Thaindian News

By Manisha

Navi Mumbai, Dec.12 (ANI): Around 300 runners participated in a twenty-one kilometer-long barefoot half marathon organised by the Barefoot Runners of India Foundation (BRIF) here on Sunday.

Most of the participants in the marathon were the residents of Thane and students of Mumbai University.

One of the international barefoot runners, Anantraman, said there is a need to nurture the native talent, as running barefoot comes naturally to Indian runners and they can make India proud internationally in such a feat.

“In USA if one or two persons run barefoot, he becomes a hero. But here, there are so many heroes. So, we thought that we would organise this (barefoot) marathon and three hundred boys (participants) would show to the world that in our country many people can run barefoot,” said Anantraman.

The BRIF claimed that it is the first barefoot half marathon in the world, which is tentative to mark its entry into Guinness Book of World Records.

Vijay Garg, the organiser of the marathon, has planned to conduct such marathon in other states in near future.

“This is the first time in the world that a barefoot marathon is happening and already the Guinness World Records has taken note of this and this feat will go into the Guinness Book of World Records,” said Garg.

Shobha Patil, a winner in the female category, said: “In most of the marathons, we usually run with the shoes on but for the first time here we have done this half marathon barefoot. So, this race was equally good, though there was a little difficult to run barefoot but we enjoyed it.” (ANI)