Marathon Culture in India

Running has been a love long before it was a trend

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I see that Marathon has become a trend of late. In my opinion, nothing beats the passion and endurance of the OG runners of Namma Bengaluru. Those early hours in the city, the barely lit streets, where we gazed at the BBMP pourakarmikas, the misty Bangalore, the empty streets looked so wide, much before the traffic occupied them. Back in the early 90s, marathons started with the Sunfeast Marathon, my Coach narrated. TomTom was used to track runs. Strava did not exist back then! I’m so happy that those runners are still in great form to date. They did not prep for any specific event as such, but rather trained all year, as fitness has always been their lifestyle.

In contrast to now, I see the runners now target and train for a specific race and then disappear. Nothing wrong in being choosy about the events that we participate in and train for the same. We see a mad rush of people enrolling and joining the training runs for the TCS 10k, which is the biggest event in the city. But I wish they did train irrespective of the races, balancing the gym schedules, other fitness activities like Pickleball or Swimming or Badminton, which are their other choices.

The most disappointing thing about the Marathon culture recently is the misinterpretation of the term Marathon itself. By definition, a Marathon is 42.195 kms or 26.2 miles worldwide. Whereas the events categories call it…