Thousands Ran Bahu Plaza at 5 AM for JMC's 'Jammu Runs for Unity'

Five in the morning is not a popular hour in Jammu in August. It was, on Sunday, a crowded one — Bahu Plaza filled with runners before first light for the Jammu Municipal Corporation’s Jammu Runs for Unity, a 5 km and 10 km road race that drew thousands of participants across the city.

Bahu Plaza served as both start and finish. The routes ran out through parts of the city including Gole Market and Apsara Road — streets that on any other Sunday belong to traffic. Divisional Commissioner Jammu Ramesh Kumar flagged the field off, with JMC Commissioner Dr Devansh Yadav and senior corporation officers present.

The framing was civic rather than competitive: unity, cleanliness, responsible citizenship, and a pledge for an environmentally responsible Shri Amarnath Ji Yatra. But the results sheet is a results sheet, and four categories produced four sets of winners.

Who won

5 km, men: Vivek Sharma, followed by Raghav Sharma and Mohd Kaif.

5 km, women: Kriti Devi, ahead of Neelam Dutta and Sheetal Devi.

10 km, men: Balvinder Singh, with Suraj Kumar second and Rohit Sharma third.

10 km, women: Dishu Thakur took it, from Deepanshi and Aditi Kohli.

Certificates and prizes went to the top three in each category at the close.

The part that is easy to miss

Bibs were collected the previous afternoon — 15 August, between 2 pm and 5 pm, from the JMC building at Town Hall. That small logistical detail is the difference between a civic event and a functioning road race, and it is worth noting for anyone who has watched a Jammu run collapse into a scrum at the start line.

The turnout also answers a question that gets asked in this city fairly often: whether there is an appetite for organised running here beyond the police-run Jammu Marathon in winter. Children, students and residents from across the city turned up at dawn on a Sunday in the middle of monsoon. There is.

What a one-off event does not settle is whether the 5 km field that showed up on Sunday has anywhere to run next month. Jammu has the routes — the riverfront, the plaza loops, the Bahu stretch. What it has less of is a regular calendar. A morning like this one is a good argument for building one.

Sources

• Greater Kashmir — Jammu Runs for Unity: JMC's marathon evokes overwhelming response

• Daily Excelsior — Thousands participate in 'Jammu Runs for Unity' marathon

• The Sentinel — Jammu to host 'Runs for Unity' on August 16 for clean Amarnath Yatra