Running long distance can be a lonely business. But if you thrive on camaraderie and competition, then joining a runners group could be the thing that will motivate you to take part in a marathon.
“You’re more likely to get out of bed and go running if you know there’s a group...waiting for you,” says Arvind Krishnan, CEO, Runners For Life (RFL), a running group that began six years ago in Bangalore.
Many runners would agree. “It’s really fun because you start off with a group, but you can choose your own distance,” says Purvi Sheth, vice-president at Shilputsi Consultants. Sheth, who is part of Savio D’Souza’s group at the National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA), Mumbai, says her group has runners who run at different speeds. But they all start together. And when they finish, they do their stretches and cool-down exercises together as well.
Sheth began running a year and a half ago. She says she is one of the slower ones in her group. “But everybody eggs you on; when you feel like you’re dying and like you’re going to stop, somebody will cheer you on, they’ll slow down and run with you.”
Plus, here’s where the difference in solitary stretches and doing a group exercise comes in. “They’re (the latter) just that much more scientific,” says Mahesh Srinivasan, vice-president, ABN Amro Global Markets, who used to run alone for some years before he came acrossTopGearMIG, a volunteer-driven running group based in east Bandra, Mumbai. “Previously I couldn’t run for two days after my long run,” he says. “Now I can and my timing and my distances have improved tremendously.”
Group advantages
Motivation and friendly competition apart, there’s also the logistics of the run. “Somebody has to organize the route, the water and refreshment stations for a long run,” says Tanvir Kazmi, founder of Delhi Runners. Kazmi, who organizes monthly half marathons in Delhi, tries to pick varied routes and involve different groups of runners as volunteers. TopGearMIG sends out a mail every week to members with timings, route details on Google pedometer, and also interesting options for where to have breakfast after the run.
Being part of a group also ensures lots of bonhomie and scores of stories to be swapped between the members. “There are not too many people who understand runners, why they need to go to bed at 10.30pm, why they will not go out Saturdays nights (because they have the long run on Sunday),” says Sheth. So it helps to be a part of a group that understands you. Runners are constantly exchanging notes: what to do for that troublesome knee or where to get a good pair of shoes. Some groups have online discussion sites, with forums discussing where to get good reasonably priced whey protein, etc.
Also, joining in on group activities is a flexible option. At TopGearMIG, not all members join in for the after-run breakfast, which is sometimes at Leopold Cafe, sometimes at the Parsi Gymkhana or elsewhere. Srinivasan is one of those members who misses the group breakfast. But like everyone else, he takes along with him food that the group shares: “I carry bananas or dates or stuff that can be consumed on the run,” he says.
Suddenly, that long run doesn’t seem so lonely any more.
This feature appeared in Mint 15th December 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
In Search of the Perfect Library
Dip into the voluminous heaven that is the American Public Library system, and you will be hooked forever. I certainly was. The malls may have been magnificent, but it was the libraries with their kiddie sections that saved the days, days I must add of diapers and dishes and of no domestic help. What delight then to dash into the library and deposit my daughters in the children’s section. Here where low lying shelves crammed with books were set amidst chairs, they picked up their favorite Barney and Big Bird cushions and settled down with piles of picture books and giant jigsaw puzzles. Leaving me free to scour the stacks nearby. All too often though, I’d double back, gazing at the rows and rows of older children’s fiction, dipping into all the Judy Blume’s and Madeleine L’Engle’s I missed in my small town childhood days.
And then the Sales. What Sales! Doors open, and we’d be there, our exchange rate disadvantaged brains delirious at the prospect of books for free. Well, maybe not free, but it certainly felt that way. Eleven rupees (25c) for nicely bound Sesame Street stories, like the ones in which Elmo learns the days of the week, or Big Bird learns to read. Thirteen rupees (30 c) for the Prize winning Frog and Toad Series by Arnold Lobel and eleven rupees again for Eric Carle’s captivating ‘Thank you Brother Bear’. The princely sum of Rs.22 for Margaret Wise Brown’s comforting classic ‘Good Night Moon’ and so on.
Moving back to Bombay, I began the hunt for a good children’s library, or even a browsable bookshop. Old favorite ‘Strand’ simply didn’t qualify anymore. Its one thing to browse in an old curiosity shop and it’s quite another to tote toddler, baby and baby bag up the shop’s steep wooden stairs to get to their minute mix of kiddie delights.
