Marathon hearts

With the carnival atmosphere and crowds providing additional lung power, Khurshid Mistry completed the 21 km of the half marathon in a time of one hour and 53 minutes at the Ninth Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon (SCMM) on January 15, 2012. The creditable timing took her to the podium in third place in the Veteran Women (40-49 years) category. "Among Indian women I stood second (the second place winner being a foreigner.) Running the Marathon is a great experience. The atmosphere is charged with energy and when that is attached to the various charitable causes, it’s a complete win-win on all fronts,” says the experienced athlete. There were 9,821 runners (men and women) in the half marathon this year, as per the SCMM website.

With sprint being her medal-winning specialization, in her case the transition to long distance running was "quite seamless,” she says. "I enjoyed it. I need to stop speed training and switch to long distance training at least three months prior to the Marathon to build the required endurance.” This involves slope running, long runs on roads with repetitions of one to two km, etc, with increasing routine levels. In 2008 she had run the half marathon in two hours four minutes and placed fifth among Veteran Women. "Subsequently my aim was to run it in less than two hours. However due to injury, I could not run the marathon for nearly four years. The most difficult this year were the final five km as by that time I had started getting cramps in my foot and calf which slowed the pace as well as made it difficult to complete the race. It’s a lot of hard work and self-motivation is the thing that works best! It drives me on to set a new goal for the next marathon run!” says the lady who trains every day at Priyadarshini Park under coach Dinanath Maurya and holds a full-time job as associate vice president at UTI Mutual Fund.

Khurshid Mistry in action at the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon 2012

For a community ‘branded’ as aging and dwindling, there were many more marathon endeavors from the young and not-so-young! The SCMM website lists several names as having successfully completed the grueling 42 km of the full marathon. Cyrus Mehta clocked 3:54:48 and with it a Veteran category rank of 23. Farhad Kapadia with a time of 4:17:14 achieved a rank of 44 in the same category. Paurus Irani, Noshir Marshall, Russa Mehta were all successful Veterans. Ariez Kharas secured a category rank of 15 in the Senior Veteran group! Hormuzd Mehta, Jeme Kerawalla and Adil Nargolwala are among those mentioned as having run successfully in the Open Category. Ervad Jehangir Mobedji once again competed in the arduous race.

In the half marathon, Dr Aashish Contractor ran in a time of 1:42:50, securing a rank of 132 in the Open category. Sorab Sadri ranked 242, Cyrus Contractor stood 263 in the same group. Cusrow Sadri, Cyrus Shroff, Fabian Katrak, Farzad Wadia, Rustom Vesavevala, Hormaz Pithawala, Shirzad Khory and Berzis Irani are all mentioned within the top 1,000 category ranks. Ayesha Broacha and Pervin Batliwala completed their run in 2:12:02 and 2:13:22, placing within the highest 1,500. Ervad Aspi Rao, in his fifth participation at the SCMM, ran the 21 km and not the 42 km this time, completing it in three hours. Ervad Yazad Mobedji, despite medical problems, participated for the second consecutive year. A Parkinson’s patient, 76-year-old Zend Merwan Zend showed spirit to complete the six km Dream Run (see "Marathon achievement.” Events and Personalities, pg 34). Many more, too numerous to list, ran for their cause.