Y
ou don’t need a calendar
to tell you that the third Sunday
of January is approaching: you see the
signs early morning on Marine drive
or Peddar Road or Worli Sea Face.
Men and women, of all ages and sizes,
are panting and puffing their way to
race-level fitness. that’s because the
third Sunday of January each year is
Mumbai Marathon day.
this year the race has a change
in name: tata has replaced Standard
Chartered Bank as the title sponsor. I
know Anil and Vivek Singh of Procam,
the brothers who own the brand and
started the event in 2004 (making
2018 the 15th year of the race), but my
questions regarding the sponsorship
amount only draw cagey smiles. It
must be considerable, since the prize
money alone is $405,000 (nearly
Rs 2.6 crore), making it by far the
richest race in the country. the race
is also the biggest in Asia.
the change in sponsor is not sur-
prising: StanChart Bank is in recovery
mode, while n Chandrasekaran,
the new tata Group Chairman, is a
marathoner himself. I was astonished
to learn that he has run the full mara-
thon many times in different parts of
the world, and his wife too runs the
half marathon. I suppose stamina will
be an asset in his new job.
In its 15 years, the Mumbai
Marathon has certainly got bigger:
there were 20,000 entries when the
race began, while that figure has
now reached 44,000. Most of these
numbers are made up of people who
take part in the so-called ‘dream Run’,
so-called because no one actually runs
the 6 km course; instead, they dawdle,
wave to photographers, gawk at John
Abraham (the perennially popular
face of the race) and stop for selfie after
selfie. In a way, it’s the family’s day
out, encouraged by informal fancy
dress contests (every year you will al-
ways see at least a couple of ‘Mahatma
Gandhis’). there’s certainly a lot of joy
and bonhomie here, but I think—and
I am possibly in a minority—that
after 15 years, it’s time that this
most popular aspect of the Mumbai
Marathon be scrapped. Bigger is not
always better, and what the dream
Run does is take away from the
seriousness of the actual races.
the serious runs are indeed
serious, with the world’s elite runners
going all out to win the large cash
prizes, and also to better the course
records. these were set in 2013 for
women (Valentine Kipketer of Kenya
clocking 2 hours, 24 minutes and 33
seconds) and 2016 for men (Gideon
Kipketer, also of Kenya in 2:08:35).
this year’s winners came pretty close
to these figures, with Solomon deksisa
of ethiopia doing 2:09:34 (men) and
Amane Gobena (also from ethiopia)
finishing in 2:25:49.
At one time, it was thought that
it would be virtually impossible
to come under 2 hours 10 minutes
for men and 2 hours 25 minutes for
women, because the city’s muggy
heat, and the cruel slope of Peddar
Road precludes a faster time. (In case
these things interest you, the fastest
marathon times in the world are
usually recorded in Berlin, where the
race is run on very flat roads). this
year, deksisa was quite clear that he
would have beaten the course record
if he didn’t have to dodge amateurrunners who were coming in his way.
that kind of sums up the dilemma
facing Procam: do they make it a
completely serious race, excluding
all runners below a certain standard,
or keep it open for all comers? there
are valid arguments on both sides.
A serious race would carry more
weight, with no distractions for real
runners; on the other hand, there’s no
doubt that the Mumbai Marathon’s
inclusivity has brought a culture of
fitness into the city which wasn’t there
before. I would strike a balance: scrap
the dream Run, but keep some of the
other elements like the Half Marathon
and the new ‘timed 10 km Run’ which
raises serious money for charity. this
year’s figures haven’t been announced,
but the Mumbai Marathon has raised
Rs 196 crore in its 14 years, benefitting
55 nGos. that’s a considerable feat,
and the ‘timed Run’, in which partici-
pants have to commit a minimum
sum per head, will no doubt add to the
philanthropic side of the event.
Procam has taken the running
culture to other cities too: there’s the
delhi Half Marathon, the Kolkata
25 km run and the Bengaluru 10 km
run. Should it stop there? Let’s look
at the bigger picture: there’s much
breast-beating when our athletes do
badly at the olympics, but why are we
surprised? there’s no sports culture
in our country. I remember my days
at university in england : Wednesday
afternoons, and the whole of Saturday
were given over to sports. everyone
was expected to play or run, and
making it part of the curriculum
conditions your mind to take sports
seriously. Perhaps it’s too much of an
ask for Procam to take an initiative
in this. on the other hand, why not?
Having started something so
worthwhile, why shouldn’t they
take it all the way? nMuMbai Notebook
Anil Dharker
14 12 february 2018