I happened to meet a ‘certain’ person this morning who was walking around with two things: a waist of 46 inches and a bigger desire to organise a marathon event. I curiously asked him, why was he so keen on organising a running event. He said he wanted to inspire people to get fit. At this, my witnessing eyes naturally dashed to the size of his belly, yet again! He went on to describe his ambition, “it’s not a big deal you see. I have all the vendors; also it’s so easy to deal with the traffic police. Just give them something and everything is sorted. All we really have to do is get the t-shirts and the medals ready. And both these things are possible in very cheap price. 40/50 max for a t-shirt, infact the medal cost also will be under Rs. 50. Breakfast can be rice flakes and a cup of tea”.

I was listening and standing in a state of shock!!

Standing and smiling next to him was a woman who was accompanying him. She looked like the typical “Facebook Runner”. I was sure that I had seen her on Facebook. And suddenly it struck me –yes – she is the one – who walks in running events and as soon as she spots a camera she starts running at the speed of light. As soon as she realizes the cameraman has done his job, she goes back to her "walking". While she inspires people to do 108 suryanamaskars, I don’t think she has done more than 20 herself ever! Not only that, she is also known as a famous ‘fitness coach’!

But the man with her was pretty excited about getting the world fit. Let’s just call him Mr. Manager. Within minutes he spilled out his entire plan. He knew exactly how much money he needed to get from the sponsor, how much money was coming in through registrations, he also had a fair idea of how to con his way for more from the hydration company, how to reduce costs because according to him, that is exactly where the profit lay. He also mentioned about a ‘cut’ he was going to make!

I could not help throw him a question, “But how are you going to get so many registrations???”

Pulling his pants up his 46 inch belly, he replied, “Oh! That’s easy. There are so many running groups. We will make their admins ‘ambassadors’, ‘event face’ or ‘champions’, whatever they want to be. The memento / trophy for them can be handled within Rs. 100. We will make some noise on social media, also we will add a ‘cause’ to it. These days ‘plastic ban’, ‘air-pollution’, “ women liberation’, ‘child labor’ etc. are trending, no?”

By now, Madame Facebook Runner had already applied her lip balm and I was in desperate need of a head balm. After all I had spent my morning listening to some A level nonsense!

Despite all his attempts, Mr. Manager’s pants would often go down his well-rounded belly and it was now evident that the last two buttons of his shirt were about to give up!

He continued, “ You see, all we have to do is manage the entire show. Rest is all on runners – they will come, run, eat, drink and make merry”.

Again, I couldn’t hold myself back, “ But how exactly are people going to get inspired for fitness through this???”

More confidence was exuded by Mr. Manager, “ Oh! For this, how hard is it to get a Zumba instructor ??? Easy to find someone within Rs 10 – 20k”.

My thoughts went back to myself – here I am trying to sync my Garmin with my phone and there the world is moving on with lightning speed. I again looked at the manager who was passing ‘overconfident’’ smiles to the lady with him.

And here I was looking for ‘fitness inspiration’ in his maze of money, manipulations and tactics of organizing a running event!

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Disclaimer: All characters in this story are fictitious. Any resemblance to any real person is purely a figment of your own imagination 😊