Another huge day at Soham Academy of Human Excellence. 200 participants at the 2019 Hyderabad Freedom Run. 200 students from 8 schools and recent gradates from our own Soham Academy participated in this grand event. 50 of them in 10K and 150 of them in 5K. How is this such a huge event for us? Last year we took only 30 kids to this annual event. A year before just 15. 200 this year is a huge leap. This is a big feather in our cap.

We are extremely proud of our kids. The following statistics can tell you why!:

• 8 out of 10 of our Soham Champs schools participated in this event.
• Our fastest 10K runner, Damodar, recorded 46 minutes and 58 seconds. Our second fastest runner, Sravan, was slightly behind at 47 minutes and 20 seconds. Our third fastest runner, Yaqub, completed the race in 50 minutes and 2 seconds.
• Our fastest girl, Vaishnavi, completed the race in 1 hour, 6 minutes and 5 seconds. She is the 14th fastest runner in our group – leaving behind 27 boys and 9 other girls!! Our second fastest girl, Bhavani, completed the race in  1 hour, 20 minutes and 22 seconds finishing overall at 18. Our third fastest girl, Anusha, completed the race in 1 hour, 25 minutes and 16 seconds, finishing over all at 20.
• 12 kids completed the race in less than 1 hour.
• 10 out of 10 girls completed the 10K race successfully.
• All the 5K runners, 79 girls and 71 boys completed the race without a glitch. We could not collect any stats on their race timings.
• 200 out of all the 200 people who were registered for the event showed up. 

Yoga Surprise

Another big surprise came our way when our Yoga kids were given a chance to perform on the stage. Initially the event management team said that they will not be able to give us 8 minutes of stage time as the schedule was too packed. Obviously it was too packed. It is a mega event. But, on the previous day we visited the plaza and gave short demo on our yoga performance. Thanks to a graceful lady by name, Happy(so apt), we got a full 10 minute show.

As always, our yoga performance was beyond belief for all those who witnessed it.

Acknowledgements

Any big event would be successful only with the participation of a large number of kind souls.

• We are truly grateful to Colosseum Foundation who have been supporting our sports program for nearly two years now. They have been with us through the thick and thin. Soman and Subbu from Colosseum group were there to support and cheer our kids all through the run.
• Raj Pakala of Events Now group, that organized this Freedom run, was instrumental in allowing us to bring 200 kids to this event within our shoestring budget.
• iFocus members too were present to help us manage the kids and their higher levels of excitement and joy!
• Kudos to our sports gurus Yogesh and Mahendra who worked early AM every day for over a month to prepare the kids for this event.
• Chandu, Bharat, Shiva Krishna, Vignatha and Ganitha, our team members, also worked very hard to get this event to its fruition.
• The participating schools and their management especially Madhushalini ma’am of Government High School, CPL, Himayatnagar, Venkat Ram sir of Vedic Vidyalayam, Sitaphalmandi and Prasuna ma’am of Government High School, Bathukamma Kunta, were instrumental in sending large contingents from their schools.
• Children from Hymavati High School, SVES High School, Government High School, Sitaphalmandi, Sai Grace High School and Government High School, Jama-e-Osmania also participated in the event.

Pic Volume

The following pics speak volumes about how much the kids enjoyed the event.