Saturday, October 11, 2008

Spirit of Wipro 2008

Quick Stats

Distance: 10km

Time taken: 44:51mins

Overall Position: 5th

Avg. beats per min: 184

Max. beats per min: 197

I couldn’t have asked for a better welcome to the “Spirit of Wipro” than this. Within days of my joining Wipro, the registrations for the Spirit of Wipro were thrown open. My eyes lit up with the prospect of a podium finish and did a quick competition analysis. After some archival digging and emails, I learnt that the winner of the last year’s version was Sathiya who had finished in 42mins. ‘Doable’ was my first reaction, despite a 47:54min finish at the Sunfeast 10k run this year.

It was a challenge for two reasons. One, I hadn’t been running since the Tibetan marathon. And two, although they are both running (put the right foot in front of the left and then the left foot in front of the right story) there is a huge difference in running a marathon and running a 10K race. They are different sports altogether. While I can run 10k in 50mins and continue to hold that pace for another 10, I have no clue how I can pull off 5mins from the 50mins!

Wipro had got in reluctant drivers to ferry us runners to the corporate office on Sarjapur road. There were hundreds of wiproites - some of them for the spirit-of-the-tee-shirt. Chetak had decided to scale down his distance and picked up a bib for 4km.

The campus looked beautiful in the semi-darkness. The 4km marathon (how, how can a 4km run be a marathon. I write a lot of garbage, but this is something that is worth carving on any runners headstone, Marathon = 42.2kms)… The 4km ‘run’, started a few mins before the longer run (not the longer marathon!!).


There must have been about 100 of us running the 10km. It was heartening to see a lot of senior management in the crowd. I was lucky to be ahead of the pack, we still had to wade our way through oncoming 4km finishers for the first couple of kms. I maintained a sub-5min/km pace for the first 5kms – reaching the half way point in about 22mins. The idea was to save up till the last 3kms and pick up pace then. I was in the top-10 when I turned around. The last 2kms was a steady downhill and I knew I could pace well, if only I save up. When I crossed a railway line, with 3.5kms I over heard a race official talk into a walkie-talkie, “7 and 8 are in”. I was 8th close on the heels of a strong, lanky, German marathoner (yes, the 42.2km runner).


I kept pace with the guy and moved up a few paces. With 2kms to go, I was 6th still tailing him. I picked up pace steeply hoping to shake him off my back; the tactic didn’t work coz we were together again with a km to go.

I remembered Pre from the “without limits” movie to keep me running ahead and fast. I did manage to finish a few seconds ahead of my competition. I came in 5th overall finishing completed used up and out of breadth in 44:51mins – a good 3mins off from my PB.

I met fellow RFLers - Anjali, Naina and Harsh after the run. Anjali and Naina had podium finishes… congrats congrats!!!

Saturday well spent, another Personal Best!! Cheerz!

Other SOW 2008 run reports:

http://www.wipro-campusarena.com/site/the-spirit-of-wipro-run-2008/

http://urswaroop.blogspot.com/2008/09/spirit-of-wipro-run.html

http://www.indiaprwire.com/pressrelease/environmental-services/2008090812804.htm

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

WIPRO ? ?? :-s


~amit sahu

manoj said...

@Amit,
Somewhere in between I shifted from "Stop thinking, Start doing" to "Applying Thought" ;)

Unknown said...

congrats buddy

hows prep for KTM n Ultra goin?

manoj said...

@Sudhir,
Going on good, time will tell...i went wow when i heard what u r trying to do.. bike 12hrs and run 12more.. man, you are over the edge now :) Gud Luc

Balu said...

good going. looks like Joseph and you had some runs .. keep going !

Tanvir Kazmi said...

Thats a very respectable finish you got there, with the kind of employee strength that wipro has. Reminded me of the 5K which we have at our company where I managed a 4th place finish, though nothing similar to the pace recorded by you.