Indore: Cutting loose from their routine Sunday schedule, nearly 3000 people from all walks of lives participated in Udaan, the flagship marathon of Indian Institute of Management Indore, on Sunday.
Brimming with excitement and enthusiasm, IIM Indore witnessed the successful 12th edition of its marathon. This year’s theme was “Run for a Healthier Community”. Additional SP (Narcotics), Indore, Dilip Soni was chief guest on the occasion.
The event saw people of various age groups ranging from 7 to 57 years old taking part. Team Udaan organised three marathons - Half Marathon (21 km), Endurance (11 km), and Dream Run (3 km) and were categorised into Open, Corporate and Defence Categories. A special category called Veteran run was also organised for people aged 45 and above.
The first race was flagged off at 6:15 am by Soni. The participants had to start from the cricket stadium at IIM Indore, go through Rau, Annapurna road, the Dusshera Maidan and finally return to the starting point.
Rampal Sharma, a 57 year old shopkeeper in Indore won the Endurance category. He was followed by Naveen Sharma and Ashok Arzare who stood second and third respectively.
Rajkumar Gupta won the Half Marathon and was closely followed by Dr Bharat Rawat, Vijay Sohani, Subash Masih, and Amit Garg. Among females, Shona Yadav, Madhuri Humayu, and Neha Gautam emerged as winners. RJ Sagar, the CMO of School (start-up school) awarded the prizes to the winners alongside Prof Sanjeev Tripathi, chair, Marketing Area & Faculty, IIM Indore, who also participated in the race.
He addressed the gathering and spoke about the importance of coming together for a cause such as this.
The first edition of Udaan took off in 2008 with an objective to make a difference in the society. Until 2016, Udaan was called Indore Marathon and every year, Udaan associated itself with a social cause and created maximum awareness about it. Udaan runs with Mahatma Gandhi’s vision - “Be the change we wish to see in the world”.
