For Nandini Ashokumar, the benefits of running on the streets of K.K. Nagar and Ashok Nagar go beyond health. For this teacher, it is an emotionally satisfying exercise too, as many of her students reside in these neighbourhoods.
“Many of my students come and say ‘Ma’am, I saw you running’ and talk about me to their parents,” says Nandini, an English teacher with PSBB Senior Secondary School, K.K. Nagar, and a marathon runner.
It’s not just the students, many of Nandini’s colleagues are also impressed with her commitment to a strict fitness regimen, and some of them have taken to running, inspired by her example.
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In the last two years since Nandini joined Chennai Runners Pillar Pacers (CRPP), she has taken part in 15 marathons. “It is an achievement considering that I started running in 2013,” she says. Her first ‘endurance’ run was a 3km run, which now seems a ridiculously short distance to her.
Every Sunday, together with a clutch of runners, she goes on a 20-km run between K.K. Nagar and Marina.
“There is a lot of motivation when you run as a group. For events, we register as a family,” says the resident of Ramapuram.
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She has done many full marathons, the most challenging of them being the ones she ran at Mumbai and Bangalore.
She has also won many medals in this short period.
Nandini has other avocations to occupy herself with, too. She is a dancer: she regularly participates in group dance competitions at the school.
“I don’t diet,” says the 36-year-old mother of two, debunking the fad of crash diets. “A combination of good food, yoga, healthy habits, dancing and running makes a strong woman.”