Run for color!

Astana Toastmasters Club is opening this summer season with a unique event - a colorful 3K and 7K charity run to help city go green! The run will be held in the Triathlon Park in Astana on Sunday, June 3. To find out more about the event, we interviewed Kamila Bekshentayeva (Dagilova), one of the organizers of this marvellous event.

Hello, Kamila! You are organizing a great event for us: ATC Summer Color Run 2018. Sounds exciting! Where did the idea for the marathon come from?

Hello! Yes, and I’m not alone in this venture. The organizing team consists of long-term members, officers, and the President of Astana Toastmasters Club himself. So I get a lot of support from my dreamteam. The idea for the run derived from "ЯРКОкросс", the charity run, where runners begin dressed in clean white T-shirts and then as they pass a certain kilometre of the marathon they are being blasted with the dyed flour. I have never participated in a Color Run before but I always wanted to. So I thought why not make ATC marathon a bit brighter this year? Color powder has been already purchased. So put on your white T-shirts (not super expensive ones) and come run with us! The highlight of the event will be planting willow trees after the run in the BI group's Triathlon park.

It’s a fascinating idea about mixing tree planting and the ATC run. It seems all the participants will have a great and healthy physical activity. How did you come up with this idea and what is your vision for this event?

The idea was to make this event, as the last year's, charitable. Yet, as it became apparent from the last marathon’s results, not much money was left after organizing the run to donate, so I sought for the alternatives. My husband inspired me with the idea of making a gift to Astana from Astana Toastmasters Club. Originally, we thought of benches and sculptures but they are too expensive. Then we came up with the idea of planting trees. Astana is a beautiful city, but it lacks trees, so why not plant them? Trees provide shade, release oxygen, make place look greener and nicer. If planted correctly, they can survive for much longer. I'm sure the whole experience of planting trees will be joyous and make the participants feel proud of themselves. By posting pictures in Instagram happy marathon runners can show their family and friends what a productive day they have spent with us!

Can you tell us more about the event's itinerary?

Sure.

09:00-09:15 Registration

09:15-09:30 Welcome

09:30-10:00 Warm-up session

10:00-12:00 Color Run

12:00-12:30 Awarding session

12:30-14:00 Planting trees

We start off with the registration of the participants: each participant will receive a runner kit which contains a registration number and a bottle of still mineral water. There will be warm-up exercises before the start of the marathon. The warm-up session will be led by an experienced marathon runner Yakima Kozlov from Moscow. We will then run a marathon. After the run we will award the winners and runner-ups. The participants will have time to mingle around, have snacks, stretch out after the run. Once we're done with the marathon, we will proceed with the main purpose of the event, which is to plant trees.

What about the Awards and Prizes for the runners?

In total we are giving away 12 awards for male and female participants in a 3K and 7K run, respectively. Depending on how many people we attract to run in our marathon, we may consider purchasing smaller prizes for our less successful participants.

What is your own inspirational marathon story? What advice do you have for novice runners?

My running experience started in 2010 in Boston, MA. If you live in Boston and you are not running, then something is wrong with you (laughs). Everybody’s running there. Along Charles river, Harvard, MIT, BU campuses. This most awesome place for runners featured in Haruki Murakami’s book, as well. Since Boston I run marathons. To keep mysef in a better shape, I go running 2-3 times a week. The toughest place for running was Singapore because of its extreme heat and humidity. I got to know my husband when we were both running a marathon near the lake Balkhash while we were both working for Samsung. I skipped the whole year of 2017 due to being pregnant but soon after I gave birth to my baby I resumed going running again to lose 10 kilos I gained during my pregnancy. To run is to live! Just relax and let the run come out of you.

Thank you, Kamila for your time!

We hope you enjoy this event! Even if you are not much into running you can still participate in this run - you can run, walk, crawl or cartwheel if you wish! Anything you can do for a good cause! 60 participants have registred so far! Be the next! The registration is open till the 30th of May, 2018.

About Kamila:

👥 Joined Astana Toastmasters Club (ATC) in January 2016. Member since October 2017. Learned about the club from her university pal.

👪 From Almaty. Married, has one child.

🎓 Engineer. Graduate of Penn State (Pennsylvania State University).

🍫 Chocolate addict.

⛾ Tea expert - served as Tea Officer at the Tea Institute at Penn State (where she learned all about the art of tea making 💃)