Inspirations (again)

Had the privilege of running the lake circuit with the charming Genia Topple of our US office who is visiting India. Genia regularly runs half marathons back in the US and has been timing 2 hrs 10 mins for the 21 km run. That would be about 20 minutes faster than me and is enough to give me a huge complex.

She was gracious enough to humor me and run along with me in my run/walk/run style and that too at a much slower pace. Despite the walk breaks we finished the run in a good time of just over an hour. Good fun.

Genia’s story is hugely inspiring in more than one ways and it has been a privilege to know her and now get to run with her.

Another rockstar from our Atlanta office is Frank Zaubi and I ran the same circuit with him last year when he was here in India. Old enough to be my father, he has been running full marathons for several years now and in very, very decent timings. He has a plan to run a marathon on each continent and at last count he had done some spectacular runs at the most exotic places including the Great Wall of China and Antarctica. Yes, Antarctica.

Frank too uses the Jeff Galloway method of run/walk and he shipped me Galloway’s latest book from the US when he saw me using the same technique. A very sweet gesture.

Running has helped me connect with some really interesting people and I shall be writing about more such people in my future blogs.