Running for a cause

Worldwide runners participating in marathons and other such races use the event to raise funds for a charity in support of a cause close to their heart. According to the race organisers, The Flora London marathon is now the largest annual fund raising event in the world with participants raising over £41.5 million for charity in 2006. In 2007, 78% of all runners raised money. I too have been raising money for Dream A Dream for the last couple of years.

Dream A Dream was started in November 1999 by a group of 11 young people. Dream A Dream today is a professionally run, registered not-for-profit trust working with over 500 children coming from vulnerable backgrounds such as children from the streets / slum communities, runaway children, orphans, and HIV+ children among others.

“Empowering children from vulnerable backgrounds by developing life skills and at the same time sensitizing the community through active volunteering, leading to a non-discriminatory society where unique differences are appreciated”, is the vision of Dream A Dream.

Dream A Dream hopes to achieve this by providing sustained life skill development programmes to children through exposure to sports, outdoor camps, creative arts, reading-based programmes, computer training programmes, cinema and theatre among others. Secondly, creating a strong community participation model through volunteer-based programmes leading to empowerment and sensitization about children’s issues among the community. Today, this has developed into a full-fledged programme including over 500 volunteers.

As a volunteer in the computer program and as a mentor for a young adult, I have interacted with a number of passionate employees and volunteers of Dream A Dream and experienced first hand the joy and satisfaction of making a difference. This year my goal is to raise as much as I can during the course of the 12 marathons. Of course I can do with any help I can get towards this.

Any one who would like to contribute to Dream A Dream can do so by either going to my pledge page in Give India or sending a check in favour of Dream A Dream to 47, Bhuvaneswari Nagar, CV Raman Nagar PO, Bangalore 560093.

List of Marathons

I have identified the following potential events to run over the next 12 months. TBD implies that as of now I am not aware of any organised event for that month. ? with the event name implies the event is not yet confirmed. I am hoping that if for a particular month I don't find an organised race or am unable to participate in one I will get company for a 42.2KM run from some of the wonderful runners that are part of Runners For Life.

1. 16th August 2008 Hyderabad Half and Full Marathon
2. 21st September 2008 TBD
3. 19th October 2008 Kaveri Trail Marathon
4. 16th November 2008 Bangalore Ultra marathon
5. December 2008 Bangalore Midnight Marathon?
6. 18th January 2009 Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon
7. February 2009 Pondicherry Marathon?
8. March 2009 Taj Mahal Marathon?
9. April 2009 TBD
10. May 2009 TBD
11. June 2009 TBD
12. July 2009 Thane Varsha Marathon?

The Trigger

While I have been running for a few years now I am attempting something special this year to commemorate the start of the 5th decade of my life. I have set myself a goal of running 12 Full marathons in 12 months - running one every month between August 2008 and July 2009. And I decided to Blog to track my experiences and thoughts during training and the races. This is not a daily run journal but a set of fairly random thoughts that I hope will eventually evolve as a rich resource for running related information based on my personal experience.

The inspiration for running 12 marathons in 12 months came in April 2008 while reading 'Spaghetti Every Friday, the story of running 50 marathons in 50 weeks' which is the story of Bob Fletcher's amazing feat in his 50th year. He finished in the top 3 in his age category in all the 50 races. Simply awesome!! Compared to that what I was planning seemed much easier. I want to complete all the 12 marathons injury free and betwen 4 and 5 hours - it is likely that all except the first one will be over 4 hours 30 minutes. The first challenge ofcourse is to identify 12 organised marathon events in India.