Erica Charles (centre), a student of Class III at St Teresa’s Secondary School, wakes up at 8.30am on Sundays. This Sunday she was up at 3.30am and had no regrets for that. She ran the 5K with her mother Jasleen Charles (left) and aunt Grace Charles.
The beauty of the wetlands and the people he comes across during the run brings Varun Jalan to the city from Banglaore.
“I have been running in road races for eight years and this is the most beautiful course in the county. I try not to miss this one,” he said.
For Najmuddin Khan and (right) Nalin Jha, students of Class IX at La Martiniere, the 5K Run they had enrolled for was a serious business. “We run all the races in school. This is our first road race and we
are very excited,” said Najmuddin.
Harshita Mundhra, a pastry chef by profession, ran to hug her grandfather Shri Ram Mundhra as he approached the finishing line. The two had started the 5K together but later the grandfather asked her to speed up. “I am still into yoga. Give me any asana and I can do it. That’s why I was able to finish the 5K,” said 80-year-old Mundhra, a businessman. This was his first race and Harshita’s second. “I am a chef. If I don’t run, I will get fat,” she quipped.
“Awesome”. That’s the first word that came to Thopmas Geckler’s (left) mind when asked to describe the scenes he ran through. He was in a group of three French nationals — the other two being Milan Delaporter (second from left) and Lousie Pham Tran. Accompanying them was their friend Pritam Singh, a sport trainer from Calcutta. “We have been hearing a lot about the course and it lived up to the billing every bit,” said Geckler, who is in Calcutta on social work, like Milan and Lousie.
Reporting by Rith Basu;
Pictures by Anup Bhattacharya
