Mumbai Marathon 2014: Mumbai begins with a grand run

Dance, music, cheering, a feeling like carnival and enthusiasm has run rampant through Mumbai streets as large number of Mumbaikars including children, parents, grandparents, celebrities and corporate honchos all came together to run the Mumbai Marathon 2014 on Sunday.

“It’s great fun, but it does challenge you,” said Raghuram Rajan, RBI Governor, one of the main stars of the show. Rajan was participating in the marathon for the first time.

Prominent figures who joined Rajan include Reliance ADA Group chairman Anil Ambani, Edelweiss Group’s Rashesh Shah, N Chandrasekaran of TCS, Pawan Goenka of Mahindra Group, Gagan Banga of Indiabulls and Richard Bickson of Taj Hotels participated in the marathon.

While Gagan Banga completed full marathon, Anil Ambani and Rashesh Shah ran half-marathon. Rests were the part of dream run.

“I managed just under 2 hours for the half marathon. The weather was warmer than expected but the crowd was awesome,” said Rashesh Shah, Chairman and CEO, Edelweiss Group Gagan Banga, MD & CEO of Indiabulls Housing, who completed his 5th full marathon of 42 kms in 3 hours 58 minutes said, “This is a great platform to promote health & fitness in today’s world of stress & unhealthy lifestyle, running a marathon requires a lot of discipline and has several benefits to it from being fit to help raising funds and to increase ones’ ability to focus on themselves”.

"This is a brilliantly organised event. I participated with about 500 other employees who are also part of the Nanhi Kali project, a Mahindra Group NGO that funds education for girl children," said Pawan Goenka, president of automotive and farm equipment sector at Mahindra & Mahindra.

“I have been participating in the marathon for many years. My name was registered this year too, but I couldn't make it this time because of a pain in my leg,” said Deepak Parekh, chairman of HDFC.

Milind Soman, model and actor, who ran the full marathon barefoot, said the number of full marathon runners was about 3,500 compared to about 50,000 in the New York marathon where he had participated in 2009. “So we have a long way to go. But the number of runners in India is definitely exploding,” he said. In its eleventh year, the event saw 39,500 participants.

Nearly 171 corporates including HDFC, TCS, Larsen & Toubro, Glaxosmithkline Pharmaceuticals participated in the marathon under corporate challenge (CC). CC is a category specially designed for companies who wish to sponsor employee teams to participate in the marathon and raise funds for charity.