Almost exactly a year back, I took a plunge into coaching,
with Cult fitness, thanks to my dear friend Dharma. My stadium run in July got some attention and I signed up
later with Asics & Garmin as their coaches for Bangalore. Asics Running
Club (ARC) was inaugurated on Sep 15th with yours truly as a lead
coach.
Although skeptical to begin with, my approach to coaching
(as coaches) has changed drastically over the last 1 year and I’m truly
enjoying my association with ARC and Garmin.
Asics is the sporting goods partner for all 4 major Procam
runs in India and I was excited to be a part of the run up to the TCS World
10k. I was just getting back to running after the Chandigarh run earlier this
year and I was happy to get back to some speed workouts. Although, I had about
6 weeks, I was hoping (and training for) a sub 39min. Most of the speed work
were “comfortably – hard”, I wish they were more “comfortable” and less “hard”.
I was excited about the opportunity to get some branding for
ARC and get more members added in. I had even (brashly) suggested that ARC
Bangalore should lead the warm-up routine. In any case, the Expo is a good
showcase for both Asics and Garmin.
Spanner in the works!
It was vacation time for my kids and we had to keep our 3
year cadence and had planned a holiday in Phuket 2 weeks before the event! Work-wise
travel has come down a lot lately, but I was told to attend a sales conference
at Bangkok, in the last week of the race! Back to back travel does take its
toll.
My Bangkok travel meant that I had to miss the “Breaking
Bread” event, a great opportunity to meet the elite field.
The Big Surprise was the call that came while I was in
Bangkok – Procam had offered ARC to lead the warm-up indeed!!! It was certainly
a great opportunity!
I had to quickly put together a team of runners – 5 on the
main stage and one each in 4 pods around the stadium!
I got 3 of my trainees to join, 2 coaches from Chennai &
Hyd joined, 2 influencers made up the team. I threw in a proposal to my wife to
join, and she willingly agreed. We were a team!
I landed in Bangalore with 30hrs to go, for the start of the
10k - a whole lot of excitement and nervousness – plenty to be done before I
get to the start line! To add to the festivity, I had requested my dad to bring
my kids to the stadium and baby sit them at the Asics Lounge, so they could
experience some of this too!
That evening at the Expo, we were still sorting out our
Bibs, our participation as a part of the Asics team was not communicated to Procam
that was handling registrations! In the middle of that mess, we did a quick
rehearsal of the warm-up routine. Many thanks to JBX who helped fine tune the
drills!
In “Wear Sunscreen”, xxx advices you to “Do something that
you are afraid of”. For me, this was that moment – I could have handed over the
lead responsibility to JBX, but choose to do that one thing I was afraid of! In
hindsight, I was glad I did!
We were told that our gear, the tee shirts, would be handed
out at the arena.
Race day
0315 hrs: Wake up, shut the butterflies in the stomach, make
sure you have all you need.
0400 hrs: Carry the half sleepy kids to the car and drive to
the venue with dad and wife
0430 hrs: Co-ordinate with the Aditi from Procam (to take us
to the main stage), with wife and kids (we were separated while I went to find
parking), with the rest of my team (there are some 15 gates to the stadium to
make things complicated), with Asics marketing (to get our tee shirts!) and my
own heart (which was pounding to a tempo beat).
0450 hrs: Get into position, realize too late that the gear
will not come on time. Handed out worn out Asics shoes to team members and an
Asics windcheater to a team mate to conceal competitors logo! Get the mike and
headset fixed and checked.
0455 hrs: Good morning Bengaluru!!!
The next 20mins, I had the time of my life. I had planned it
in a way that the tempo increases towards the end. The initial nervousness made
way for some adrenaline. It was a delight to see the stands full of runners
repeating after you and humbled by the experience. As the tempo increased, the
runners’ energy was rippling throughout the stadium in the twilight.
0514 hrs: We finished on time, some quick shout out reading
ARC and we were ushered to the starting line. Shreya made her way to the Asics
Lounge to join my dad and the kids!
0530 hrs: The flag waved the start of the race, I still have
the 10k to go.
After the race was done, while interacting with members of
my Club, I could only dwell on how far I had come – from being the “WANTED”
runner to leading them on the main stage!
My 40:40 timing was eclipsed with some gritty performances
(many Personal Best / PB) from my mentees:
Bama 1:24, Sneha 59:23, Abhi 39:20, Arun 54 PB, Ashwin 58:58
PB, Jeya 1:04, Karthik 52:00 PB, Madhu 49:00, Navneeth 1:05, Padyumna 58:22 PB, Sachin
57:47 PB, Sriram 1:04:24 PB, Vignesh 53:17 PB.
The Champions dinner later that evening brought down the
curtains to a great event and an unforgettable experience for me and my
family!!
(with the Tennis legend Sanchez at the Champions dinner)
