On a cool Sunday morning in July, I decided to join the Thaarumaaru Runners — a running group for the Indian community — on a long morning run after scrolling through some of their posts on Instagram and Facebook.

While I knew of the usual running groups, this one, which primarily features runners from the Indian community, had exploded into the scene. One of their more viral posts showed Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam joining the group on one of their runs. 

When I arrived at East Coast Park at 6.45am, I found a group of about 40 runners, all clad in blue, waiting for me. "We knew you were coming, so we asked more people to come down," said the group's co-founder Ramesh Selvaraj, 43. 

"Oh nice," I thought. But if the photos of their group runs on their Facebook page were anything to go by, I had a feeling Mr Ramesh was being modest about their numbers.

The group gathers to run mainly on weekends, and occasionally on weekdays. Saturday runs are shorter 6km runs while on Sundays, the group runs longer, up to over 20km. 

The run that I had joined them on was "only" 16km, and even then this would already be my longest run all year.