NIO Vision Marathon 2018 - Edition 4

NIO Vision Marathon

For past four years NIO Vision Marathon has been an attempt to raise awareness about Avoidable Blindness. Dr. Aditya Kelkar and Dr. Jai Kelkar of the National Institute of Ophthalmology have been taking the lead in spreading awareness and guiding the NIO Vision Marathon Team to spread awareness about Avoidable Blindness.                                                                                                                                  

 Avoidable blindness can be treated/ prevented by known, cost-effective means, yet nearly 75%  of the world’s blind are blind due to Avoidable Blindness. This is mostly because this category of blindness is not given proper attention and many people have not been made aware of this type of blindness yet. Because of this, NIO Vision Marathon is trying to spread awareness about the main causes of avoidable blindness, in order to have the greatest possible impact on vision loss worldwide

22 July 2018

NIO Vision Marathon, Races for 3Km, 5Km, 10Km, 15Km and Half Marathon. This race is conducted under the aegis of Pune District Athletic Association; the records set during this race are recognized.

Marathons are a great way to motivate employees to take care of their health and to live a long and productive life. Employees that run have far fewer sick days off as compare to non runners.  NIO Vision Marathon is an opportunity for the first time runners and also the experienced marathoners. It is an experience to run in a crowd of 5000 runners.

Venue: Rabindranath Tagore School of Excellence (Google Map)

All participants get

• T-shirt
• Finisher’s medal
• Timing chip to record their finish time on timing certificate.
• Race day experience of a professionally managed race.
• Breakfast
• Route support  water, energy drink, salt

Blindfolded buddy run:

This is a special run where two buddies register together. The first friend runs half the distance blind folded. At turn around point participants exchange the blindfold and run back.

• Registration is for 2 friends, better to run with a friend you know and trust for some time.
• Best if you get 2 blind folds from home. After the first person uses the blind fold it gets too sweaty and may be uncomfortable for your partner to reuse.
• The distance you both choose can be 3Km, 5Km, 10Km, 15Km or Half Marathon. Depending on your ability. Each partner is supposed to run half of the distance blind folded.
• There are no winners or losers in this category.
• Both participants get individual distance and timing certificate.
• The idea behind this race is to understand the importance of site in our day to day life.
• If you get uncomfortable at any point. Then do not hesitate to pause take a break and when better then only resume. It is not easy to remain blind folded for long time.
• All runners in this category start with the other regular runners.
• This is largest such race anywhere in India

Run with the visually impaired:

This is a special race where the participants hold the hand of the visually impaired runner. This race starts at 9:00 AM after most of other races are done. The idea is that the people who are leaders of various companies and hiring managers will realize that the visually impaired runners are just like normal employees and they can be hired in their company. There are no obligations, this is an educational experience.

This category is by invitation only.

Here is how you can help NIO Vision Marathon and be a part of it 

• Educate yourself about the Avoidable blindness.
• Educate your friends and family about Avoidable Blindness.
• If you work somewhere, then you can
  • Help put up the posters in your organization
  • Help conduct eye check up and education setup in your organization.
  • Tell your coworkers about the benefits of running, we can come to your organization to conduct a training session about running.
  • Get your CEO to run with the visually impaired student and discover they are perfectly normal and can be employed with the company in future.
• Costs of such programs are huge and can only be covered by sponsors like you.