His story
From Back Pain to 16 Marathons
Bala Sankaran is an RRCA Certified long-distance running coach and an active runner since 2006. He considers himself a recreational marathoner, passionate about the sport and the mental and physical health benefits it offers everyone.
Bala Sankaran is an RRCA Certified long-distance running coach. He is an active runner since 2006 and considers himself a recreational marathoner who is passionate about the sport of long-distance running and has enjoyed the immense mental and physical health benefits the sport offers to all. Bala is the Head Coach & Founder of 'Runners High With Bala'. He actively serves to further the mission and vision of the club in promoting running not only as a healthy lifestyle opportunity but also as a powerful medium to create and connect amazing human beings.
Bala began his running journey as a rank outsider. In his early 30s, he was ridden with debilitating lower back pain, was overweight, and was having a busy work life that gave no personal time whatsoever. A moment of epiphany came through a friend and Bala decided to embark on long-distance running. A journey that has transformed his life and his fitness. He continues this passion to this day almost 2 decades later!
While Bala is not a super-fast runner, he makes it up with his consistency and passion for the sport. To date, Bala has completed 16 Full marathons (NYC-2, Philly, Chicago, LA, NJ, Berlin-2, DC, Newport News, Boston Virtual, Tokyo, CIM,Istanbul,Phoenix, London) and 60+ half marathons. With a full marathon personal record (PR as is called in the running world) of 4h:50m and a half marathon of 2h:10m, he chugs along! He believes in running for health and fun as opposed to running for records and medals. His current training regimen is geared toward running 2 full marathons every year.
Looking back at his running journey, for the first 10 years, Bala was running by himself and took part in various races with his own training gleaned from the net.
He would run whenever he could, however he can and whichever way works best! After all he thought, "if I just keep doing it, I would eventually get better!". Boy! Was he wrong! His early runs were essentially exercises in pain management and attrition. He knew he was doing something wrong but was not able to put a finger on it.
All this changed when Bala met his Coach Sheri Lubinewski, who is an RRCA Certified Coach and an accomplished long-distance runner. She introduced Bala to the science and art of long distance running. A structured long distance training program with adequate thought given to nutrition and rest changed the way Bala ran. He went from running being a painful injury-ridden hobby to running being a painless, pleasurable and fun activity! As Bala experienced this transformation, he also decided to share his learnings and experiences to others who may be in the same spot as he was in 2006 - 'Runners High With Bala' was born!
Professionally, Bala served till recently(June'26) as VP (Global Ops) for LinkedIn in their Media solutions group. He joined LinkedIn after founding AlphaOri Technologies Inc as a CEO, a tech startup in the merchant marine space. He eventually led to a successful exit of Alpha Ori Technologies with a merger transaction with ZeroNorth. He later served on the board of the joint company and was an advisor to the CEO of the joint entity. Prior to his current gig, Bala spent many years leading Operations for Twitter & Google post working as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company. Bala began his career as a merchant marine engineer where he spent 10 years sailing the high seas on board Oil and Chemical tankers as an engineer of which he served 4 years as Chief Engineer before making the transition to B-school & tech.
Apart from running, bala enjoys the mountains, taking folks to the mountains on expeditions, playing a round of golf and poker with friends. Recently started to dabble with Pickle ball as well!
- 2006Started running after struggling with back pain and weight
- First 10 yearsTrained alone using what he found online
- After meeting Coach SheriStructured training made running painless; founded Runners High With Bala
- Today16 full marathons, 60+ halves; aiming for 2 full marathons a year