City sees marathon change in attitude to running

C R Praveen Kumar, a 37-year-old entrepreneur, started running in 2013, doing continuous laps at the Anna Nagar Tower Park. “I started running for weight loss. When I was jogging at the Tower Park, a few people suggested that I join the local running group, Tower Twisters. When I joined the group, there were less than 10 people running together regularly. Now, the numbers have shot up to almost 30-40. We also participate in marathons in other cities, where we travel together and have a lot of fun,” he said, adding that running the Mumbai Marathon was an exhilarating experience.

Tracing the exponential growth in the popularity of running, Preeti Aghalayam, Former President of Chennai Runners, a running community, said that the number of local chapters have increased over the years. “Four years ago, there were hardly five chapters of Chennai Runners in various localities. Now, we have close to 17 chapters, which meet regularly during the week and run together. There are coordinators for every group, who put out information on assembly point and timings. In fact, many running groups have a planned workout schedule, incorporating core workouts and strength training. For example, Pettai Rappers, the running group in Alwarpet which I run with, has “Flyover runs”, where we run up and down the Cathedral Road flyover. They also hire coaches, to ensure their running gets better and injuries are reduced,” said the runner.

On July 23, the GAVS Dream Runners Half Marathon took place, officially kick starting the marathon season in the city. Dream Runners is a running community that was started in 2008. Dinesh Victor, Trustee, Dream Runners, said that they started the marathon in 2012, for the city’s runners. “For the first edition, we had 400 runners. In our 2017 edition, we have close to 5,000 runners. This increase is due to the fact that a lot of people are aware about the need for fitness and the advent of lifestyle diseases. The number of women who participate is also increasing. We also have people taking up running to lose weight and they get addicted to running and make it a part of their lives. There is an understanding that fitness has to be a part of your lifestyle and people are doing that through running,” he said.