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The Vedanta Delhi Half Marathon 2026 will be led by 25 pace setters, CXOs, government officials, entrepreneurs and passionate runners from across India who will guide participants towards their race-day goals.
A pace setter is an experienced runner who holds a steady pace to guide a group, known as a Bus, to a predetermined finish time. A runner on the Sub-2:30 Bus, for instance, can expect to finish between 2:25 and 2:29, as per a release. This year, 17 Half Marathon pacers, including CXOs and senior professionals from leading organisations, will lead buses from 1:50 to 2:40. The 10K will feature an all-women squad of eight pacers, with buses from 55 to 88 minutes. Eleven of the 25 pacers are from outside Delhi NCR, including Bengaluru, Kolkata, Mumbai, Darjeeling, Jammu and Jharkhand. The squad also includes senior government professionals, among them a Joint Commissioner of Income Tax, a Joint Secretary, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, and Rajat Agarwal, Joint Director (Finance), Railway Board. Experience runs deep: Deepak Sharma will run his 16th VDHM, Ganesh Ananthanaraynan brings 13 editions and a 1:48 personal best, and Sanjay Chhabra will run his 12th consecutive Delhi Half Marathon. Thandeswaran Periyasamy, Delivery Head and founder of Hosur Runners Club, has run for more than 2,850 consecutive days since September 2018, covering over 22,000 km, and holds International, Asia and India Book of Records for consecutive-day running. He paced the 2:30 Bus at VDHM 2025. Rashmi Mohanty, Chief Financial Officer at SBI Credit Card and an ultra-marathoner, ran her first half marathon at VDHM in November 2010 and was felicitated in 2025 for completing 15 editions. One of the ways to make sure that I stay consistent is participating in this race, she says. Pacing is her way of giving back: You also need to give back to the community that has supported you all along. In the 10K, Dr. Chinmayee J Thrishulamurthy, a practising ophthalmologist and faculty member from Bengaluru and a trained search, treat and rescue mountaineer, scaled Mount Everest earlier in 2026. A runner since 2017 who moved into mountaineering in 2019, she will pace for the first time and run her first race in Delhi. I run less, but I love running and Im really excited to be a pacer, she says. On what Everest demands: Theres a lot of endurance, mostly because the whole expedition lasts about 50 to 55 days, and the summit will be only in the last week of this very long expedition. For first-timers, Chinmayees advice is simple: Dont worry about pace; just enjoy the race at whatever speed you can. Rashmi Mohanty urges runners to reach the start line fresh: I would rather that you are under-trained but strong when youre at the start line. (ANI)
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