Beyond the finish line: 25 runners, nine editions and a decade-long bond with the Adani Ahmedabad Marathon

Ahmedabad, Oct 15 (IANS) As the Adani Ahmedabad Marathon prepares to celebrate its 10th edition on November 29 this year, 25 runners stand out for a remarkable distinction: they have participated in every edition since the event began in 2017.

From a family tradition shaped by loss to a life-changing journey toward better health and a test of personal discipline, their stories show how the annual race has become more than a sporting event for those who return year after year.

The marathon, which drew more than 24,000 participants in 2025, has grown significantly since its early editions. Yet for this group of 25, the connection goes beyond the event’s growing scale. Work commitments, family responsibilities and personal challenges have not stopped them from returning to the starting line.

For freelance content writer Shini Nair, who divides her time between Ahmedabad and Singapore, the journey began without any particular ambition to become a runner. Her husband had registered her and their young son for the inaugural edition’s 5K, intending it as a family outing. What began spontaneously soon became an annual tradition.

That tradition took on a different meaning in 2022, when Shini lost her son in a bike accident. Their final race together had been the 10K, the distance she has continued to run at every edition since.

“It’s the one race I will never miss,” she said. “We started this together as a family, on a whim really, and it turned into something we did every year without fail. After I lost him, running the 10K became less about the distance and more about staying close to that memory. My running has been on and off since then; some years I train properly, some years I barely run at all, but this event is different. Regardless of my conditioning at the time before the race, I always show up. In 2024 I was down with severe diarrhoea and couldn’t even keep water down on race day, but I still finished. Skipping it was never really an option in my head.”

For Shini, participation is no longer measured by preparation or performance. Returning to the same distance each year has become a way of preserving a bond that began with a family decision and endured through unimaginable grief.

Gopinath Dhandapani’s association with running, meanwhile, began with a deeply personal reckoning with health. Fourteen years ago, weighing 90 kilograms and wearing 40-inch trousers, he watched his father die from a heart attack complicated by diabetes. With his mother’s health deteriorating and his siblings beginning to develop diabetes, he decided to change his lifestyle, turning to running as a means of taking control of his own well-being.

Over time, that decision developed into a commitment to helping others. Gopinath works as Head of Sales while also serving as a certified running coach, mentoring more than 200 members of the River Front Runners group. Across 14 years, he has covered more than 40,000 km, completed over 600 half marathons and officially paced more than 30 races.

One of the five inaugural ambassadors of the Adani Ahmedabad Marathon in 2017, he has watched the event evolve alongside his own running journey.

“When I look back at where I started, unhealthy, overweight, watching my own family struggle with the same illnesses that took my father, running feels like it saved me,” he said. “Once I felt what it did for me, I wanted other people to feel it too; that’s really why I started coaching. This marathon has been part of that journey from the very beginning; I’ve watched it grow from a small local race into something the whole city plans its year around. I keep coming back because a part of the registration fee goes to the Army, and I have friends who’ve served and told me what that life actually costs them. Running this race every year is the least I can do to say thank you for that.”

His story brings together personal transformation, community building and the marathon’s wider purpose. For Gopinath, the event offers an opportunity not only to celebrate the benefits of running but also to support a cause that holds personal significance.

For Aan Godiawala, a manager at Deloitte, running became a defining test of consistency after years of staying fit through football and gym workouts. In 2023, he challenged himself to run every day for 365 consecutive days, maintaining the streak through business travel, weddings, festivals and other competing demands.

“There were days I really didn’t want to run,” he said. “Frequent work trips, weddings, vacations, festivals, even the rain- none of it could become an excuse once I’d committed to the streak. It stopped being about the run itself pretty quickly and became a test of whether I could stay disciplined when nothing about the day made it convenient. That mindset has stuck with me since, at work and outside it.”

The year-long challenge eventually led Aan to complete his first full marathon in 2024. He also pursued a certified marathon trainer course to understand better the science behind the physical demands he had placed on himself.

His association with the Ahmedabad event, however, predates that transformation. The inaugural edition marked his first half marathon, which he ran because his father had been a lifelong runner. Returning each year has since become a way to reconnect with the city, the running community, and the beginnings of his own journey.

“Coming back to this race every year feels like a reunion, with the city, with the running community, and honestly with the version of myself that started this journey,” he added.

The experiences of Shini, Gopinath and Aan illustrate the different meanings a single sporting event can hold. For one, it preserves a deeply personal memory; for another, it represents a commitment to health and service; and for the third, it is a reminder of the discipline that first drew him into long-distance running.

As part of the 10th edition celebrations, Adani Sportsline will felicitate all 25 runners who have completed every edition of the marathon to date on November 29, 2026.

The event’s #Run4OurSoldiers initiative, through which a share of registration proceeds supports the welfare of India’s armed forces, remains an important part of its identity. More than 3,000 defence personnel participated in the marathon last year, underlining its connection with the military community.

–IANS

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