Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Run for Life

I haven't posted anything on my blog for quite some time now. Oh, I still love blogging. It's just that the grad school pressure had been a bit high over the past few weeks. The pressure is still going to be high for another ten days, but I thought I will give myself a break from research papers today. It is sort of a reward for having turned in a research paper and a peer review today. "So what's the reward?", you may ask. Well what do you expect? I will go running. The weather is so beautiful outside. I will probably go to the Griffy Lake trail that is not very far from my apartment. But today's post is not about my running. It's about my friend's running.
You must have heard the saying, "If you educate a man, you educate a person, but if you educate a woman , you educate a family." That is certainly true, but let me modify the quote a bit, "When a man runs, just a person runs, but when a woman runs, the entire city runs after her." Truly, I have been running for a few years now, but I just inspired one runner in these years, and that person is my friend, Rama. However, my friend in a short span of time has a long line of followers running after her. She has converted all her Indian classical music group members into runners. Not just that; she has been able to drag her teenage son into running on numerous occasions too. That you will agree is the toughest job in the world. And she ran three consecutive races over the last three weekends, including her first 10K. In the 10K she lost her track for a little bit, but kept running imagining she was doing a 10miler. Effectively, she ended up getting followed by a group of race volunteers in cycles and a car. When I saw her at the finish line, I realized the town was literally running after her.
You rarely see Indian middle aged women engaging in any sports activities, but my friend is proving the stereotype wrong. She is a runner in her 40s, and an inspiring one at that. I am proud of her.

1 comment:

  1. Hey Paresh! Thanks for your compliments but that was so funny- the bit about the whole town running behind me:) Thanks also for inspiring me to run and guiding me in the process- I could certainly do with your help to achieve my next goal- to build some muscles and run a mini!!

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