Run Monks
An approach, for Kushagra Sharma
A lone trail runner on a high ridge above a sea of cloud at dawn

A year on the trail. A monk at the end of it.

How I'd build the new Run Monks: a home for the philosophy, and a realm where runners are slowly transformed.

Prepared for Kushagra Sharma by Dhrumil Kherde, with IndieFolio. October 2026.

Read slowly
01 What I heard

The zen mode for runners, grown up.

Running today is sold as a product: race tickets, finisher medals, personal bests, and the next race to show off. You spent ten years in that world and walked out of it.

Run Monks goes the other way. It slows people down and takes them onto trails, along rivers and into the mountains of Arunachal and the Western Ghats. Running is the base. What a runner is really working on is the whole person: body, breath, mind and spirit.

The new platform is where that happens. A runner joins, meets their spirit animal, and spends about a year crossing hurdles, real ultra trails and their own distractions. If they stay with it, they come out the other side part monk, part samurai, and turn around to guide the next runner.

The fitness economyRun Monks
What you sign up forA race ticketA year-long journey
What gets measuredPace and personal bestsHow much you've changed
Where you runCity roads, in a crowdTrails, rivers and mountains, mostly in silence
How it growsAds and follower countsOne runner at a time
Where it endsThe finish lineGuiding the next runner
I don't want to give things easily.

Kushagra, on our call, 30 September

02 Spirit animals

The animal finds the runner.

Rather than asking people to pick from 18 animals they don't know yet, we ask three small questions about how they run. The answers match them to an animal's flow, energy and behaviour, the three qualities you gave every animal. Try it.

4 example animals here. Your 18 replace them.

Answer three questions to meet your animal

The dial holds all 18. Tap an animal to read it.

  1. 01A few questionsSix to eight small running scenarios, about two minutes. Each one scores flow, energy and behaviour. These three are the demo.
  2. 02The revealThe dial turns to their animal: what it means for how they run, what it's strong at, and which distraction it's weakest against.
  3. 03Switch if it doesn't fitThey can read every other animal and switch once, in the first week. People should feel the animal found them and still have a say.
  4. 04It guides the yearDaily and weekly tasks take on the animal's character. A Snow Leopard's first task is different from a Hornbill's.