Urban Stampede - Jungle mein Mangal

Date: Aug 22nd '09
Venue: Olde Bangalore (same as last year)

Registration fee for the Urban Stampede, incl. run support, buffet breakfast, tee shirt, goody bag & an opportunity to run with your colleagues – Rs. 5000
Fresh fruit juice, Pasta and salads for breakfast & an entire spread of South Indian tindis – Rs. 300
Driving to the venue, the Olde Bangalore some 20k from the city – Rs. 150

A chance to run with your Fiancée, with the hope of beginning a very long run with her – Priceless. There are some things money can buy, for everything else you need to be blessed…

The Good:
· For the first time, I was sponsored. The closest I have come to being sponsored before this, was a beer or two after the runs on a couple of occasions. Thanks Wipro!
· There were 147 teams that participated, that’s a whopping 600 people running the 5kms.
· The starting area was actually inside the resort (last year it was in the parking lot).
· The tees were excellent (esp. the ones that came in the delayed lot). All participants (Note: deliberately avoiding use of the word ‘finishers’) were given shining Gold Medals.
· There were stronger runners, the entire Toyota team put up an excellent show, an average of 20.5mins for the 5k each.
· Good opportunity to interact with colleagues – Neetesh, Aman & Bryant from my team & Subba, Jai, Santosh & Naresh from the second Wipro team.

The Bad:
· Food was good, but you would have to think twice to offer your non-running family member breakfast. It was a whopping Rs.300 per person for the buffet breakfast. Quite a pinch if you were thinking of a stay-cation for the weekend in the countryside with your family of 4!
· The course was unchanged from last year. It’s a 2.5k and back, I’m sure we can have more variety for such a short distance.
· The bibs were clumsy, with the company name needing to be sprawled across on a second bib pinned on top of the first one.

The Bestest:
· Being the first runner in my group, I grunted my way through the pack and passed the baton in 4th position (our team finished a respectable 27th out of 95 teams in the Open category)
· With a timing of 22:20mins for the 5k, I came in 18th overall, out of the near 600 runners – top 3 percentile!!· Accompanied my fiancée, Shreya who was running the second leg for Ujjivan. The 40mins were special. Reena & Athreya perched themselves strategically along the course to make sure we don’t get ‘lost’ in the bushes.
You know I did some goal setting at the Sunfeast 10k last year. This year it is the Mission Accomplished, bwuhahhaha...hahahaha