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During the last decade, Arun travelled to different parts of the world for his work. Globe-trotting wasn’t easy with his daughter. He decided to come back to India in 2018.

During his stay Bangalore he came across a few runners in his apartment. He found it difficult to run even a km without huffing and puffing. Up until that time he was only familiar with puffing as he used to smoke.

Despite the difficulty, he continued to run. 6 months later those runners organized an event for the apartment residents. Arun ran first 10 KM run of his life. It was back in Feb 2019.

During the same time, he started learning Python. For three months, he couldn’t understand much, but he persisted.

He also started to enjoy running but continued to struggle to give up smoking. The more he ran, he felt better and better. It felt more than anything else he had ever done before. That feeling of adrenaline rush was much better than smoking. For the first time in life, he thought of giving up smoking completely.

In early 2020, he travelled to London for a short official assignment where he managed to complete his first half marathon. He was on cloud nine. This moment proved to be a turning point of his life.

Even during COVID lockdown, he continued to train. In 2021, he attempted to run a solo full marathon. As he completed 35 KM, his body and mind almost gave up. He was asking himself why one should even run such a long distance. Why should one even run a marathon giving mind and body so much stress?

As these questions started to take a toll, he heard a deep voice from his back.

“Are you running a marathon?”

Yes, Arun replied without even looking back.

A few moments later, when he glanced back, he saw a middle-aged man smiling at him. The stranger gave him company and that’s how he completed his first Full Marathon. The person who helped him that day was Kailash.

Both became great friends and formed a small running group called HRA. Over the last 2 years, the group has grown to over 60 enthusiastic runners.

Last year, Arun completed the Hyderabad Marathon in little above 4 hours. This marathon is considered one of the toughest races in India.

This year he participated in the 12-hour stadium run and clocked 96 KM distance during the event.

In August 2023, he organized a running event in his apartment where more than 650 people participated. Many big brands gave sponsorships to make the event even more successful.

His persistence nature has also paid great dividends at the workplace. He gained a lot of expertise in Python and his company has trusted him to lead teams to deliver products for esteemed customers.

In his running journey of last 5 years, he has changed his own life as well as many people around him. His humility and ability to connect with people is inspirational.

He has proved that WILLPOWER is far more powerful than WILLS Power.

​Y​esterday was a very special day.

For the last 5 years, some of ​the volunteers of my community have been working tirelessly for rejuvenation of Choodasandra lake in Bangalore.

​Y​esterday was decided as the day for lake inauguration. It was supposed to be a momentum occasion for which we have worked for so many years.

The Bangalore Ultra running event was scheduled to happen​yesterday morning and I had registered for a 25 KM run a month ago.

With both the events coinciding on the same day, maybe it was an Omen from Almighty.

Leaving home at 3.45am on a cold Bangalore morning never felt so exciting. Upon reaching the venue, I met many running mates that helped to calm my nerves. I was slightly struggling with my left knee earlier this week that had built up some anxiety in mind.

Nevertheless, I tried to keep that aside and was glad to meet so many runners early in the morning. Run started at 5.30am and the first few kilometers took us through a dense tree cover that elevated the running experience.

Felt happy meeting the runners from the R2R running group.

A peacock made a sound from a far place that reminded me that I was running in a very natural and pristine environment and it’s such a joy to experience it while running. From then onwards, all my concerns about my knee disappeared.

I felt really happy to meet Mr Janardan who is still going strong at the age of 92.

Spoke to Dr Sriniavas who is a radiologist and a passionate runner and thanked him and the medical fraternity for their selfless service during COVID19.

Seeing many runners from HRA running club helped me to keep my motivation level high.

In the last 5 kilometers, I pushed through whenever my body and mind gave signals of tiredness. I tried encouraging fellow runners to keep pushing and finish the run strong. When some people who had slowed down started running again, that helped me to get some more energy to propel me forward.

Felt happy to cross the 25 KM finish line with little over 2 hr and 42 mins of fun and joy.