‘Crossword’, which to the connoisseur, is like confusing cream cheese with camembert or Nescafe with café-au-lait, so solely bestseller-centric is it’s book collection, actually ended up faring better on my kiddie scale . It’s Hogwarts Express; with space in it for kids to climb in and read was always a hit. The staff smiled (So what if they never knew where any book was or whether they had it at all). It was secure and it never raised your expectations - you knew you’d never stumble on a rare book, one you’d heard of for ages and never found (like Noel Streatfield’s ‘The Circus is Coming’ or ‘The Random House Book of Poetry’ ) or even an unusual one you might be looking out like eleven year old Samhita Arni’s self illustrated rendition of the Mahabharata from Tara Publishing.
You’d have to travel northwards from the city to ‘Landmark’, a branch of the Chennai based store, to source these books. But it was a mixed thing taking kids there. The store’s so full of other things, Barbie and Batman sets and other toys, that the wide selection of kiddie books was rather lost . And then there was no space to sit.
Ultimately it was old college favorite BCL that saved the day. The place to be, for atmospheric old issues of the Times and classic Brit novelists, the British Council Library had, I discovered, a wonderful children’s section too (complete with the Barney and Noddy cushions!) For a totally- worth- it annual fee of Rs. 2500 , we could borrow an unheard of aggregate of eighteen books , that ran the gamut of prize winning fiction to gorgeously illustrated hardback non-fiction. Space Travel, the Animal World, the Magic of Numbers piled onto Dave Pilkey’s ‘ Captain Underpants’, Lemony Snickett’s ‘Unfortunate Events’ and Philip Pullman’s ‘The Fire Makers Daughter’. The library has all these holiday programs for young readers, like ‘Little librarians’ where the kids actually kid the library (as in man it). So it’s a wonderful chill out place to be in, and when you walk out with your eighteen books (or fifteen books and three DVD’s) it’s like you have the keys to the kingdom.
And then the Sales. What Sales! Doors open, and we’d be there, our exchange rate disadvantaged brains delirious at the prospect of books for free. Well, maybe not free, but it certainly felt that way. Eleven rupees (25c) for nicely bound Sesame Street stories, like the ones in which Elmo learns the days of the week, or Big Bird learns to read. Thirteen rupees (30 c) for the Prize winning Frog and Toad Series by Arnold Lobel and eleven rupees again for Eric Carle’s captivating ‘Thank you Brother Bear’. The princely sum of Rs.22 for Margaret Wise Brown’s comforting classic ‘Good Night Moon’ and so on.
Moving back to Bombay, I began the hunt for a good children’s library, or even a browsable bookshop. Old favorite ‘Strand’ simply didn’t qualify anymore. Its one thing to browse in an old curiosity shop and it’s quite another to tote toddler, baby and baby bag up the shop’s steep wooden stairs to get to their minute mix of kiddie delights.
‘Crossword’, which to the connoisseur, is like confusing cream cheese with camembert or Nescafe with café-au-lait, so solely bestseller-centric is it’s book collection, actually ended up faring better on my kiddie scale . It’s Hogwarts Express; with space in it for kids to climb in and read was always a hit. The staff smiled (So what if they never knew where any book was or whether they had it at all). It was secure and it never raised your expectations - you knew you’d never stumble on a rare book, one you’d heard of for ages and never found (like Noel Streatfield’s ‘The Circus is Coming’ or ‘The Random House Book of Poetry’ ) or even an unusual one you might be looking out like eleven year old Samhita Arni’s self illustrated rendition of the Mahabharata from Tara Publishing.
You’d have to travel northwards from the city to ‘Landmark’, a branch of the Chennai based store, to source these books. But it was a mixed thing taking kids there. The store’s so full of other things, Barbie and Batman sets and other toys, that the wide selection of kiddie books was rather lost . And then there was no space to sit.
Ultimately it was old college favorite BCL that saved the day. The place to be, for atmospheric old issues of the Times and classic Brit novelists, the British Council Library had, I discovered, a wonderful children’s section too (complete with the Barney and Noddy cushions!) For a totally- worth- it annual fee of Rs. 2500 , we could borrow an unheard of aggregate of eighteen books , that ran the gamut of prize winning fiction to gorgeously illustrated hardback non-fiction. Space Travel, the Animal World, the Magic of Numbers piled onto Dave Pilkey’s ‘ Captain Underpants’, Lemony Snickett’s ‘Unfortunate Events’ and Philip Pullman’s ‘The Fire Makers Daughter’. The library has all these holiday programs for young readers, like ‘Little librarians’ where the kids actually kid the library (as in man it). So it’s a wonderful chill out place to be in, and when you walk out with your eighteen books (or fifteen books and three DVD’s) it’s like you have the keys to the kingdom.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)