Stonehill Founder’s Day Run 2024 – Race report by Abhishek Roy

About 10,000 km away from New York, somewhere around Yelahanka, about 45 of us ran a special-hearted run today: Stonehill Founder’s Day Run. Achcha naam hai.

I have realised there are 3 types of runners typically:

Don’t get emotional, I mean the 5K, 10K and half marathoners.

And there are 2 more kinds: the ones who went by bus and others who love sleep more than they hate driving.

We reached the school in a super comfy bus in about an hour and the school looked international.

Except the men’s pee line in the restroom was quite long with 3 urinals and 400 peeers. And there was no “jhaadi” to the rescue since it was the premises of an “international” school. What a “moot” point.

This race had about 700 runners and the struggle in the initial kms wasn’t there for most of us.

Let’s jump into the meat of the race report now:

The route was quite scenic, with a country-side feel, hilly as hell for about 50% of the distance and deceptive at times.

Starting with the kids, Medhansh rocked the scene with a 5k podium in 19:56. Abhishek(not me, his dad) was the happiest I have seen when he came back from the stage after receiving the trophy.

If till today you didn’t know what “glee” meant, it was all over his face to see.

Was it just the proud dad or the smile of the lady who handed it over, Dwivedi Saab?

Vivaan, our seasoned 5k champ killed the course in 33 min! He is going to follow his dad’s footsteps over the years for sure and get back and faster than his PB.

Shravan, Anna Jr. slayed the course in 28 min and looked as fresh as a daisy after the run.

Itna bhaav sabko nahi denge, don’t worry.

Bachchon ka banta hai.

Among the ladies, none of them were found running the 5k.

Priyanka ran an amazing 70 min 10k and again, looked as fresh as a daisy after the run too. Now we got 2 daisies. We will keep counting.

In the half marathon, 3 ladies ran the distance and they all looked as fresh. Now we have how many daisies? 2 + 3 = 5.

Savi ran a comfortable 2:52, Anupama had some struggle around 17K(she saw Taare Zameen Par) but finished in style in 2:58. A sub 3.

Pooja, with an injured knee(I don’t trust knee issues until I see them, I saw it so it’s true) and a 14km the previous day ran an effortless 2 hour half.

Amazing!

Kudos to all of you so far!

Arre, but we forgot Sangho! The semi-roothi hui tadipaar outsider-insider who won a podium in her age category(41-50) and ran the distance in 1 hour, 50 min. But she wasn’t there to receive her trophy.

As luck would have it, since my full name is 27% Bengali, and as a close and old friend of Sangho’s, I got the auspicious opportunity to collect it on her behalf.

The funny thing was when Satish, Aashu and I were running towards the stage the emcee said, here comes Sanghamitra’s dad 😂

I had a similar glee while accepting this, I guess its about the person who handles the trophy too! Achcha laga.

Now, what we have left is the boys. This will not be that heavily garnished though.

Some Ladakhis ran this one I guess to fall in love with running again: Rahul, Anna, Neeraj, Sundaram, Abhas.

Rahul, with the massive UK 10.5 feet, finished this is in 1:59 and was smiling as if he ran a 10K. Semi-daisy added. We are at 5 + .5 = 5.5 daisies

Anna ran a nice and steady 2:25 and was his usual gentle and “Anna” self.

Neeraj pushed this one a bit and just missed sub 2 hours by 53 seconds. He can’t be unhappy about it, since he’s keeping an eye on me too to not be unhappy after my races. 
Jeeja-Saala(Sundaram, Abhas) ran half and 10K respectively. Jeeja is taking most runs casually, looks like it’s the silence before a storm in TMM half. Watch out for a stellar run from Jeeja soon.

Saala is a cute guy, shaadi hone waali hai. Saala encouraged Aashu and me at the 20.5th km mark. Saala, being from Bihar(I am from Bihar too), knew ki Abhishek bolne se Abhishek motivate nahi hoga, so he said Roy saab, come on. And that helped me shave off 4 seconds. 
Thanks Saale saab.

Vikas sir, the more vocal leader of our Ninjas, smashed the course in 1:52 and again, like her better half, looked as if ye roz ka kaam hai.

