Tanvir Kazmi – About Me
An interesting incident brought me into the world of running marathons in 2005. As part of a time-management training, an activity was to identify a goal, and define small steps to achieve that goal, all within a defined timeline. Me, and my running mate Vivek selected running a marathon as our goal, and we achieved it by running the inaugural Delhi Half Marathon followed by the Mumbai Marathon.
So far I have run about 40 marathons, half marathons, ultras and other long distance events in various cities in India like Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Surat, Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon to name a few, as well as a few international events (South Africa, Singapore, Israel). Check out the list of events I have run till date, with brief reviews of each event here.
Without any doubts, my most memorable run has been the Comrades Marathon, an 89KM run between the cities of Pietermaritzburg and Durban in South Africa, known as ‘The Ultimate Human Race”, worlds largest ultra with participation figures going into 20,000. It has a 12 hour cutoff, and I finished that run in 2010 in 11 hours 56 minutes, less than 4 minutes from the cutoff, that was an experience of a lifetime! That Comrades Marathon was also the first time that any runner from India had finished that race, making it all the more special for me.
My love for running has also taken me to start an online forum for Delhi NCR’s largest online community of runners at Delhi Runners, with the objective of bringing together runners from all across Delhi and its neighboring cities on a common platform where they can discuss, share, and contribute to all things running. This community is now a 3000 members strong, and growing day by day.
I have been a race director for races as well! I organized the DR50, a 50K ultra marathon in Delhi in 2011 which saw ultra runners from Delhi NCR and across India taking part. I have organized several fun half marathons in Delhi, at beautiful locations like the Jahanpanah Forest, Nehru Park and Deer Park – Hauz Khas. The last event I organized was the Spring Run in Indirapuram in 2015 which saw participation from over 450 runners. The latest big event is the Grand Prix Run, a run on the Formula 1 racetrack in Greater Noida which was held on Dec 13th with 2000+ participants.
I have also been an official pace setter for several races, including the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon, Airtel Delhi Half Marathon, Wipro Chennai Marathon, and the Surat City Half Marathon.
I am the founder of a fitness and running challenge called 100 Days of Running. It started in 2014 as a small personal challenge and has since then grown into one of the biggest virtual challenges in the world, with 2019 edition seeing over 13,500 registrations. The event itself has now grown into a full fledged virtual running platform now known popularly as HDOR, where we have multiple single and multi-day cycling and running challenges and events.