Rotary Bangalore IT Corridor and Crossover Sports are organizing Bangalore’s first midnight marathon on May 19, 2007. For more details check: http://www.coindia.com

Claims to be the first ever midnight marathon in the world. However a simple google search says otherwise (brought to notice by Charles Haynes of bangalore metblogs). I wonder how they ever came up with the “world’s first” thing.

For the true marathoner/leggers or first timers, you should get in touch with the runnersforlife guys. The article written by Arvind Krishnan is also a useful read before doing the marathon. These guys do regular practice runs in different parts of bangalore. Atleast, they did when I took part in the 2005 Bangalore Marathon. Checked their mailing list, apparantly they still do.

There is also an inter-corporate “relay” marathon contest to be held to get the corporates on-board. No harm in getting some corporate money !!

My blog entry for the 2005 bangalore international marathon:

Yippedee.. I made the finish line..

History was made, the first Bangalore International Marathon. The race began at 9.15am, flagged off by our CM, Mr. Dharam Singh. It all began with loud cheers and thumping of feet, 12000×2 of them. My friends Poon-Poon and Amshu were also doing the run with me. The 12000 leggers took some time to cross the relatively narrow gate of the Kanteerva stadium. The initial 1km on kasturba road was the easiest upto cubbonpark. The crowd on the way was crazy, it was unbelievable, there were few women running in their sarees and salwar-kameezs and more surprisingly making good time. But that went on only till the 1km mark, after that they were irritatingly blocking our way.

After that, the people still running were people like me. All these guys and gals mostly in their teens, twenties were running and sweatin hard and most of all on a sunday morning!! The marathon was being run for different causes: HIV/AIDS patients, street children, environment, old age homes, etc. Some were running for the cause, some just to see if they can make it, some just to lose weight overall it was a challenge.

An inspiring nice thing that I saw, was of a person in a wheelchair on the move. Later I met an old friend named Pushkar and his friend. Its nice when you run with company, you really don’t know the distance then. Later in the course, we were stopped by few women on a jeep with Radiocity tshirts for an interview. It turned out to be Fiona and Basanti. Hmm.. now I have a face for the voices that have been rocking the city.

At around 10.15am, (thats an hour for the course) we were back at the Kanteerva and made the finish line. It was a great feeling to finish the course. Tiring but very Satisfying.. I could do it.

Next time I will do the 42km one, wonder what I would be upto then.

I have not been much of a cricket fan, ever since India’s dramatic loss in the 1996 world cup against Sri Lanka. That was the last straw. But when I saw this billboard, I was pissed !! They didn’t shy away to rub it in.. I liked the Foster’s “Australian for Beer” ads before.. But I don’t think this ad is gonna help the image of Foster’s in India (the cricket crazy country that it is..) But wait.. Foster’s India is owned by SABMiller, the UK based company. Hmm.. What are the Brits upto ??

But think about it, this world cup was little more than joke to me. Felt like the Aussies stole an ice cream from a bunch of kids. Even ICC chief Malcolm Speed has admitted that 2007 cricket world cup was too long. So they have decided to shorten the duration of the next world cup and keep it short & sweet: opening ceremony, photo session and presenting the world cup to Australia !! (I received this as a forwarded SMS joke today, thanks subhash)

I participated in the SportzVillage Inter-Corporate Basketball Tournament. Here is my review on the event:

12 Corporates teams were participating: Infosys, Ocwen, HSBC, Wipro, Oracle, Tavant, TransWorks, iflex – Solutions, Reuters, SAP, Honeywell.

The venue was the Sree Kanteerva Stadium basketball courts. The league matches were held on Aug 26- Aug27. The finals are yet to be held on Sept2. From what I know Infosys, SAP Labs India, Transworks and HP seemed to be the top teams in their respective groups.

The crowd support was very less, but that didn’t really reduce the enthu of the players and display of some good skill. I was suprised there were just 12 teams though..

Blooper Video : My attempts to dunk or atleast layup !! Aaarghh..

Patel’s Inn :

http://www.patelsinn.com/aboutus.htm

Address :

38/2/2,15th Cross, 2nd Block,Govindaraj Garden, R.T Nagar, Bangalore-560 032, +91-92434 13880, +91-080-2333 0182, 2333 7575

Landmark:

3-4 Kms from Funworld, Palace Ground, Very close to R.T. Nagar BDA Complex

Single Seater:

monday to thursday: Rs. 120 for 7 laps
friday to sunday: Rs. 120 for 6 laps

Twin Seater:

monday to thursday: Rs. 180 for 7 laps
friday to sunday: Rs. 180 for 6 laps

Timings:

monday to thursday: 11.00 am – 9.30 pm
friday to sunday: 11.00 am – 10.30 pm

Review to be added.. Any reviews can be added as comments.

[IMAGE: Arjun Halappa, Captain, Bangalore Lions]

Amidst all the sports stories, there is one snuck in that reports that the Bangalore Lions have won the PHL, or Professional Hockey League.

The Bangalore Lions triumphed in the second edition of the Premier Hockey League after a brace by Hari Prasad helped them down local favourites Chandigarh Dynamos 2-1 in a pulsating third match of the best-of-three finals.

reports Sify.

Well, while yours truly is not a huge fan of sports that involve “goals”, well done Bangalore Lions.