Hundreds of citizens, including kids and senior citizens enthusiastically took part in the Vijayawada anniversary run organised by Vijayawada Runners here on Sunday.
Commissioner of Police D. Gautam Sawang, avid runner Dr. Murali Nannapaneni, Municipal Commissioner J. Nivas, Mayor Koneru Sridhar and others flagged off the 21K, 10K and 5K runs on M.G. Road near Indira Gandhi Municipal Corporation Stadium.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Sawang congratulated the participants for coming forward to take part and called upon them to encourage others to make running a practice.
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Mr. Sawang along with DCP Gajarao Bhupal, city Mayor and civic chief and others also took part in the cycle rally organised as part of the event.
Over 80 persons including senior citizens took part in the half marathon (21 kilometres) run. In the half marathon runners twice covered the stretch of MG road via IGMC, Police Control Room junction, VMC office, Benz Circle and Chennupati Petrol Bunk junction. One of the participants was B.V. Chary of Bhavanipuram, a senior citizen in his 70s and completed the run in two hours of time while a majority of runners took two and a half hours to complete it.
While the 10K run participants covered the stretch of M.G. Road twice, 5k run participants covered half of it. Over 1000 persons took in the 10K and 5K runs, according to organisers, T. Mani Deepak, chairman of Vijayawada Runners.
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All the runners who paid an entry fee of Rs. 200 each were given a t-shirt before the run and a medal and certificate after completion of the run. The closing ceremony was held at the D-Address mall on M.G. Road.
(EOM)