MegaPink – The bangalore edition ( Nov 2013)

Participating in an event and organising one are two completely different ball games. The buzz for Megapink began in September. It was around October that we had settled on 24th Nov as the date of the event. I am sure most people are aware of the buzz created by Pinkathon back in April this year ( https://www.facebook.com/notes/timtim-sharma/pinkathon-how-i-saw-the-journey-/580020732016343)  It was complete with promo runs and good times.

MegaPink has been envisioned as an offshoot of the Pinkathon. However, this is not a race but an initiative to bring the community together to run for a cause. It has short 3k and 6k options for a run or walk and the beauty of this event is that it happens in 40 cities around India simultaneously. This event was promoted by Brand Ambassadors ( Local runners ) within each city and this promotion was meant to be done primarily through the social media platform such as facebook, twitter etc. Proton Runners are the brand ambassadors for the event in Bangalore. And the team came together for yet another fab event for a great cause.

Promotion for the event was done through social media and word of mouth. Unlike the main event, we did not have promotional runs as a build up to the actual event day as the idea was to get fun and recreational runners run their first distances and get hooked to running and the camaraderie that it offers.

Ankush, Dharma and myself decided that Cubbon Park would be the perfect venue for this event. With a combination of road and trail, central location and no traffic until 8am, it seemed to be the ideal location for a short run. We went to the venue armed with a cycle, a garmin and our two legs to decide the 3K loop for all the runners. Since I have maximum experience in running around Cubbon, the onus of choosing the route fell on me. After various permutations and combinations of different loops within cubbon, we finally got the perfect 3k loop which the 3 of us then covered on foot.

Now that the course had been decided, it was time to get the volunteers ready for some action.  2 days later was a Saturday and a week to go before the run. We decided to have a mock run with the main proton gang and anyone else who was interested in running the loop for the day. All of us came together for some fun times, choosing our volunteer points, photo session and offcourse mandatory breakfast at airlines after the workout.

The next few days saw Cubo Fitness come up as a volunteer for powering the runners and Oakleys as the official eyewear sponsor. We were all set!!! The downpour on the Saturday before the event was a cause of worry for us as organisers for the success of the event. However, keeping those worries aside, we reached the venue bright and early armed with chalk powder to mark the route.

By 6am, the route had been marked, aid station had been setup and the volunteers were in place. An overcast sky and grey clouds did ensure that the final turnout was less than expected but most spirits prevailed and we had a pretty decent turnout of around 250 runners which showed up wearing PINK and bright smiles early in the morning. A special mention here of my Zumba girls – they have now successfully transitioned from Zumba into running and my heart is brimming with pride at watching them mature into superfit and motivated superwomen. After a quick 10 minute warm up stretches session and shouting out of instructions, the run started at 6:30am sharp. Nagaraj, Ankush and me ran towards our spots and patiently waited for the runners to turn up so we could cheer them on.

The next hour and a half saw runners and walkers cruising away at their own pace on the loop. As I stood at my spot and cheered them on, it was fabulous to see everyone reaching a wee bit out of their comfort zone. Some stopped for a chat, some gave me a high five as they ran, some ran only because I was constantly reminding them that they had signed up for a run and not a walk.  A few of the regulars had turned up late for the event and were trailing at the back. Brojen was one of them. This was a fun run for him so he was bringing up the rear. On the second loop, as I saw him running towards me, I also saw the entire Proton posse running along with him. He had decided to pick up the volunteers along the way and bring them back to the finish line together. And so we all ran.

As we ran along the route, we started picking up the remainder on the route and all the volunteers and some runners ran the final 100mts together in a line with all the finishers, photographers and general junta standing and cheering us on at the finish line. I swear it felt so damn FINE!!!!

The run ended with an informal vote of thanks, off course a photo session and lots of hugs, creaming and shouting. A big shout out of thanks to Oakleys and Cubo Fitness for being our partners in this initiative. Another vote of thanks to Milind and the MegaPink team at Mumbai and the initiative that has bought us all together yet again. And the runners, THANK YOU – this would not have been possible without you and all your support. Heartfelt gratitude to Vijay from High on Marathon and the entire team of Veloscope photography who came to cover the event. And finally, my support system, my training buddies and my partners in crime – Henna Mulleth, Rahul MV, Geeta Bisht, Sudhir TK, Gajendra Ranganna, Aditya Kaul, Sriram, Shuveshek Rai, Nagaraj Harsha, Dharmendra Kumar, latest entry Nabanita Samanta and off course, Ankush Sharma – congratulations to us all for another successful event. You guys are all rockstars and its only together that we always manage to pull of such events having fun in them all inspite of all the stress that they bring. I love each one of you very much and just thank you for being you!!!!

#BrandAmbassadors #MegaPink