awesome.

A very cool story….

Maybe its because I have two young girls, but recently Sophie told me that I am using the word “cool” too much.

I am sorry Sophie, but this is a very “cool” story….

This past Friday, 35 employees in naseba’s Dubai office representing 12 different nationalities ran the 10km race in the Dubai marathon.

Nearly, all of the 35 people have never run in a race; or “run” at all.

But most of the people who ran, trained together over the past several weeks getting ready for the race and turned the 10km challenge into something fun.

Sophie, Nic, and Fabien also ran … I didn’t participate.  Instead I sat on the side lines and cheered.

Although naseba sponsored everyone who participated, I wasn’t involved whatsoever getting people to enter.   I didn’t want any employee to feel pressured to enter.

I was scheduled to be in India this past weekend, so would miss the race, but Sophie came to me and told me I had to be in Dubai for the marathon on Friday.

We discussed it briefly, but my schedule for the month was confirmed and I wouldn’t be able to make the race.

Later that night, Sophie told me (again) that I needed to change my schedule and be in Dubai for the race.

I told her that it wasn’t a lack of interest..

I reminded her that I had a meeting with one of our bigger clients that I didn’t want to postpone… Also, I was scheduled to go to our Bangalore office to present the Rolex watch to Kavana.

Then she told me the big secret…

Secretly, my personal assistant for 8 years, and the office manager in Dubai and someone I am personally very close to, Thomas Prasad (LT) had been training for the past several months, lost 20+ kilo and was going to compete in the Dubai marathon, running the full marathon.

“What???”

I was in bed reading when Sophie told me about Tom doing all of this…

I had to stop reading.  I couldn’t think about anything else, but LT training to run a marathon.

“HOW???”

Because I am close to Tom, I know him well so hearing that he had been training for many months to run a full marathon was a big big surprise.

I noticed he had lost weight, but because he still wears the same suits as he did before, I didn’t notice the extent of his weight loss.

She explained that for the past many months, Tom has been waking at 4am every day, running up to 2 hours every day before work …recently he ran a 32km training run.

He doesn’t have coach.
He has absolutely no clue on his nutrition or what he should eat or drink during training.

In his entire life, he has never run.  At all.

But he got into his training, dieted and just went about making his goal happen.

I never saw him limping, and never heard him complain about leg pain.
I had no clue he was even running…and Tom is someone I spend a lot of time with each day.

This past Friday, Tom (LT) ran the Dubai marathon.

I am very proud.

There is a half marathon next month in another Emirate and already 9 people from naseba dubai have entered, and Navid told me last night that he thinks 20+ people from the Dubai office will do it.

It’s “awesome” to see the ambiance in the Dubai office, and all the people coming together training, getting in shape and going after their goals.

Great job to the team.
Great job Tom.

I am very proud.