It was the prize distribution ceremony of the XYZ Marathon. I had participated in the Half Marathon category and was relaxing nearby.
I had this genuine doubt, not just that day, but many a time earlier, as to how such running events get their name. There are so many running events where the races are over 5 km, 10 km or 21.10 km, but are called Marathons, even though the actual marathon, a race over a distance of 42.195 km is not a part of the event.
Today, there are many such events in India. It looks like every self-respecting panchayat, mohalla, town or city would like to host nothing less than a marathon.
My reverie was broken by the local politician who took the stage. I was surprised to know that he too had a part in organising the event. At least, he claimed to be an organiser. As is the wont of most of our politicians, the moment he had a mike in his hands and a captive audience in front of him, he just took off. He claimed to be the person who had organised the first edition of the event many years back.
And then it clicked - no wonder it is called the XYZ Marathon, even though the main category over all the years has always been the half-marathon (21.10 km). Isn’t it a typical trait of a politician? Delivering only 50% (or even less) of what is promised?
Later that day I went through the annual calendar of running events in India, say for example on https://indiarunning.com/marathon-calendar.html (there may be some other such sites too). It had listed a whopping 939 running events in India for 2019. Out of these, a staggering 136 events had the word Marathon as part of the name but did not have the 42.195 km event.
Some of these non-marathon events had very impressive names, like Mighty India Marathon (5 km race), NextGen Marathon (8 km) and Corporate Marathon (10 km).
As a matter of interest, I felt I must check how do the other countries fare in this regard. I could not find the running calendars of our neighbours, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
So no comparison possible with our neighbours. Let us spread the net wider.
In the running calendars of Malaysia (https://www.justrunlah.com/running-events-calendar-malaysia/ ) and Singapore (https://www.runsociety.com/calendar/singapore/ ) I could not find any event with the word ‘marathon’ in its name, if it was not having a 42.195 km race.
So also Australia (https://www.runningcalendar.com.au/calendar/running/ ) and the United Kingdom (https://www.runbritain.com/races ).
This is the website of the Association of International Marathons and Distance Races (AIMS) and here too the word ‘marathon’ is used only in those events which have a 42.195 km race:-
If what I have inferred from the above data is correct, then this affliction of calling even a 5 km race a marathon is an Indian speciality.
Does it say something about us as a society? Why call an event a ‘marathon’ if it does not have a 42.195 km race? Why call a 5 km or 8 km or 10 km race a ‘marathon’? If it is a 5 km race, there should be no shame or loss or prestige and dignity in naming it accordingly. For me an ABC City 5K Race is more respectable than ABC City Marathon if the main event is a 5 km run.
Since such events attract school going children in large numbers, what would be the message to those impressionable minds, that any run is a marathon?
I do not wish to sound like a sceptic, but is it not symptomatic of our propensity to show off, our ‘chalta hai’ attitude for detail? How cool it is to post a selfie on social media, duly captioned “After participating in So-and-So Marathon” and to start counting the likes and the ‘Wow, so cute’ comments which are soon to follow. The actual distance run, would be anything but a regular marathon. Maybe a half-marathon, maybe 10K, or 5K.
I have had the satisfaction of being instrumental in changing the name of one such annual event.
For five years, February 2012 to February 2017, I served as the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) of Indian Institute of Management Indore (IIM I).
Every year, as part of the Foundation Day celebrations, IIM I conducts one such event on 02 October. In 2012, my first year at IIM I, it was called the Indore Marathon. A student from the second year of the Post Graduate Program (PGP-2) was the Coordinator of the event. Though he functioned under the Chair Hostel & Student Affairs (H & SA), a faculty member, the event was entirely student driven. The route, the distance, the sponsors, the administrative arrangements, the prize money, everything was planned by the students.
As the CAO I got to interact with some of the members of the Coordinator’s team when they met me to facilitate their requirements of manpower, transport and support from the civil administration.
As a keen long distance runner, I was very eager to participate in an event organised by the students of my Institute.
Though it was called the Indore Marathon, an actual marathon was not part of the event. There were two events:-
- The major event was a run which started from Dussehra Maidan, in the heart of Indore city. The finish line was at the Institute. Total distance about 11 km.
- The other event was a three km run within the IIM I campus.
I took part in the 11 km event and noted a number of shortcomings, in the execution of the event, as seen through the eyes of a participant.
