Run without thinking of travel, bookings, expenses: Marathon in Mumbai, virtual runners in Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Darjeeling...

This Sunday, when runners line up at the starting points for Tata Mumbai Marathon, India's marquee long-distance event, so will Anchal Malhotra in Gurgaon, Sajan Lama in Darjeeling, Dipti Waghmare in Jalgaon and Shovan Padhy in Hyderabad.

Thousands of miles from Mumbai, the four will be among nearly 5,000 participants who will run the marathon virtually - Anchal at her society park, Sajan on the hill station's tree-lined roads, Shovan around glass and chrome I-T precincts of the Telangana capital, and Dipti in and around community parks in the Maharashtra town.


This is the second year on the trot when Mumbai Marathon will see a strong virtual event with remote runners comprising 7% of the field - it was 8% last year - signalling the arrival of the virtual marathon as a serious parallel running event.

Virtual marathons are now part of the serious running carousel globally. India's other big running event, the Delhi half marathon, saw 1,000 take part in the virtual version in its Oct 2025 edition.

What started as a Covid hack-as everything from concerts to races moved online to keep a locked down world moving-did not fade away with the pandemic. Instead, it became ensconced in the hybrid model of the new normal.

Strange as the concept of running a virtual marathon may seem, those doing it see it as a stepping stone to serious running. And it allows you to just run without thinking of travel, bookings, expenses that take up your mind, says Anchal. "After the birth of my second child, I was feeling lost and wanted to rediscover myself. That is when I started running and also started enjoying it," says the 40-year-old homemaker.

She discovered virtual marathons two years ago and has since participated in four events. This will be her second virtual Mumbai Marathon. "I will be running in my housing society's park. The reason I run virtual marathons is that they give me a sense of accomplishment without compromising on my family responsibilities," she adds.

In Jalgaon, running in front of her house gave Dipti Waghmare the practice and motivation she needed to become a long-distance runner. The engineer (39) says she participated in eight virtual runs in two years, most of them 10km. In 2025, she ran her first real half-marathon. "I was able to do that because of all the virtual runs that prepared me. I now want to run more half-marathons virtually so that I can run a full marathon next year. Eventually, I want to be a full-fledged marathon runner," says Dipti.

Sajan (35) has never been to Mumbai, but Sunday will be his third time, virtually, at Mumbai Marathon. "The idea of a virtual marathon is a boon for me. I run on my own city's roads, in familiar surroundings, and the best part is I don't have to take the stress of travelling," says Sajan, who is a regular at virtual runs since he cannot travel because he has a garment shop to run.

Padhy, a doctor who loves running, joins the rest of the field at events in his city, but switches to virtual mode for other runs. "All these marathons start early in the morning at 4am or 5am. You hardly get any sleep the night before, because there is the stress of reaching the venue. All of this is not good for performance. When I run virtually, all I have to do is run at my own time. I can be well-rested the night before and give my best performance," says Padhy.

But even a virtual run, he cautions, needs conditioning, advising against "mindless participation for the sake of a medal or social media flex". "Even if one is fit, there is no guarantee that they are fit for a marathon. There has been a rise in the number of deaths due to cardiac arrests because of long runs and people should get a coronary angiogram done before running a marathon," he adds.

What is a virtual marathon?

A virtual marathon lets runners participate in the classic marathon and the 5km and 10km runs, but in their own space and time. While on-the-site marathons have a time limit for completion-for Mumbai Marathon, it's 7 hours-a remote runner gets 24 hours from the start of the event to finish the run.

Remote runners don't compete with the real field. They need to register, download an app and link it to their smartwatch. The app monitors location and running data. According to the final app score, medals and certificates are sent. While major organisers have their own apps, there are many virtual runs that use apps such as Strava, a social fitness platform that uses GPS to track activities like running and cycling and records workouts via connected devices like Garmin and Apple Watch, among others. The record includes activity mapping, performance statistics like pace, elevation and heart rate and location.

Mumbai marathon's virtual edition actually started pre-Covid, in 2019, to get more people involved. The idea gained traction during Covid and has stuck since then, expanding to other events like Delhi half-marathon, Tata Steel Work 25K in Kolkata and TCS World 10K in Bengaluru.

"Tata Mumbai Marathon is a sought-after event and every runner in India wants to be a part of it. We could not accommodate all the requests we received due to the space restrictions. So, we decided to launch a virtual edition," says Neha Kandalgaonkar of Procam International, which organises the event. "This year, we have seen great responses for the half-marathon and full marathon in virtual mode, which means that the virtual run is definitely popular," she adds. Total registrations for this edition of the Mumbai Marathon are around 65,000.