Daisies = 5.5 + 1 = 6.5

Deepankar finished in 1:56, a minute more than last year. I feel for him somewhat but I know he will bounce back hard in the Bengaluru Half. 
No daises were found here.

Abhishek Purwar ran a half after very long and finished it in 2:57. We can say he did a sub 3(distance kaun poochta hai, bol ke chal dena hai).

Anna asked him how was your run to which he replied “My soul came out”.

The other Abhishek, Sarda saab did a fast 10k in 56 min and well, looked like a daisy too. (How I perceive daisies is my algorithm). 
Daisies = 6.5 + 1 = 7.5

Sathish E finished his 10k in 1 hour 2min and was enjoying the sun(there was glee on his face) more than the run after the race, since he is used to running at 9:30am onwards in PSN. He is the official “Jaadoo” of the group.

Jahan, my Farid Jr, surprised me. He ran a very balanced 1:46 half and if you see his recent mileage, it’s amazing. 
I am sad he missed the podium.

Tyagi ji ran a half and finished in 2:55. He told us on Saturday that he will do some back to back halfs here on. Kudos Tyagi ji, another sub 3 for us.

Himanshu finished the half in 2:24. I don’t know Himanshu well, so will spare more comments on him this time.

Debottam: Xavier Jr. Jr., ran the 10k in 56 min, and this was his first official race. Hats off bhai, being light-hearted and minded helps.

Sankalp, my kid-school-bus-stop-mate, who never lets his son touch his feet on the ground when dropping him to the bus(tere kadam zameen pe na padein types), finished the half in 2:45. I guess this was his first. Congrats on the PB and another sub 3 for the group. 


Bala, who couldn’t tolerate the Delhi weather and the attitude of the people, came back to PSN recently and has already done 2 back to back Halfs.

Hyderabad and this one. He finished in 2:26 and I am sure he will get back to his full form soon.

Major Sumit Saab: the deceptively fast runner, finished his 21.1K in 2:03. He certainly earns a daisy, have never seen him tired.

Daisies = 7.5 + 1 = 8.5

Prashant, my Naveen Jr(like Farid, I had another close training partner Naveen. Naveen is still alive, but doesn’t run much) had a not so good day today. He finished the half in 1:52, which is still quite awesome, but his 44 min 10K in Bengaluru 10K had set him up for some higher expectations.

Mukesh and Atul sir, the two sweetest people in the group, did their 10k in 1 hour and 1 hour 11 min.

Half daisies spotted each: Daisies = 8.5 + .5 + .5 = 9.5

Abhishek Dwivedi, my namesake and my good friend improved his 10k on this course by 11 min and finished in 1 hour 6 min today.

Naam hi aisa hai.

Deepak Chawla, my other kid-school-bus-stop-mate, ran an effortless looking Half in 1:50. Not sure if this is his PB, he was always cheering us whenever he saw us. I can attribute shaving off 25 seconds to Deepaks cheers. I am sure Deepak will break some PSN records soon.

2nd last but not the least: Xavier bhai.

Xavier bhai did the rarest of stuff. He ran a PB at 1:28 😂. Okay, since it’s Xavier and we know how chilled out he is, he basically missed a loop and just ran 15k. God knew whom to play this game with. Serious type insaan to bura maan jaata.

Ab bachte hain Aashu and main.

Aashu, an ever-positive guy that he is, showed me a plan for sub 100 min half in the bus. I, an ever-positive guy “before” the run, showed a lot of “haan ho jaaega” and we decided to run together. 

We literally ran this together, physically, emotionally and strategically. He pulled me when I had some struggle and I did the same when I felt he needed it. This is our first run together, certainly the first of many to come.

We couldn’t achieve our goal of sub 1 hour 40 min, but we both got under 1 hour 44.

But not for once we mentally got negative, or said negative things, except abusing a guy running in front of us and not letting him overtake us.

That helped us to propel forward for sure in the later part of the race.

The breakfast was too good to be true, we are going to come back to this race each year.

This route wasn’t easy. Actually, it was very hard. So, congratulate yourselves for waking up at 3am on a Sunday morning, traveling 40km to run and earning your medal.


By the way, we are at 9.5 daisies, lets round it off to 10 daisies, by giving 0.25 daisy each to Jeeja-Saala jodi.

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