Neera, Enaut emerge champs

Deepak, Bharathi win the men's and women's open 10K crown respectively

 After cycling nearly 20kms and running more than 10kms, there was still some energy left in the tank for the competitors to swing their hips to popular dance numbers. 

‘Lungi dance’ and ‘Gangnam Style’ elicited the maximum response from the people who turned up. Some, including Neera Katwal, who won the women’s duathlon in the open category, even played DJ for a couple of minutes. Some went even further as they tried to take selfies of themselves dancing.  The second edition of the Perfomax Duathlon and the 10K and 5K runs, which was held here at the Electronic City, saw a decent turnout considering it was a Sunday morning. The proceedings kicked off with the 10K run at 6.30 am which was won by Deepak DK, 25, in the open men’s category. Speaking about the win, Deepak said he didn’t expect it. “ The race was tough because of the elevated road and I had to time it to stay in contention and luckily I won it in the end.” He clocked 41 minutes and 48 seconds to emerge the winner.   

Neera, a fitness trainer who won the event last year as well, said: “While I do a bit of cross training, I’m a long distance runner. I have taken part in a lot of other running events in India like the Mumbai full marathon as well as the TCS 10K event which was recently held here.” Spain’s Enaut Gonzalez, who won the duathlon in the men’s open category, said he focused his race to do well in the cycling part (the entire duathlon was 22.5 km - divided into an initial 2.5km run, followed by 18.5 kms of cycling and another 2.5 km run at the end to complete the event). 

“I see myself more as a cyclist than a runner so after the first 2.5 km, I decided to open up a bit of a gap so that I could ease of during by second run.” 

Most of the runners preferred to run at walking pace as the morning chill slowly gave way to more testing conditions. But this wasn’t really about competition, which was organised by Life is Calling, as much as enjoying themselves. And many truly did as the music and dance continued long after the curtains came down. 

Results: Men: 10K: Open category (18-45): Deepak DK 41:42, 1; Rakshith Shetty 42.43, 2; Shamik Majumdar 42:58, 3.

Seniors (46-60): JP Gowda 47:10, 1; Baralu Prakash 47:42, 2; N Seetharam 51:21, 3. Veterans (above 60): Manjunatha Kota 52:25, 1; Davanagere Vasedeva Rao 55:57, 2. Duathlon: Individual: Enaut Gonzalez Ruiz, 1; Lars Johanson, 2; Kiran Kumar Raju, 3.

Team: Nagaraj MR and Aditya Kaur, 1; Shuvshek Hang Rai and Ankush Sharma, 2. Women: 10K: Open category: Bharathi BL 51:26, 1; Linda Coninx 55:36, 2; Divya Vasishta 55:40, 3. Seniors: Raji Srikant 1:14.352, 1; Jessy Jacob 1:23.093, 2; Asima Sultana 1:26.35, 3. Duathlon: Individual: Neera Katwal, 1; Geeta Bisht, 2; Nithya Bodapati, 3. Team: Tejaswi PK and Harshini PP, 1; Shymala S and Roshika Chengappa, 2.