Over 8,000 people from Madurai were up and about at 5.30 a.m. raring to run the second edition of the HCL Madurai Marathon here on Sunday. The event was aimed at promoting health and fitness.
The joyous crowd took part in a warm-up zumba lesson before setting out Collector S. Natarajan, Commissioner of Police S. Davidson Devasirvatham, Madurai Kamaraj University Vice-Chancellor M. Krishnan and HCL Technologies Executive Vice President Srimathi Shivashankar inaugurated the event.
B. Subbaraman, Vice-President and centre head of HCL-Madurai, said the event was aimed at promoting fitness and healthy lifestyle.
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The marathon saw people of all ages, particularly college and school students, taking part in three categories - 3km, 5 km and 10 km. As many as 1,300 people registered for the competitive 10 km run alone. Geetha won the first place in the women’s category, clocking a timing of 38 minutes and 41 seconds. Poongodi and S. Neelambari came second and third.
Rahul Kumar Pal won the first place in the men’s category (32:26), followed by Binu and E. Santosh Kumar. The winners collected cash prizes of ₹50,000, ₹30,000 and ₹15,000 for the top three spotsin the three categories.