CHENNAI: Forum Vijaya Mall organised ‘Purple Run’ in the city, an awareness marathon on Alzheimer’s at Olcott Memorial School. Over 2,000 people participated in the marathon which began at 5 am.
It was split into four categories: 21 km, 10 km, 5 km and 3 km. It is arguably the first such marathon on Alzheimer awareness conducted on a pan-India level.
“We are organising this marathon in four cities — Chennai, Mangalore, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. There are over 10,000 people all together running for this cause,” said Umeash Iyer, GM, Forum Mall, Chennai.
The 21 km category was flagged of by Marja Arthama, international secretary of the Theosophical Society, along with Umeash. Alisha Abdullah, country’s first woman racer, was the chief guest. “This is an important initiative at a time when Alzheimer’s is going unnoticed and untreated,” said Alisha.
The 21 km marathon started from Olcott, covered MRC Nagar to Karakkudi hotel and then back to the school and then repeated the route again to complete the loop whereas the 10km marathon ended in school. Five and three km marathon happened within the 5 km radius of the school locality.
Cash prizes were given to the first three positions of each category ranging from Rs 25-75,000. There was a Zumba session as a warm-up before the marathon. The hydration point was fixed after every 1.5 km by the organisers.