For a healthy lifestyle and fitness, run!

There are times when you need to ponder and start afresh — a rare phenomena in today’s time. Keeping this in mind, Life’s Calling Sports Management Pvt Ltd is organising a marathon to promote healthy lifestyle and fitness and induce people to take up running as a medium for healthy living. As part of this initiative — Celebration Run Series — Mysore will see Celebration Run Mysore, scheduled for October 2. It will coincide with the Dussehra celebrations. The run will feature live music bands and folk dance groups as well, to create the ambience of celebration. The runners will get to participate in three categories of the run — 21K (half marathon), 10K and 5K. To support the endeavour and to make it a success, Life’s Calling has Runners for Life as race partners and Apollo BGS Hospital as their health partner. Here’s what PB Mithra, director, Life’s Calling Sports Management Company has to say…
 
What do you think are the reasons for India becoming a country of alternate sports?
People in India have become career-oriented and have jobs of high stress. At the same time, they know and realise the importance of staying fit and healthy. Working under high stress and deadlines, most of it being indoors, had led to growth of alternate sporting activities like running and cycling which are not time or people bound and are a form of stressbusters.
 
How big is the running and biking market — how aware are people of their benefits?
We do not have a credible source for sizing the market but from our experiences, we have observed that a significant number of people believe that wellness is not just a choice but a necessity. We feel excited to be at the tipping point of the wellness and lifestyle business. The Celebration Run Mysore event is going to be a milestone.
 
What are the constraints that prevent people from taking up wellness activities?
In the urban lifestyle, most of our waking hours are spent racing against time in various activities. Most of us are trapped into strict deadlines in our professional lives, bundled with extremely demanding schedules in our personal lives. The daily grind keeps us occupied and we tend to put our health on the backburner. We have seen people associate wellness with joining a gym or a cardio activity class. However, wellness activities like running and cycling are such that they need minimum to no investment. Having said that, we strongly recommend wearing the correct sports gear, as well as proper training. Citing an example, if people want to participate in the 5K or 10K run, we strongly recommend they follow a running plan.
 
Tell us more about the Celebration Run Series — the thought behind it.
The Celebration Run Series endeavours to promote wellness along with a celebration of cultural festivals of various states in the country. We have seen that people engage in running and cycling in metros — we thought of popularising the same sport in Tier-2 cities as well, via the Celebration Run Series. Through this, we will also provide an opportunity for the urban masses to travel and experience the varied cultural festivals of India.
 
Why did Celebration Run Series choose Mysore as their first destination?
Mysore was chosen as the first city for the event for two reasons. Firstly, the city being the home to the founding team, offers memories of the 400-year-old Dussehra celebrations. Secondly, Mysore, as a city, has pleasant weather and tracks which are ideal for a running event providing a world class experience.
 
What are the future events planned?
Our plan is to organise similar running events in non-metro cities, which coincide with popular celebrations there. We plan to organise three to four running events across the country by 2012. We also intend to take the events to cities like Kochi, Mangalore and Goa.