As natural mood-enhancers go, there is nothing that can quite beat adrenalin. The body’s fight-or-flight response in extreme situations, whether dangerous or exciting, is exemplified nowhere better than in sports and racing. As India turned global, fitness not only grew into an industry, but also drew an eclectic range of experiences, attracting hundreds of well-informed players, and some that forged lonely paths. Featured here are some healthy, interesting and even inspirational ways in which to achieve the high that only a sweating, heart-thumping race can give. Parkour’s missing because actor Akshay Kumar probably has the only Parkour gym in India and the Mutants, a Delhi-based group-of-six, are still expanding. Crossfit, which already has a cult following in the US and takes fitness to quite another level, is yet to arrive. Meanwhile, other sources of adrenalin rush are readily available, and are no less addictive. Here’s to achieving what author Robert Pirsig evocatively called, “the equilibrium between restless and exhaustion”.“When I was posted back to India in 2003, it hit me for the first time that there was no information on running here; running gear was hard to find and was expensive; there were few, if any, tracks, trails and parks to run on,” remembers Rahul Varghese, distance runner, columnist and founder of Delhi-based Running and Living. Varghese is among the people who have ensured that India now has running clubs in nearly every major city. Egalitarian and informal, the members of running clubs like Chennai Runners, Hyderabad Runners and Runners for Life (Bangalore) welcome newbies to their online groups and meet regularly to run together. The spirit of camaraderie that defines running is rare in athletic sports. “We have runners of every ilk, from beginners to seasoned people,” says Arvind Bharathi of RFL. “The one common thing that binds all of us is our passion for running.” In fact, Sabine Tietge, a German national, has started RunnerGirlsIndia (RGI), the country’s first girls-only running club, also in Bangalore, “to act as a support network for women runners, provide advice for women on running-related issues, and guidance and encouragement to its members”.
Bangalore is turning out to be something like a running hotspot — the weather helps. Moreover, as one of the organisers of the Hyderabad Marathon, software techie Rajesh Vetcha says, “Honestly, if you watch runners year after year, you can’t help but run yourself.”
They warn you well in advance: this is an amazing race for the clinically insane. This coming August, 40 teams won’t mind being called that, as they compete in the Mumbai Xpress, an autorickshaw rally from Chennai to Mumbai. For the past three years, The Autorickshaw Challenge has drawn loyal fans to its annual rickshaw rallies, which includes the Tech Raid (Chennai-Hyderabad-Bangalore-Chennai) and the Malabar Rampage (to Kerala and back). Software techie Aravind Bremanandam has even set up an event management firm to handle the show. The victorious world champions get, apart from ‘major bragging rights’ and ‘an outrageous trophy’, free entry into the Caucasian Challenge, a drive-anything motor rally that kicks off from Budapest every year. Says Bremanandam: “Our mission is to provide an unparalleled experience to the rallyists by combining adventure, sight seeing, fun and charity. And what better way to do it than in our own homegrown autorickshaw?” Racers who fall in love with their zany, multi-coloured rickshaws have the option of buying it. For a fee of e900 (Rs 60,000), an autorickshaw, paper maps, traffic reports, road conditions, GPS co-ordinates and even internet access at pit stops, are provided. Enroute, teams adopt-a-village and provide it with school supplies, medicines and the like. Participants are urged to think of the rickshaw as “a covered bicycle with a fuel-efficient lawn mower engine”.
Paintball is a video game come true. instead of pointing joysticks that ping with sound effects, players get to dress up in forbidding helmets and cool jackets before they take sides in this superfast team sport. Opponents are eliminated with guns powered by compressed gas or carbon dioxide, and the bullets are pellets filled with paint (therefore, paintball). One estimate of the American Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association puts the number of paintball players in the US at over five million. There, and in Australia, paintballers engage in full-fledged wars, equipped with all manner of weaponry, and even tanks — referees watch over games diligently and they are entirely safe as long as players are serious about the rules to be followed. The game, which is already played in 50 countries, made a relatively modest beginning in India three years ago. Now, arenas are available in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and, most recently, in Chennai. It is a bloodthirsty kind of make-believe — the bullets can get painful and the bruises are very impressive — but to ardent devotees of the sport, paintball works as an exhilarating stress-buster.
What sounds fairly real is the commando-style shrieking that highlights the game as players find their mark and bleed a bright orange from the paint. Nets protect ‘civilian’ watchers.
The ironman triathlon is one of the most gruelling races of the world. Participants swim 3.9 km, bike ride 180 km and complete a full 42.2-km marathon run, one after the other, without a break: the Ironman is the longest, single-day triathlon event. The only Indian who attempts this astonishing feat is Anu Vaidyanathan, the diminutive 27-year-old founder-CEO of PatNMarks, a Bangalore-based company that offers patenting solutions and intellectual property management services. She begins her day at 3.30 am with cycling, and then does a stretch of running before driving to work. After meeting tough deadlines at her office, where she heads a close-knit team of 20 staffers, she swims or goes gymming late in the evening, again as part of her preparation. Ironman athletes enjoy the sport for its own sake. As typical of most Indian athlethes, Vaidyanathan gets little institutional support and trains without the sort of infrastructure competitors abroad take for granted. Despite this, she finished 24th amongst the 12,500-odd participants at the Auckland Half Ironman of March this year. Moreover, the three-day Ultraman Canada Championships, slated for end-July, which Vaidyanathan is training for at present, rewards no prize money (all she will get is a towel at the end of it). But, says Vaidyanathan, “Be it working or sport or academia, I take pride in a job well done.
The road has not been without trials or potholes, but that is part of the adventure. Every success and failure is a leaf in my book, and above all else, my optimism and happiness in doing what I do, keeps me going. Day after day!”
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