Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Inspi(red)

No, this is not another commercial for the RED campaign. Though I should probably have a post about that soon. This post is about a normal human being like you and me being inspired enough to run 26.2 miles on a chilly New York City day.

On Sunday, Nov 5th...37000+ people from all over the world ran the ING New York City marathon. Excluding the professional and elite runners, you still have at least 30000 regular people. This is just astounding to me. The sheer level of commitment and determination it takes for a non-runner to train and run 26.2 miles at a stretch is just mind boggling.

Coming back to the marathon story. I volunteered this year and was assigned to the Family Reunion unit. So I was part of the team that received the runners as they exited Central Park and helped them find transportation and their families. It was a great experience. The high fives and the exhausted smiles...I'll never forget it. I must have chanted "Congratulations, Great job done!" and "Felicitations" at least a 1000 times. In turn, a lot of the runners gave me hugs and said "no, no...thank you!". Such happiness!! My cheeks hurt from smiling all day. :-)

A lot of runners ran for causes like cancer research etc (like one of my good friends). So it made the hard work totally worth it for them.

Now i'm Inspired to pound some asphalt baby!

8 comments:

Mosilager said...

Hey nice template... did you upgrade to the beta? I can't run long distance at all... most I do is 5km with the doggies.

Unknown said...

I am in total awe of those marathon runners. The atmosphere at the end of the run in chicago was amazing, people smiling and vomiting at the same time...truly unique.
Talking about RED and all that:
did you catch this ?>. Go ONE !

ammu said...

Mos - Hey there! Yeah, I upgraded to the beta. Still tweaking the template to perfect it. And about running...I'm done when I run 3-4 miles...26.2 miles is another story!!

Lova - Hello :) I'm intimately familiar with the ONE campaign of course. That link was really cook though...those guys have some determination for sure! Hope they make it.

Rajesh said...

aah ... new template [beta]; nice post too. INSPI(RED)like those Gap banners you see now-a-days ;)

Boston,Chicago,NY are always huge turnouts.

ammu said...

Rajesh - thanks! :) I love the INSPI(RED), DESI(RED), BO(RED) ones. Hmm...now if only it was my birthday...I could justify the purchase. :P

Rajesh said...

@ Amrita - Why do you have to wait for your budday. Surprise yourself this time ;-). Also who knows .. those [RED]s might not last till your budday.

coolshades said...

Now that sounds like a lot of fun! Glad you got to take part in it :)

ammu said...

Rajesh - I love that plan ;-)

Coolio - Yeah it was a lot of fun!!