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IIM Indore 02 October 2012
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In 2013, when I got an opportunity to have a discussion with the coordinator and his team for the 02 October event I suggested that they have a rethink about the name of the event. Calling an event a marathon and doing only 11 km was an act of deception, I told them. But they pleaded that they had already done plenty of spadework and that the sponsors and some other stakeholders would need to be taken into confidence to carry out any change. To cut a long story short, they just did not have the will to make any changes, their underlying philosophy being “Why shake the apple cart?”
So, it remained Indore Marathon in 2013 too.
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IIM Indore 02 October 2013
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So also in 2014.
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| IIM Indore 02 October 2014 |
By any standards, the Indore Marathons which I saw in IIM I from 2012 were not very well organised.
The foremost reason was that though such events were under the Chairperson (H & SA), it devolved solely on the students to organise the events. The committee would be headed by PGP-2 students. They were the ones who would do the planning. They were the ones who conducted the event. Of course, they sought help from their juniors, the PGP-1 students, who did exactly what they were told to do. Period. The day the event ended, the core group closed shop and pulled down its shutters for the year. There was no system of obtaining feedback, there was no system of recording lessons learnt and there was no system of incorporating the lessons in the next year’s event. There were occasions when they would not honour commitments made to the sponsors or other stakeholders and would just switch off their mobiles and become incommunicado. The exasperated sponsors would then call us up and we had to get involved in the firefighting. The next year a new team would be in place with no one from the previous year’s team. They would start from scratch and nobody would know that last year amongst a host of other issues, the CAO had pointed out about the name of the event, about the chaos created by the traffic from the opposite side at Junction X, the rampant use of shortcuts by some participants and so on. The same glaring shortcomings surfaced year after year and the event suffered due to the lack of continuity in the students’ committee.
In late 2014, the authorities from a well known academic institution nearby visited me with some of their students to invite me as the chief guest of a marathon which they had planned. When I learnt that their idea of a marathon was a 6 km race, I requested them to change the name of the event. They were taken aback. They heard me out but expressed their inability to change the name at that stage. I then politely declined to be the chief guest.
I narrated this incident to some of the student members of the organising team in my efforts to get them to change the name of the event. Ultimately my persistence did pay off. The IIM I annual event on 02 October which was hitherto fore known as Indore Marathon was finally rechristened Udaan in 2015 and the credit for this goes in no small measure to Professor Rohit Kapoor, a very enthusiastic and dynamic faculty member who had taken over as the Chair H & SA. He also felt that there was merit in what I had been trying to convey to the students.
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| IIM Indore 02 October 2015 - No more Indore Marathon, but Udaan |
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| Udaan 2015 - During the prize distribution |
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| Udaan 2015: A proud moment for me, giving away prize to one of the winners in the Armed Forces category - to someone from my own Regiment |
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| Udaan 2015: With the members of the team which had come from my own Regiment to participate in the event |
In 2016, the event underwent a total transformation. There were three events held that day:-
- A half-marathon (IIM I to Dusshera Maidan and back).
- A 11 km run.
- A 3 km run.
The Institute formally dissociated itself with the name Indore Marathon and allowed the organisers of an Indore based runners group who had been organising a proper 42.195 km run to use the name thereafter.
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| IIM Indore Udaan 2016 |
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| Udaan 2016 |
Before I end, a pleasant incident from a running event in which I participated recently
I had recently participated in the Manipal Marathon (Manipal Half Marathon would have been the correct name) held on 17 February 2019. Soon after the event I was standing near the Finisher poster when an official student-photographer volunteered to take my picture. He told me that he would give me a hard copy of the picture in half an hour, at the same place.
When after even more than an hour there was no trace of him, I sought the assistance of another student-photographer, who directed me to a merchandise booth nearby. There yet another student did his best to look for my picture, but to no avail. I decided to return
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When after even more than an hour there was no trace of him, I sought the assistance of another student-photographer, who directed me to a merchandise booth nearby. There yet another student did his best to look for my picture, but to no avail. I decided to return home, but the persistent youngster was not willing to let me go empty-handed. Finally, we struck a deal. He promised me that he would look for the picture personally and somehow get it for me. I came back home with his contact number. He kept his word and the next day I received the picture.
Later that evening he sent me the following message:-
I was not aware of the so-called public domain that he had mentioned. But I did send him my thoughts.
I was pleasantly surprised to see this:-
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