First-of-its-kind Shero10K with 200+ cancer victors/caregivers

The Shero10k is our way of making a small attempt to salute the spirit, strength and courage of all our Cancer Sheros. The word Shero is derived from ‘Survivor Heros’. These are victor who braved cancer, hence these victors are called Sheros.

Cancer not only shatters the patient physically mentally and financially, but also traumatizes the entire family of the patient. In this case, all those associated with the patient also need counseling as much as the patient needs. As a part of the year long  Shero initiative, Pinkathon Training Bengaluru introduced  a novel concept of Garegivers Training. This idea struck us after watching our cancer victors scaling more distance, becoming stronger after undergoing trainings at our training centres at Bannerghatta, Lalbaugh and Cubbon.

Conventionally the immediate family was termed as caregivers. Our program has expanded the horizon of caregivers to outside the immediate family by introducing the concept of Caregiver Guides. Our program encourages not only  immediate family member but friends, relatives, peers, hospital staff, Doctors to be part of the Caregiver Guide and accompany the victors in their health and fitness regimen.

The Shero health and fitness program with caregiver guides has been designed with help of medical professionals and  therapists like yoga and meditation, laughter,  art therapy. Cancer Shero Run is a celebration of the effort by victors, caregivers guides to tide over the phase.

21st July 2018 marked the launch of the one of its kind of training initiatives of our Cancer  Sheros at  Pinkathon Training Location – Cubbon Park. Since July 2018 a 20 weeks training schedule has been followed which has been a great success where the victors participated along with caregivers guides to scale up distance . The remarkable outcome of this was when our victors themselves became guides to Visually impaired underprivileged girls helping them improve their fitness and complete challenging distance like half Marathon.  We also saw victors like Uma Pai, Geethashekhar and Ravi going out much beyond their call of duty by giving a strong a pus to this initiative by bringing major oncology institutions under one umbrella.  There will be many more shining victors in future.

This initiative  would not have been possible without the strong support of Milind Soman, Apollo Hospitals and all others.

The event was a 10k run by Shero Victors and their caregivers guides started at 6 am with distribution of T shirts. The lamp lighting brought in sanctity to the event before the flag off of the run. The lamp was lit by Pinkathon Mentor Milind Soman and honourable dignitaries Apollo Hospital, Manipal Hospital, Shankara Hospital, Myshah Foundation and Head Coach Bhumika Patel.

Milind Soman first gave a welcome speech, followed by shero training report presented by Bhumika Patel. The best part of the event was the victors sharing their stories on stage as a motivation for everyone and Truly Yours artists performed a short skit based on it.

 

The run began at 6.30 with flag off by Milind Soman and he also led the participants along with other volunteers and pacers on the route. The sheros seemed ecstatic as they scaled their kilometres, as they were actually scaling towards good health. After the run was over there was an art exhibition of the art creations made by the sheros and the caregivers. The concluding part of the event was as much exciting since there was an announcement of the Santa Christmas tree. The felicitation of hospitals for the support, distribution of medals and certificates to the participants and vote of thanks concluding the event. The happy and satisfied participants who left the venue with smiling faces was an evidence of the grand success of the program.