A community run that the city of Bengaluru plans to commemorate as a Running Festival.
18 March 2022 saw the launch of a new city event that goes by the name of ‘Bengaluru Runners Jatre’. As the name suggests, it is envisioned as a running carnival (jatre in Kannada) with primary focus on getting people across Bengaluru on to the roads and getting them to run. The launch of the first edition was pompously done at the Century Club, Cubbon Park Bangalore at 4pm.
The launch event witnessed the presence of Ms. Nisha Millet: An international Olympic level swimmer from India and an Arjuna Awardee and Ms. Malathi Holla: An international para athlete from India who is proud recipient of the Padma Shri and Arjuna Award.
The event is mentored by Bengaluru’s Former Commissioner of Police, Mr. Bhaskar Rao and is heavily supported by the MLA of Bommanahalli, Mr. Satish Reddy and sincerely encouraged by the MLC of Bangalore Mr. Gopinath Reddy.
The other delegates for the event included running coaches from prominent running clubs across the city, many passionate runners, and HSR Layout RWA members. These delegates will also play an important role as influencers and ambassadors for the event.
The Bengaluru Runners Jatre event is scheduled on the First Sunday in June every year. This year it is on June 05, 2022. With the whole purpose of bringing in as many existing, new and to-be runners to the event, it has been launched with 5 race categories – 10Kms Express, 10Kms Open, 5Kms Express, 5Kms Open and a 3Kms for Kids. This run will call out to over 1500 runners who could be – homemakers , mothers, fathers, kids, grandparents, working professionals, house keepers, home helps, cooks etc. The first edition of Bengaluru Runners Jatre will be held in one of the popular residential localities of Bengaluru – HSR Layout. People who have lived or visited the happening suburb in South Bengaluru will vouch for its wide clean roads surrounded by immense greenery and countless parks.
Runners’ timing will be tracked using RFID based tracking of timing and all finishers will be provided with finisher medals. The event will have podiums and prizes across various age categories within the 5 race categories.
We spoke to the team behind ‘Bengaluru Runners Jatre’; they are an enthusiastic bunch of working professionals who were brought together by running and volunteer to bring together the rest of Bengaluru! They first came together to execute one of their passion projects of a 50Kms Ultra Run – ‘Beyond42.195’, which had its second edition in October 2021. After seeing the immense success and raving feedback from the runners who participated, those who volunteered, the sponsors and vendors, they decided to extend a similar experience to a wider audience and this time they wanted to do it bigger and didn’t want to restrict to just runners, thus ‘Bengaluru Runners Jatre’ was born.
Both Beyond42.195 and Bengaluru Runners Jatre come under the umbrella of Bengaluru Sports Foundation (BSF) – a Not-for-Profit organization that was institutionalized by a few runners from the running fraternity in Bengaluru.
BSF’s motto, as we hear from a few members is two fold:
Drive fitness across the city with running as a preferred choice for fitness because it can literally be started with zero investment. It is a sport accessible to all without conditions
Help upcoming athletes in various ways in their journey to soar up to national and international levels
We touched base with a few of the team members of the Bengaluru Sports Foundation, present at the event and here is what they had to say about their ‘Bengaluru Runners Jatre’. “With Bengaluru Runners Jatre Our Vision is that, the already popular running hub of India- Bengaluru, also becomes a city where running is the first and go-to choice of fitness for everyone. ” – Vijay A M, Trustee of BSF. “We visualize running to become everyone’s lifestyle” – age no bar, gender no bar, occupation/profession no bar” – Darshan Jain, Member of BSF. “We are viewing this event as an opportunity to have as many local institutions like schools, colleges, hospitals, diagnostic centers, fitness facilities, NGOs, local businesses and more be engaged and promoted in various capacities. The point of view is to have everyone come out and support this event as a festival of running. We would love for people to be excited and wait for this event every year and proactively own up and contribute in ways they can.” – Kavita Nair, Trustee of BSF.
When asked about what motivated the conception of this type of an event, Sridhar Reddy, Trustee of BSF mentioned that “In the past half a decade, Bengaluru has become the running capital of India – Thanks to Bengaluru’s weather, countless parks, its numerous lakes and a favorable altitude. Bengaluru has also produced many national and international level athletes in the short, middle, long and ultra running distances. With such a strong running flavored background of Bengaluru, we wanted to build a fitness ecosystem with ‘FIT BENGALURU’ (in alignment with FIT INDIA).
And to top it all, with the Covid Pandemic hitting us so hard for over two years, many businesses have been brought to dust, many have adjusted themselves to a siloed-stay-within lifestyle which could be quite detrimental to their health – physically and mentally.
That is when the whole concept of running festival / running jatre came into being.”
Bengaluru Runners Jatre have already partnered with Big FM Kannada as their exclusive Radio partner, Sheraton Grand Hotel, Bangalore by Brigade Gateway as their Hospitality Partner, Black Tulip Flowers International as their Happiness Partners and Home Brew as their Mindspace Partners.
They are in talks with several other organizations for the Title Sponsorship for the event and many other sponsors to support them and raise money to run the event as also support the cause of building a FIT Bengaluru and support upcoming athletes to reach their career pinnacles.
As promising and fun as the event of ‘Bengaluru Runners Jatre’ sounds, we wish the team all the best for their upcoming plans and executing the promising event.
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