My interest was piqued by an article on the BBC site yesterday about a 3 year old marathon runner from India. It is a tragic and sad story about a young boy of 3 and ½ years who is being coached to run long distances (as much as 30 miles at a time) with a view to getting him in the Guinness Book of Records. Now there are all sorts of warnings about young children not running long distances until their bone structure is fully developed, but that doesn’t seem to be an issue for this young lad’s owner (yes owner – the unfortunate child has been twice traded for $20 and is now owned by someone who is out to exploit his running skills).
In my industry, we hear so much about the booming Indian economy and the educated work force in places like Bangalore that we forget that India is still very much a caste-based society where some less than savoury things, like the trading of young children, go on. I wonder whether we will be seeing this young runner, Budhia Singh is his name, competing in Boston in about 20 years time. I very much doubt it.
Indians don’t usually have a reputation for long distance running, but there was another article on a marathon runner from India at the other end of the age spectrum. A 94 year old ran in the Edinburgh Marathon this year. He has the over 90 world record at 5hrs 40 minutes set in Toronto. Running in your 90’s seems a bit more inspirational than running as an infant.
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