Sanaya Mehta Vyas was pregnant with daughter Samara when she ran 10km at the Kolkata Marathon nine years ago. On Sunday, mother and daughter matched steps at the 5km Fun Run of the same event.
Road race veteran Sanaya might have gone the distance at the IDBI Federal Life Insurance Kolkata Marathon 2016, partnered by The Telegraph, but opted for the 5K just so that she could put her daughter, a student at La Martiniere for Girls, through her paces in her first road race.
"Samara started with a sprint, but soon realised that the course was too long to keep going at that pace. She has declared that she will practise for next year's race!" said the 30-something businesswoman of her daughter's initiation into long-distance running.
Mother and daughter from Ballygunge were among the 15,000-odd amateur and competition runners who beat the first rays of sun in the race to the city centre for one of the city's more popular events.
Red Road, the starting point, was a sea of orange from end to end at 5.30am as runners clad in the official T-shirt with white-and-indigo bibs lined up for the flag-off. Age didn't matter. Neither did experience. For the hardened road warriors, there was the Full Marathon and the Half Marathon to pick from while the 10K Corporate and Open Run was perfect for those trying to scale up. And the 5K Fun Run was, as the name suggested, meant to be a whole lot of fun.
In the crowd were entire families, students graduating from one distance category to the next, a headmaster who turned up with 100 students, a Ukranian and a Peruvian getting a different perspective of the city from the middle of the road and a cleaner working for a private company. The common link? A passion for running.
Children who turned up in large numbers with their parents added laughter to the atmosphere, among them 70 students of classes III, IV and V of Modern High School for Girls.
A. Confectioner, head of the primary and junior sections of the school, said many of the senior girls might have participated, too, but for examinations. "We had announced during the school assembly just once that classes III to V could register for the event and the response was overwhelming. Each of the girls ran with one or both parents, taking the strength of our contingent to 150."
Confectioner herself ran the 5K with 12 colleagues.
From New Town to New Alipore, many of the participants came with friends from newly formed groups that practise running together and join road races. In one such group was TCS employee Barun Panda, a resident of Uniworld City in New Town. "Seeing my colleagues and neighbours run and benefit from it, I joined in. In just over a year, I have reduced from 100 to 80kg," said the 34-year-old, who ran the 10K.
Sidhant Kumar, Chandan Singh and Birpal Singh of the Indian Coast Guard were seen pulling each other's leg after completing the Half Marathon.
The event also had the odd brave runner like Jahan Mehta, 35, who made his road race debut with a "full marathon". "He had been practising for the last three months and took five hours to complete the course, but he didn't give up till the end," said proud father Noomi Mehta.
The weather was an ally as the runners strained every sinew to complete their chosen distances. When it started to drizzle around 6am, the runners welcomed it with open arms. The rain didn't last but the sun didn't pose a hurdle either until late into the run.
Many of the runners in the 10K category complained about some volunteers misguiding them on the Kalighat route, adding five to six kilometres to their race. "Signage on the course was inadequate and when we asked the volunteers, they misguided us. Also, there were very few water stands and first-aid centres," said Chianna Shah, a student of Class XI at Calcutta International School.
"If we had to run 15km, we could as well have run the 21K," said another participant.
Another gripe was the absence of mats with electronic receivers along the course, except at the start and finish. This, the competitive runners said, was unacceptable because the Kolkata Marathon 2016 was an official race to qualify for the marathon event at the Rio Olympics in August.
"Unfortunately, in one of the races there was a glitch, for which we take full responsibility as organisers and apologise profusely to all those who were inconvenienced. And we promise to ensure that these mistakes are not repeated and all participants have a marathon that they are all proud of," said an official of High Life, the sports management company that organised the race.
In the Full Marathon, Mohammed Younis from Services led the field with a timing of 2:30:37 to bag the purse of Rs 5.2 lakh, the highest prize money for a marathon in India. Bahadur Singh Dhouni finished second to earn Rs 2.6 lakh. Tolly stars Parambrata Chattopadhyay and Abir Chatterjee gave away the prizes to the winners of the marathon and half marathon.
Police commissioner Rajeev Kumar and Lt Gen. Rajeev Tewari, GOC, Bengal Area, had flagged off the Full Marathon and Half Marathon respectively, while Usha Uthup egged on the runners with Don't worry Kolkata...amra tomari Kolkata.
The celebrity turnout also included actors Saswata Chatterjee, Arindam Sil and Jaya Ahsan, and fashion designer Agnimitra Paul. Former cricketer Devang Gandhi, Bengal players Sreevats Goswami and Abhishek Jhunjhunwala, footballers Renedy Singh, Nirmal Chhetri, Luciano and veteran Jamshid Nassiri, and shooter Joydeep Karmakar were there, too.
Proceeds from the event will benefit over 3,000 underprivileged and disabled kids associated with 30 NGOs.
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