Over the last 10 months I have asked you questions in various polls that accompany my articles. And there’s another one at the bottom of this article. Sometimes the topic of the poll is directly related to the article, at other times it is not. I promised you a few months ago that I would give you the results of those polls and so now today I am going to do just that.  There are 10 of them, and I present them in chronological order with the oldest one first.

1. Your experience with Pacers at SCMM-2015
2. Your primary motivation to register to run in a race
3. What you do with your pair of running shoes
4. The happiest memories of your life are from…
5. Do you think the popular running races in India are fairly priced?
6. Your number hours of TV (incl news) or movie watching per week
7. Given a choice, you would prefer to spend a weekend in…
8. Vitamin-D blood tests and you
9. The biggest improvements in your health are from…
10. Running, Beautiful Bodies and You

Now, remember, a few thousand readers like you have been the respondents, and so the results are not representative of the general population. (Not everyone is wise, talented, fit and beautiful like you, right?) So extending the conclusions to the general population might not always make sense. Nonetheless, with each, I comment very briefly about something that strikes me as interesting or odd. Here goes…

Your experience with Pacers at SCMM-2015

In a previous article I had advised that pacers ought to be placed at frequent intervals with the same profile as the finishing times of the running population. Therefore, the results of this poll did not surprise me. There is a lot of brouhaha about pacers in a race but, in practice, only a small fraction used pacers in this particular race.

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My primary motivation to register to run in a race is

Now, remember that you were allowed to choose only one response. It is interesting that so many of you use the races as motivation to run regularly. I would like you to think about whether you really do need a public race to motivate yourself to run to stay fit. I was hoping that a much larger percentage saw races primarily as events to meet others whom they would not normally meet when working out.

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When I buy a pair of shoes to run in…

I bet this ratio has reversed over time as recreational running has become a serious part of many people’s regime for staying fit.  With running shoes getting dearer by the day, I can see the numbers becoming even more polarized.

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The happiest memories of my life are from…

This is one of my favourite polls, and I will write about this again soon. Notice how half of you had your best days (so far) before you got into employment! It is not surprising then that the first job does not come with the happiest memories despite a manifold increase in spending power!

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The race registration fee for the most popular races in India

If you are in the business of running events please pay attention to this. Note that “Expensive” is always relative to what is offered back in return for money.

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My typical hours of TV (incl news) or movie watching per week are

This one disturbed me a lot! As many as 1-in-6 of you spend more than 10 hours a week watching a TV screen! And almost half of you watch more than 4 hours of TV a week! These are all self-reported numbers so many of you could be way off the mark in terms of the true (unknown) number. I would have also loved to have the equivalent “number of hours per week on exercise” for each respondent but asking that in the same poll would have biased the self-reported numbers away from TV and towards exercise.

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Given a choice, I would prefer to spend a weekend in

About half of you live in neither Mumbai nor Delhi. From that, almost 3 times as many prefer to spend the weekend in Mumbai, rather than Delhi!  Are you listening, Mr Prime Minister??

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Vitamin-D blood test

In recent years there has been a lot of hype about Vitamin-D and deficiencies. Is it really possible that almost 4 out of 10 of you are deficient in it? And, what about the remaining 5 out of 6 who did not take a test (perhaps because it was never prescribed?)? Are they better off not knowing about a deficiency that might not really be a deficiency? Hey, I’m just asking!!

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For me, personally, the biggest improvements in my health are from

That most of you appreciate the importance of both exercise and diet is encouraging. And, so I am not so happy that almost 1-in-5 think that it is mostly exercise that will give you big improvements in health. You are what you eat! Do have a look at these.

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Running and Beautiful Bodies

This question was accompanied with my chat about why you need not run and so you might have been swayed in your response. As many as 4-out-of-10 had thought that running would deliver beautiful bodies. A third of those changed their opinion, and two-third continued to believe it would. And, do we really see a quarter of those who only run for exercise presenting beautiful bodies in the course of time? Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beer holder!

Save the last dance at the poll
Those were the polls so far. Thank you for participating in as many as you could. If you want to see the full video of the event when I was at that pole on a ferry, here it is, just pump up the volume!

And now, if you are not fed up of poles or polls, I’d like your (anonymous) opinion please?

Dr Purnendu Nath spends his waking hours focusing on helping individuals and organizations reach their goals, to make the world a better place. He speaks, writes and advises on topics such as finance, investment management, discipline, education, self-improvement, exercise, nutrition, health and fitness, leadership and parenting.