Message on track

Milind Soman with Spoorthi Seethamma Muruvanda, Jayraman Rankawat, Sandeep Raj and Inderpal Khalsa smiling for the camera as they crossed Gurugram

Maintaining a healthy life in the chaos of everyday chores could turn out to be quite an uphill task. Especially for women, who usually tend to ignore their health because they have an entire household to look after. In an attempt to raise awareness and encourage more women to adopt a healthier lifestyle for themselves as well as their families, two marathon runners from Mumbai completed a distance from Jaipur to Delhi. The run was organised by Pinkathon in collaboration with the United Sisters Foundation.

Pinkathon is perhaps India’s most prominent women’s run, founded by model, actor and fitness enthusiast Milind Soman and Reema Sanghavi. The marathon is a one of a kind platform where one can see only women running — the platform is dedicated to its cause. The duty of an ambassador with Pinkathon is to train women who have never ever tried running as a part of their fitness regime.

Last week, five runners, among whom two were from the city, covered a distance of 260 km in 66 hours, non-stop. Jayaraman Rankawat, one of the two Mumbaikars who completed the run tells us that it was through Pinkathon that he found a reason to get fit.

Originally from Rajasthan, Jayaraman tells us how he got into running. “An unhealthy, sedentary lifestyle, irregular sleeping habit — all this was taking a toll on me and I was putting on a lot of unwanted weight. And I realised how important it was to get healthier. The Standard Chartered marathons motivated me to take up running.”

Like all healthy habits, running wasn’t easy for Jayaraman. He tells us that the first time he ran, he experienced a lot of physical pain. “I started with running small distances. Slowly, the distance meant nothing and I found the running therapeutic. There were several things I wanted to think about and the longer I ran, the longer I found time for myself — I started running for myself.”

Sharmila Munj, Pinkathon ambassador and a mother of a 12-year-old girl points out at the challenge of staying fit. “When you are a mother, you don’t have holidays,” she explains.

“The most important part about starting a healthier life,” she adds, “Is just being there. Showing up — that’s all. You have to become a student again — start learning in small ways. It all comes down to going back to your childhood,” she signs off.