Auroville and the Joy of Running!

Not sure if it qualifies as an annual tradition but the Auroville Run is now become part of the annual running calendar. Not that the calendar is filled with events but an event is still an event.

If you have not been to Auroville then I suggest you next trip down South should have a stopover there. Auroville is not like any other place. It is a township which is very different from anything else. It is open for public though the residents do not always encourage public roaming through the deeper parts of this township. People from various countries reside here in peace and harmony.

The marathon originally started off to celebrate 40 years of Auroville by some residents who also happen to love running. Now it is one of the most popular running events and one of the few trail runs which is also fun to run. Unlike other marathons there are no electronic timers and this marathon purely believes in the joy of running.

Unlike the previous runs, this time around the Chennai rains along with travel did not lead to a great training regime and our miles have been very limited. We did not even run more than 16k during our practice runs. But then that did not stop us from going for the run as after all this run is for the joy of running rather than any personal goal.

I always feel special about this run as for me personally running has always been about the joy of running and I can relate a lot to this event. Running is special and it can give a sense of freedom which many other sports or physical activities fail to give. This time around the usual traffic jams happened during the start of the run as the trail is very narrow but then post the 5k mark I did pick up speed and ended up having one of my best runs despite not having trained much.

Guess this is what the spirit and joy of running is all about. Wish I carried my phone with me to take pictures during the run but it was a very pretty place to run and anyone who likes running should run here atleast once. We did get lost the previous day while going to get the bib and accidentally ended up driving in the trail used for running so maybe that gave us an advantage in knowing the trail before the run….Lol.

As always it is not always about running but there has to be beer after the run. So we all ended up going to this nice French hotel called as Le Dupleix to have some fine food and some cold beer. Post that a trip was on store to Bakers Street for buying some yummy éclairs and finally the day ended with some lovely Gin & Tonic followed by dinner at Tantos. A brilliant place for Pizza, Pasta and Tiramisu.

On the whole the Auroville trip was a welcome break and given the crazy tight lifestyle more such runs are welcome.