A long distance Runners Weblog [ Hari ]

Upcoming Marathons in India

Time To Race !!!!

Bangalore Marathon - September 16th 2007
Chennai Marathon - December 1st week or 2nd week
Singapore Marathon - December 2nd 2007

Though the title says "Upcoming marathons in India", I would like to add Singapore as it one event a few of the Chennairunners have been particpating for the last few years.   Ram Viswanathan  is one runner who has been doing the Singapore marathon and his experience is to go for it. Most of us if time / budget permits will be doing the Singapore Marathon rather than the Chennai marathon. Personally, I've had a bad experience in 2006 Chennai Marathon. Ram Viswanathan and myself had completed around 31kms at 3:00 hrs and the officials stopped us from running. They let the traffic in.. That was the end of our Chennai Marathon. The officials seem to be only concerned about the few professional athletes who RACE. What about the rest. No wonder most people here in India think Marathons are for professional athletes.
In the recent Flora London Marathon, out of around 33,000 participants, some 600 odd did not complete the marathon !!!! I doubt if Chennai marathon would even have 600 participants for the Full marathon.

Yes, media will claim 5000 participants ran the Chennai marathon. Fact is,  most of them run the 7kms Dream run / Celebrity run, probably 200 to 300 participate in the full marathon.

Can anyone enlighten me why ? What can we do for awareness and have it like the "Flora London marathon" with so many people participating?

TNEB "Mini Marathon"

TNEB is conducting a "mini marathon" tomorrow - June 24th in Chennai. This is to celebrate the Golden year , 50th year of TNEB
This will be a 12 kms Race from Elliots Beach to Monroe Statue via Adyar, Marina, LIC building. Most of the regulars from Chennai Runners  will be participating.
June 24th being a sunday is actually a Long run for Chennairunners. Some of us are planning to run to the start point covering around 6 to 7 kms, some of us will continue to run after the finish line !!! Dont know if I will do that
So what's a good time for a 12 kms Race?

Running in different conditions

Chennai had its share of summer this year and now it's Monsoon, an early one this time. Did a 10k run with Chennairunners yesterday on the Marina Beach. Found the light drizzle a pleasure, especially after this blasted heat for the last 3 months. Shumit and Jessica also did the 10k, we wanted to finish the run in 60 mins, managed to cover the distance in 54 mins.
Every morning it rains in chennai and I'm sure to hit the road almost everyday

"The Hindu" coverage on Chennairunners

The Hindu did an article on chennairunners. This article was published today, June11th.  Here's the link
http://www.hindu.com/2007/06/11/stories/2007061103330200.htm
The response is amazing with more than 40 new members signing up.. Few were 50+ young and have a 14 year old boy signing up as well..

Hope this article reaches out to a lot of enthusiasts and create awareness among people to take up running as an activity and to make everyone understand that each one of us can run a Marathon .

Running for a cause

Yesterday, I had an opportunity to run with Dr.Srinivasan who runs a not for profit organization called Jeevan Blood Bank . He runs for a Cause. Check Make blood Free .

His vision is to make available blood for free 24/7.
He will be running the British 10k run on July 1st 2007. He is running for Jeevan Blood Bank.

The Energetic and passionate Dr.Srinivasan is 53 years young and going strong . It all started with one of his close friends challenging him to run the 7k Dream run two years back in the Mumbai marathon.
That was when Dr.Srinivasan decided to run for a cause. His last run he remembers was in early 1970's during his MBBS.
Dr.Srinivasan did the 7k Dream run and as promised his friend donated 7 lakhs INR to the Blood Bank. Now he regularly runs 10 to 12 Kms and would be soon joining chennai runners for the weekend runs.

Running Club in Chennai

Have written a lot about Chennai runners . Finally, we have our own website now www.chennairunners.com
One of us wrote the content, another helped hosting it, someone designed the logo , tagline etc etc. Shows the enthusiasm among the runners.

We hope to become the most recognised Running Program in the country. With Nike , FitnessOne already supporting us, this is not a distant dream especially with people who have been running for years as part of our program.

We train together, swap stories, travel to races, but more importantly, it is belonging to a community, whether it's training for a 5k or a marathon, the common bond of running creates a family.

The site will have all our scheduled runs with routes, probably a discussion forums and much more..