The legend of Dandi

The year was 2010, Prateek, Meher and me were already in the middle of our toughest training schedule which we ever followed untill that year. I got married 2 years back and since then the time on the weekends was always a premium. We would always find it tough to squeeze in a long run in our weekend schedule along with all the socializing and chores that new life brought in. It was only now I realized why Pankaj has always been so busy on the weekends :-)

It was the Ananada Yana run organized by Santhosh Padmanabha, and as usual the koramangala/HSR gang went to the venue in the Red Dragon, those who are part of BHUKMP know what a red dragon is. Just before the run started, we saw Anjana came running to the venue, I asked her the reason, and she told me that she has serious time crunch these days on the weekend, driving her daughter to different places and classes, visiting relatives and finishing office work, so she thought why waste time driving to the venue, but instead start a little early, run to the venue, do 5K run there and then run back. This seemed like an amazing idea to me and Prateek!

We thought of implementing this idea next weekend, as we thought that driving to cubbon is an utter waste of time, additionally you go there and finding a parking was a nightmare. Our mileage was already peaking, and we were required to do 32K+ runs on Saturdays, this would also mean atleast 7 loops of cubbon, and we would be dead with boredom at the end of it!

So we floated the idea of running to cubbon and then taking a bus back. The initial idea was, we will run to cubbon from ET via Hosur road, which would be close to 8K and then run in cubbon. We discussed this idea on the next run (where we obviously ran to cubbon) with Rishi and Amrita. Rishi immediately proposed , why run in cubbon? we (the cubbon gang) can do a reverse run on hosur road, meet somewhere midway and then run towards ulsoor and then around ulsoor and back to cubbon! Hence the first dandi route was devised!

During the same time, we had a new guy (newly shifted back from the US) running with us, his name was Vishy, initially we knew him as the guy who was mostly quiet on the runs but had a big online presence, we all became a fan of his blog right away! He used to live in Raheja Residency those days, and he liked the idea of a Saturday run to cubbon, we all started running regularly to cubbon, and then sometime in July 2010, Vishy proposed the name for this run as Dandi! Why Dandi? because we meet other runners en route, and we all run towards our target. Everybody loved the name and this was the point of birth of the Dandi runs in BHUKMP!!

As we came near the marathon date (KTM was the first marathon of that season) our mileages started increasing, I remember Praveen was doing 75K at the Ultra and hence he needed a longish run or 4-5 hours on foot kind of training every Saturday. So to increase the mileage, we all decided lets start going to cubbon via the Sony World-inner ring road-Domlur-Trinity Circle-MG Road stretch. The blessing in disguise was, Bhasker and Rajaram can also join us at Domlur! This was the point of birth of the actual route of Dandi

The Dandi runs were formed and we all were pretty excited about them, all of us started following them religiously, at certain point just before the Bangalore Ultra, Nari suggested that instead of going on the MG road from Trinity circle, lets go to Brunton road, the benefits: it is about a KM longer, and there is decent incline on the Primrose road, which is good for training. The idea was discussed in the security council meeting on the same day and was immediately approved!!! Rishi then suggested that before he started running with us, he used to run along the BGC and its an amazing place to run in the mornings, hence we started going from cubbon to Sankey and back, when Siddesha suggested that why not include the serene IISC also in the loop!

The last approval was the final approval for the run, which the entire Bangalore knows today as the Dandi run!

The concept was started by Anjana, name given by Vishy, route formulated by, Pankaj, Prateek, me, Praveen, Rishi, Nari and Siddesha this is democracy in true sense! :-)

Thanks to Dandi runs, that year my training mileage went on to 2,200 KM! And the show goes on!