As the Adani Ahmedabad Marathon counts down to its landmark 10th edition on 29 November 2026, a cohort of 25 runners has earned a distinction that no medal can replicate: they have toed the starting line at every single edition since the race's inaugural run in 2017. Their stories — shaped by grief, reinvention and relentless discipline — reveal how a city marathon can take on meaning that transcends sport.

A Decade in the Making

The marathon, which drew more than 24,000 participants in its 2025 edition, has grown from a modest local race into an event the city of Ahmedabad plans its calendar around. Yet for this group of 25, scale is almost beside the point. Work pressures, family obligations and personal crises have come and gone — and every year, they have returned to the start line.

As part of the 10th edition celebrations, Adani Sportsline will felicitate all 25 of these runners on 29 November 2026, formally recognising a loyalty that has quietly accumulated across nine years.

Running as Remembrance: Shini Nair's Story

For freelance content writer Shini Nair, who splits her time between Ahmedabad and Singapore, the journey began with no running ambition whatsoever. Her husband registered her and their young son for the inaugural edition's 5K, intending nothing more than a family outing. It was spontaneous — and it became an annual ritual.

In 2022, that ritual was pierced by tragedy when Nair lost her son in a bike accident. Their last race together had been the 10K.

'It's the one race I will never miss,' she said. 'We started this together as a family, on a whim really, and it turned into something we did every year without fail. After I lost him, running the 10K became less about the distance and more about staying close to that memory. My running has been on and off since then; some years I train properly, some years I barely run at all, but this event is different. Regardless of my conditioning at the time before the race, I always show up. In 2024 I was down with severe diarrhoea and couldn't even keep water down on race day, but I still finished. Skipping it was never really an option in my head.'

For Nair, participation is no longer a measure of fitness or preparation. Each return to the same 10K distance is an act of preservation — a way of keeping alive a bond forged in an ordinary family decision and tested by unimaginable loss.

Running as Rescue: Gopinath Dhandapani's Transformation

For Gopinath Dhandapani, the road to marathons began with a health crisis that was deeply familial. Fourteen years ago, weighing 90 kilograms and wearing 40-inch trousers, he watched his father die from a heart attack complicated by diabetes. With his mother's health worsening and siblings beginning to develop the same condition, he chose running as a form of self-preservation.

That personal decision has since expanded into community purpose. Dhandapani now serves as Head of Sales while simultaneously working as a certified running coach, mentoring more than 200 members of the River Front Runners group. Over 14 years, he has logged more than 40,000 km, completed over 600 half marathons, and officially paced more than 30 races. He was one of the event's five inaugural ambassadors in 2017.

'When I look back at where I started, unhealthy, overweight, watching my own family struggle with the same illnesses that took my father, running feels like it saved me,' he said. 'Once I felt what it did for me, I wanted other people to feel it too; that's really why I started coaching. This marathon has been part of that journey from the very beginning; I've watched it grow from a small local race into something the whole city plans its year around. I keep coming back because a part of the registration fee goes to the Army, and I have friends who've served and told me what that life actually costs them. Running this race every year is the least I can do to say thank you for that.'

The marathon's #Run4OurSoldiers initiative — through which a share of registration proceeds is directed toward the welfare of India's armed forces — aligns directly with Dhandapani's sense of purpose. More than 3,000 defence personnel participated in the 2025 edition, underscoring the event's deep connection with the military community.

Running as Discipline: Aan Godiawala's 365-Day Test

Aan Godiawala, a manager at Deloitte, had stayed fit through football and gym workouts before running entered his life seriously. In 2023, he committed to running every day for 365 consecutive days, sustaining the streak through business travel, weddings, festivals and everything else that modern life placed in his path.

'There were days I really didn't want to run,' he said. 'Frequent work trips, weddings, vacations, festivals, even the rain — none of it could become an excuse once I'd committed to the streak. It stopped being about the run itself pretty quickly and became a test of whether I could stay disciplined when nothing about the day made it convenient. That mindset has stuck with me since, at work and outside it.'

The year-long challenge led to his first full marathon in 2024. He subsequently completed a certified marathon trainer course to better understand the science behind the demands he had placed on his body. Yet his association with the Ahmedabad race predates all of this — the inaugural edition was his first half marathon, run in tribute to a father who had been a lifelong runner.

'Coming back to this race every year feels like a reunion, with the city, with the running community, and honestly with the version of myself that started this journey,' he added.

What the 10th Edition Represents

The stories of Nair, Dhandapani and Godiawala point to a wider truth about mass-participation running events: their value is rarely captured by finish times or crowd counts. Each of the 25 unbroken participants carries a different reason for returning — and together, they form an unofficial archive of everything the Adani Ahmedabad Marathon has meant to its city across nine editions. The 10th edition on 29 November 2026 will, for the first time, formally mark that continuity.