach the Juhu Beach (Mumbai) at around 5:30 am the next day. I was joined by couple of senior managers to start with. (It became possible to reach there and experience the “phenomenon” because of them.) The number of members increased gradually as we shared our experience in the office and people got excited.
As we started from our respective places to reach the beach, the roads were empty, a rare sight in Mumbai. We could easily speed up. The excitement was gushing through inside me and it kept my thoughts of “wouldn’t it have been still beautiful, if I would have been sleeping in my cosy bed, back home!” But somewhere I knew it was worth giving a shot. As I was with some of the very senior people of my company on my way, initially there was a bit of hesitation and kind of searching for common topics to speak on. “Small talk”, my mind gave me the solution.
First morning as we reached the beach, it was scary dark outside. The car haulted and the engine stopped burning. The radio stopped singing and the headlights rested. The deserted narrow lane looked at me intently. The night was staring back into my eyes, trying to frightened me, after all I was the one who was trying to trespass it without prior intimation. We somehow came to terms and I moved closer to the sand. As we passed through the narrow lane towards the beach, what a sight it was! A through delight! Nature at its best! The sky was majestic bluish dark in colour, kissing the sea at the horizon. It was kind of divine union of love. The waves, small and big moved in some kind of rhythm, probably wanted to say something. Wind travelling all over the sea, when touched my face, I felt a welcome gesture! I was amazed!
I had not seen Juhu beach so beautiful and so empty, any time before. I met other members of the club, the couches and we got started. We did warm up exercises. The couch explained us how to co-ordinate between movements of hands and legs, when in motion, the body posture while jogging. The difference between walking, jogging and running, the breathing techniques. Importance of having a runners shoes, everything, very softly and precisely. And above all, importance of talking to yourself, the one think that keep s you going when in long race, in life and otherwise! The initial targets looked far and doubts surfaced me, but as I got started, nothing was far from reach.
Personally speaking, I always use to wonder why do people run? What is the motivation? What is the satisfaction they derive? I can understand you score runs when you play cricket, win sets in tennis, settle scores in boxing, but what in running? Day one gave me all the answers. When you run, you speak to yourself. You actually start meditating and running becomes mechanical after a point of time. The sense of satisfaction after completing 8Kms or 10Kms is immeasurable with even a century hit in cricket. You achieve your target; you prove mettle of your body! From 100m, it increases to a km to 8 kms to 10 kms to half marathon and full marathon! Till date, my roommates do not believe that I could run 8km (To and fro of Juhu beach from one end to another) or more. Simply because they never realised that it is achievable. And believe me once you get started, you can become a Usian Bolt or even better!
We had different styles of running each time; variation is speed or strides, etc. We use to do power exercises to build stamina, group exercise to build sense of belongingness and motivation, couch-talk for building confidence. The couch is certified and trained and an expert in mentoring.
Apart from providing fun, fitness and being close to the nature, it helped me in understanding myself better. I still remember one statement of our BU head, he made on the day of presentation, “Come and experience. We party every morning for 2 hours and each day is different!” So true!
fOoD fOr ThOuGhT: Try running for a week under guidance, you will never want to quit it. It will make your day, you would feel refreshed whole day, up and raring to go!
PS: The title of the post is ‘Run Forrest Run’ because the single phenomenon of running changed Forrest Gump’s life in the movie “Forrest Gump” also happens to be among my favourites.
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I was never interested in running. The last time I remember I ran seriously was in school, where you had no option but to run and compete and grumble, why running? Why do people run? What do they achieve after running, rather play a sport than running! But that was school and I had no option but to participate..jpg)
We started with our dream run, basically for fun, supporting cause, displaying the true spirit. The atmosphere was completely charged up. As we headed, people were shouting slogans in support of Anti-AIDS, Animal rights, Save girl Child, Save trees, etc. Companies made it a point to gather attention and mave their brands visible. I spotted stars like Ritesh Deshmukh, Poonam Dhillon, John Abrahm-who pulled maximum crowd, corporate honchos and people from political world. Poonam Dhillon herself came to me and chatted, I could not believe myself because you normally dont expect such things. I clicked with Ramadorai, Vice Chairman of TCS, and other celebrities. We crossed Churchgate station and reached Pizzaria square at marine drive. The TCS band was performing there. At various places bands were performing, StanChart, RadioMirchi, etc. All the way, people were standing, cheering up the participants. Volunters were distributing water and other food supplements. 