Bengaluru: On a pleasant Friday morning, when 70-year old Sema from Tripura turned up at Vidhana Soudha – the seat of the state’s legislature – at 6.30am, she had just one thing on her mind, ‘experience the city’.
Having only just moved to Bengaluru, she wanted to meet people and make friends. Little did she know that a few hours later, she would become the oldest person to complete the world’s first ‘11K Footpath Run.’
Conceptualised by Arun Pai, the one-of-a-kind ‘footpath run’ was organized to promote walkable footpaths in the city.
“Runs are about doing crazy things,” he said after the event to Read, while adding that running on the footpath ‘makes it interesting.’
Fitness and wellness aside, the goal, according to Pai was to ‘create awareness of footpaths’ in the city.
“The reason why people don’t walk is that there are no footpaths in Bangalore and so, people go to the gyms instead and walk on the treadmill,” he said.
While that could well be a fact, Pai insists that there are several pavements in the city that are indeed accessible to walkers.
To prove this point, he recently embarked on a 100-kilometre run on the pavements across the city and documented the entire run on a YouTube channel.
Pai is a firm believer that when facilities are available, they must be used by citizens.
“When we use the amenities and give feedback, facilities will improve.”
Participants of the ‘11K Footpath Run’ had rules to follow – leaving the footpath would lead to disqualification.
“If you have to leave, prove why by taking a picture of obstacle,” said Pai with a smile.
The exercise also served as an audit of sorts and participants, at the end of the run, were asked to rate the footpaths they traversed.
In all, Pai reported an average score of 4 out of 5 for the footpaths that served as a course for the run.
“An average of 5-6 obstacles were reported over 11 kilometers by 60 finishers.”
Arun Pai displaying the board where participants rated the footpath. (Photo Credit: Bangalore WALKS)
Uniting citizens and elected representatives
People from all walks of life turned up.
The youngest participant was 10-year-old Veeksha, a skater, who flagged off the run and skated for a brief distance.
Representatives of the government were present as well.
Rizwan Arshad, the MLA of the area, joined the participants, several of whom wore state colours to commemorate Kannada Rajyothsava.
Also, Randeep D, Secretary, Youth Affairs and Sports, went the distance and completed the run.
“Only when elected leaders are users of the facility will they understand the needs of the people,” said Pai.
Also, according to Pai, several discoveries were made during the run, the prominent one being the realization that people ended up covering distances that they normally did not.
“When walking with friends on a good footpath, you discover that you can cover greater distances,” he concluded.
And when the dust settled, not only did the world’s first ‘11K Footpath Run’ serve the fitness and wellness purpose, it also united the citizens with the elected leaders in experiencing and pledging to improve civic amenities for the wellbeing of citizens.
