Running usually starts with health concerns. In a few years becomes an inseparable passion and continues to be our everyday boost. More so for the ones who join a group of runners, it’s a routine that becomes an irreplaceable discipline for years to come.
We get into a different vocabulary while we converse among our runner brethren. Earlier Pace used to be my ability to learn, Heart Rate as my feelings in DRS for CSK, PB a variety of coffee seeds, Stretches used to be my targets, strengthening my relationships, Intervals meant pop corns in a theatre, Tempo was the music in a party, LSD used to be strictly a no-no drug. The list is endless. Once a runner, all these converts to metrics that measures your seriousness as a runner. Then starts some crazy madness, with Duathlon, Triathlon, Brick runs, Midday runs, Bare-feet, minimalist, Cross training. It’s a journey that can only be experienced and never described.
But the best thing that happens to you is the transformation within, the love, care and discipline for oneself and the fellow runners. The mind seems be clearer, the hearts beats lesser, the muscles feels stronger and the mood upbeat. The word is transformation.
While the transformation happens to our health, what about the health of the city you live? With all the Race events, the chapter events, the casual events, the training runs, have we ever imagined the toll the city takes? The hydrations, the food and the waste post a event has always been a rising concern for runners & citizens. The real heartbreaker is when we run the next morning, to see what we have done to our own city. That’s the second transformation we need to imbibe in us. To run responsibly and keep our city clean.
The DRHM has always been concerned to this threat. Right from its early days, the hydration booths always had sufficient volunteers for refuse collection since first edition of DRHM in 2012. DRHM went a step ahead of all the events, when it introduced Ploggers for the first time in India. A term coined for the first time as an activity in 2016, in Sweden, a combination of picking litters while jogging. Plogging as a workout, provides variation in body movements by adding bending, squatting and stretching to the main action of running, hiking, or walking, besides reducing the menace of pollution. The DRHM Ploggers, in 2018, were the first to run right behind the last runner, to ensure the city remains clean. Taking the cue from its parent group, one of the chapters, the Annanagar Dreamers in their all Dream runners chapter run, in 2016, had a theme “Run It Bin It” to create awareness among fellow runners.
With Tamilnadu going plastic free, it’s our responsibility to do our bit. In another first, DRHM moved from Rexene bags to ecofriendly cloth bags, as take away on the Expo day. Even small individual changes today can become game changers tomorrow.
True spirit of a runner, is to help other runners by not littering, using trash bags, not crowding the hydration tables, respecting the traffic rules, letting fast runners pass and respecting the instruction given by the volunteers. If along with this we also run consciously to keep the city clean, we would have done our civic duty as a runner.
So all the best for a great DRHM experience, which has been adjudged, consistently, as the most runner friendly event, by runners. Please help us to keep it that way.
Run Clean, Run responsibly.
Jaishankar PS
Head Quality in SIP academy.
Amateur runner from Annnagar Dreamers, loves pacing.
