Jammu man Kapil keeps State’s flag high in South Africa

Rajesh Dhar

JAMMU, June 15: 42-year old Jammu man Kapil Arora, working as Segment Head in Mumbai based Company Reliance Mutual Fund, kept the State’s flag high by completing 90.184 kilometers in 11 hours and 17 minutes in most grueling and the oldest ultra marathon in the world namely ‘Comrades Marathon’ in South Africa.
By completing this unique marathon smoothly and successfully, Kapil has done it for the 4th consecutive year and has achieved the distinction of completing 35 marathons from last over 12 years.
‘Comrades Marathon’ dubbed as the Ultimate Human Race is an annual ultra marathon event between two towns of Durban and Pietermaritzburg in South Africa. Every year the route changes for the event and it is called the uphill and downhill denoting the route.
This year it was ‘downhill race’ where 5 major hills and many cut offs were to be crossed, which means one had to maintain a particular pace, as failing to meet any of these cut offs might have lead to elimination.
However, Kapil successfully crossed all these cut offs and reached the finishing line after a crazy run of 11.184 hours to finally win the completion medal.
This was his 4rd consecutive “Comrades” ultra marathon, as he has already completed three in 2015, 2016 and 2017.
Kapil Arora, son of MK Arora belongs to Trikuta Nagar, Jammu. He had started running around 12 years back when he met his coach and national level athlete, Brinston Miranda and started training along with his corporate life, which included a 12 years working with corporate like ICICI Bank and Reliance Mutual Fund.
Talking to Excelsior, Kapil said that the ‘Comrades Marathon’ is a unique event as it is more than double the distance of usual marathons and involves hills and heights, adding that he had started preparing for this race four months before the event and during the course, he ran more than 1000 km in and around Mumbai on Khandala Hills for practice runs.
“To counter the hot and humid Mumbai climate, I used to start running from 2 am at night to 8 am in the morning. Sleep deprivation, extreme exhaustion, running on hills all night for 50-52 km was a difficult task but nothing could stop me from preparing for my mission”, he said.
Kapil is a brand ambassador of leading sports brand “Puma” for last two years. Till date, he has completed 4 ultra marathons and 10 full marathons including an international one at Athens (Greece), best marathon time being 3.41 hours. Two years back, he also successfully completed IRONMAN, a triathlon event held in Thailand, which included 1.8 km swim in sea, 90 km bike and 21 km run back to back.
There are 22 half marathons also in his name, best half marathon time being 1.38 hours in 2015.
In Airtel Delhi Half Marathon 2016, he was nominated as being the fastest pace settler (1.45 hours). Besides, he also successfully completed PNB MetLife Satara Hill Half Marathon 2015, which set a new record for the Guinness World Records title.
“Running very long distances is always an uphill task, but it is very much satisfactory when you complete these distances successfully. I feel good when I run and I feel ecstatic rather blissful when I reach the finishing line,” said Kapil during his telephonic conversation with Excelsior.

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