At the finish line, met my coaches from Runners360 who have redefined the meaning of Consistency at a whole new level. A separate blog on the same later this week.

2 hours later, I was in the presence of my volunteering team overseeing the inauguration of the lake.

​Y​esterday’s run is dedicated towards the Choodasandra Lake which I believe will be a model lake of Bangalore in times to come.

Start with Why.

It’s a brilliant book by Simon Sinek. But it’s not easy to find Why behind everything that we do in life.

I came to Bangalore in 2012. The weather of Bangalore is a pride for every Bangalorian. Hence catching early morning sleep was the best thing to do to make optimum use of what the city had to offer.

Back in 2013, a friend asked me to start running. Those days I used to wake up by 9 am. Exercise didn’t exist in my dictionary back then.

“Why should I run?” I told my friend when he suggested that I start running.

“You will experience Runner’s High.” He replied.

I started with 100 metres and gradually moved to 400 metres, 1 KM and 2 KM. It took me almost 6 months to run 2 KM without huffing and puffing. But there was no sign of Runners High.

“Hey, where is that Runner’s High? It has been 6 months and still I didn’t get it.” I asked my friend.

He suggested that I run for a bit longer.

All this didn’t make any sense to me. But I had started to enjoy running a bit more. I complained less and made peace with whatever I learnt on the way.

It has been 10 years since I started running. This beautiful sport has given me things which I had never imagined in my wildest dreams.

From a complete non-runner to completing 50 KM Ultra Marathon;
Being someone who didn’t have any interest in reading to writing a book on Running;
Coming from a non-english medium education to writing a 312 page book in English;
And the biggest transformation from being an introvert to meeting new people every week and writing about their lives.

It has been a wonderful journey so far. Every week when I meet new people, I witness a completely new world and a whole new perspective to lead life.

Many times we may not be clear why we should do something.
We may have no clue what the future beholds for us.
We may not know when we will achieve success.

You may not have all the answers to your questions.
During such times, have patience, don’t give up and keep moving.

Leaving you with a quote from Legendary Entrepreneur Steve Jobs.

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

Climate Change is the biggest challenge of our times. It’s a global problem that requires action at all levels.

However without transforming individuals, it will be hard to mitigate the problem of this magnitude.

I believe if individuals are empowered, any problem can be addressed.

But without action, hope and belief don’t bring change.

With this thought, a handful of volunteers in my village in Odisha started a plantation drive back in June 2016. We didn’t have any funds to start with. We didn’t know where to begin. We didn’t even know the benefit of what we were about to do.

We identified a vacant government land on the outskirts of our village. We spent the next several weeks cleaning up the place and digging holes for the plantation. We went to a nearby government nursery and brought 500 saplings.

Just before the monsoon, the plantation was done. More than 50 volunteers participated in this activity.

Next year in 2017, we planted 500 trees at another vacant land. With regular care and supervision, the two mini forests came alive and became major attractions. Young people from nearby villages came there to take selfies and record videos.

We continued the plantation work in the years that followed. We still didn’t realize the impact that we were creating until 2022.

On 5th June 2022, Government of Odisha felicitated our Team with “Friend of Environment” award at a decorated event organized at Bhubaneswar.

When we look back on our journey of the last 7 years, it was full of uncertainties and challenges. We witnessed Super Cyclone Phani that impacted 80% of the plantation in May 2019. In Aug 2019, we lost one of the oldest members and biggest strength of our Team in an unfortunate road accident. Onset of COVID19 derailed our plans.

However, every time something didn’t go as per plan, someone from the team stood up and steadied the ship. Every time we faced challenges, we believed in team work and were prepared to put in the desired effort to make things happen.

Final thoughts:
– Real change requires consistent effort.
– Action is more powerful than thoughts and ideas.
– Motivation is overrated. So, get ready to go through the grind and make things happen.
– Think Global, Act Local. That’s a powerful way to address Climate Change.