Category: #Cancer

All Hands Meet :4th Anniversary celebrations: Jun1st 2019

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What can be called an ‘Accomplished Meet’? It’s at the Quarterly meet, when you have many satisfied faces, it’s when you announce the achievements of the year with great pride, it’s when the participants are awarded and appreciated for their  achievements….
All Hands Meet 2019 was one such function with the Bhumika’s Training Team , cancer shero, care givers, visually impaired and sighted guide runners, held at the Eagle Ridge Resort in Begur, Bengaluru on 1st June 2019. It was the 4th year anniversary of trainings for girls. It was an amalgamation of a formal annual review meeting and an informal anniversary celebration where the leads of various locations had come together in person to share their updates of the year.
The meet started with a question and answer session by Dr. Eshwar who is a sports doctor from California, followed by the formal inauguration. As the objective of the meet was, the leads from various locations of Mumbai, Pune, Vizag, Delhi attended the function through a web conference and updated their location progress.
Head Coach of the Training girls, Bhumika Patel wonderfully hosted the event. The awards to the achievers of the years were given away by the eminent personalities from the marathon running sphere like Praveen Shetty, Asima Sultana. The veteran runner, cancer survivor and the active participant Uma Pai cheered up the atmosphere with her speech. Cult fitness was represented by one of their senior members  who spoke about a fruitful partnership for supporting the visually impaired training initiative.
A team of cancer survivors from Myshah Foundation arrived and delivered touching but inspiring stories about their fight with cancer. The function was graced by Pragya Prasun, acid attack survivor and Nari Shakti Award winner. Pragya runs an NGO- Atijeevan Foundation that helps acid attack survivors become economically independent.
The function was a huge success, not to mention the partying and the games the training girls enjoyed after the formal function was done.

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A Decade of Running-Non runner to Official guide at Boston Marathon 2019

Rightly said, the only thing that is constant is change. But I’d like to add to it. Drastic changes in life only happen if you keep working towards your goals tirelessly.

Hi, I am Bhumika Patel, 44;  Global Program Manager – Cybersecurity at IBM.

I started running in 2009, but it was since 2013 that my running career flourished. I represented India at World Master Athletics Championships in Brazil. I participated in first Pinkathon with 3000 women from my company winning the Award for Best Corporate participation-IBM, Maximum Participation from a corporate – IBM and won my first Pinkathon 5k (individual) and corporate 5k team winner. With the same awards in 2014, this time with 2000 women from IBM; I also won the first prize in 21 k and the Hero of Pinkathon award. This continued in 2015, when I completed my First International at London Marathon and made yet another 21k podium at Pinkathon. This was when I began volunteering for Pinkathon Training with Milind Soman’s encouragement and soon as Headcoach for the Blind People’s Association Ahmedabad, Devnar School For Blind-Hyderabad, Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled and Mitra Jyoti Institute for Blind, and several homes for visually impaired across India.

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Today I lead corporate/women running teams in various locations across India.

In 2015 I completed my First International at London Marathon. In between the hard training days, I would try to adjust my give back to these women and kids, which I found very challenging at start but gradually I settled down into a routine. I found it very satisfying to encourage and support cancer survivors and visually impaired to run. And happiness reaches its zenith when they scale kilometres or cross the marathon finish lines.

While training non-runner women is not an easy task, training visually impaired girls from an underprivileged background can be more challenging. In 2016, I started training the visually impaired and alongside started conducted separate Guide runners’ trainings which later shifted to Cult centers across the city as workshops to sensitize about challenges faced by the visually impaired with techniques to guide them, as a part of Pinkathon training. We had to ensure a strong back up of volunteers from among the Pinkathon training girls and corporate/running community for coordination, pick up, drop, running gear collection, distribution-storage, correspondence like emails, leave applications from offices or colleges of the visually impaired, crew support during training/races etc. Amidst all this, I completed several global marathons- London, Berlin, Copenhagen,Tokyo,Chicago,Frankfurt within 4hrs.

 

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Thus the visually impaired training resulted in stupendous team work by empowered women. My work with Pinkathon Training was recognised internationally and I was voted as GameChangers2017  ’21 Women who are transforming the world through Running’ by Women’s Running Magazine USA in 2017.

The team have evolved and become more organised and self driven over the years. There is a lot I have learnt in my journey of training the visually impaired. In spite of varying degrees of vision loss, these young girls and boys have not a thing to sulk about. The girls saw a significant improvement in fitness and timings improved over the previous runs at Pinkathon. Running workshops were conducted on running, strength training and recovery with guiding techniques and sensitization, at Cult centers across the city for men and women both, as there was growing demand to become guides. This was a major activity carried out simultaneously with visually impaired training. There was active participation from corporates and the project Received the India South Asia Outstanding Volunteer Work 2018 Award by IBM along with Grants.

These achievements were noted by media and Blind institutes contacted me after listening to news in All India Radio broadcast news for Blind and many more visually impaired were encouraged to join.

 

In July 2018, 15 visually impaired runners were selected from among 25 to train for the half and the full marathon on Oct 21th at Bengaluru. We started taking the necessary steps in a jiffy like conducting their blood tests, their physical assessments, planning out their workout regimen and diet charts as per their report analyses. Me and Milind already knew their grit and after witnessing their enthusiasm and achievements and in early 2018 decided that the runners who complete the full marathon will be trained for the Spirit of Pinkathon run from Mysuru to Bengaluru which is roughly 145 km. What happened in the 6 months of training, is something I will treasure for a lifetime. The guide team and the doctors kept on their toes to make sure the runners complete the  runs as per plan, free of any pain or injury. There were moments of fun, laughter, pain, difficulties. The tough times always started from bringing the visually impaired to a central venue in the morning wee hours, three to four times a week. It was astonishing to see how the girls and boys actively attended trainings and later then their office/college with the same amount of enthusiasm. On Pinkathon Day/October 21, 2018, History was created as India Book of Records awarded a certificate to 23 year old visually impaired girl Suneetha N D, who became the first visually impaired girl in India to finish a full marathon (42.2km)

There were a lot many write ups, news articles, videos and interviews posted on various platforms about this event which happened from 23rd to 25th January 2019. I was stupefied by the tremendous love and appreciation by the country. Karnataka Olympic Association for the reward and the department of youth services rewarded the athletes at the finish line! And thank you Pinkathon and Milind Soman for a grand commendation. Their generous gesture will be a prime motivation not only for them but also for numerous athletes pursuing their dreams in sports. I am invited by the Massachusetts Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired to run as Official Guide at the upcoming Boston Marathon 2019 and its a significant milestone in bringing International exposure and expertise to help the athletes with a brighter future!

 

 

References:   

IBM & Pinkathon : https://www.facebook.com/100004582650551/posts/281134315382655?sfns=mo

https://d.facebook.com/Pinkathon/photos/a.375387162548740.93471.369025376518252/1495889167165195/?type=3&__tn__=EHH-R

 

Credit: Shradha Dalvi

 

You can follow my journey

Fb https://www.facebook.com/bhumikarunner/

Twitter @bhumikarunner

Instagram @Bhumika.patel1

 

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

Happy to have organized the first-of-its-kind #Shero10K with 200+ cancer victors/caregivers with presence of eminent oncology experts & hospitals under one umbrella!

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.
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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.

 

 

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