Hyderabad 10k - What a Run!

Last week I wrote about the then planned Hyderabad 10k sponsored by Radha Realty. Well the run is done and what an event has it been! About twenty five thousand people turned up and it was like carnival time. All along the route one could see several bands play live music of all kings: Jazz, Rock, Metal, Telugu Film Music, Hindi Film Music to name a few. A few people sky dived from 6000 ft in air, dodged the thousands of colourful balloons let loose to land at the venue. After the run, there were a series of onstage shows blasting more Hindi Film Music. There were movie stars, sports celebs and politicians all hogging the limelight, but the true winners were the thousands of young men and women who woke up early in the day for the cause.

On the sidelines, the event also highlighted the many paradoxes that characterise India. While it attracted the young and upwardly mobile crowd in huge numbers, there were also several street boys busy collecting empty water bottles and left over food from the grounds. The Hussain Sagar lake venue was picturesque but also reeking of foul smell at several places, clearly lot of cleanup is still left. And at one part of the route, one could see a barber go about his regular business on the pavement blissfully unaware of the hungama around.

All in all, the event is gathering more and more critical mass and is setting the trend for future such events. Champion Chips were used for the first time. To me personally the fact that I finished a 10k for the first time was a big accomplishment. The event broke a myth I held, that completing a 10k requires one to be majorly fit. Fitness does impact the time taken, but finishing the 10k is something I now believe many people can aim for. I held a similar myth about 5k runs three years ago but that soon changed after I attempted my first one. I now hope to complete a 10k in under an hour, determined not to let go of this momentum. The goal after that is the half marathon version in next year's run.

10K Run in Hyderabad

Hyderabad gears up to host a 10k Run about a week from now. This is the fourth time this annual event is being held and this year the expectation is that it will have about twenty thousand participants, an all time high. A half marathon is also being included, hopefully we will have the first marathon ever as well at Hyderabad next year.

Now those familiar with how this goes in the US or other Western countries, all kinds of runs 5k, 10k, 22k, 44k, 50k and even 100k are common events. The processes to organise the runs, canvass participants, publish results (check this site) are highly streamlined. Hyderabad 10k aims to do exactly the same for Hyderabad; though the whole affair seems to be taking a lot of time, effort and money, eventually this should reduce. One of the leading organizers Padmaja Reddy when asked if she is running the 10k remarked I run the rest of the year so that Hyderabad can run on this day. Among the other organisers, Pullela Gopichand is an amazing individual - he is one of the greatest Badminton players India ever had but is so down to earth.

Though I did run a 5k in the summer of last year at a not so bad speed, this 10k will be a challenge being my first. Looking forward to finish it at the least!

TiE-ISB Connect 2007 at Hyderabad - It Rocked!

The TiE-ISB Connect event concluded at Hyderabad today. It was a wonderful gathering of some of the best minds in innovation, entrepreneurship, government exploring the latest and greatest happenings in various sectors of the economy - Internet and mobile, health care and life sciences, retail, infrastructure, emerging technologies etc.

It felt good to see a lot of people from all over India and abroad congregate here at Hyderabad. People from Bangalore, Coimbatore, Mumbai, Kalyan, Ahmedabad, Gibraltar, London, Silicon Valley, New York etc landed here. A friend from Bangalore was yet again impressed with the infrastructure in Hyderabad which allowed him to travel 33 kms to the event venue from Sainikpuri in less than an hour (compared to two and half hours in Bangalore).

The event is proving to be a lodestone for the best business minds all over and what more can a Hyderabadi expect!