Sridhar Rajamohan makes short work of long distances. The Chennai native will lead the 3-hour 55-minute ‘bus’ for the full marathon distance (42.2 km) at the Tata Mumbai Marathon (TMM) to be run on Sunday, January 21. With this, Sridhar will be doing what he has been doing for so many years, defying a childhood medical condition. Sridhar was diagnosed with childhood diabetes or Type 1 diabetes when he was 11 years old. Today, he is 35 years old. Sridhar is one of the 22 pacesetters or pacers in the 42 km distance of the TMM.

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A pacesetter has to bring in a group of runners following them from start to finish at the predetermined time. The group following a pacesetter is called a ‘bus’. The idea is that the pacer must finish just a few seconds before the promised time. So, if runners have joined the 2:30 bus, the pacesetter will lead them through the finish line somewhere between 2:29:30 and 2:29:59 hours, and not by 2:15 hours or 2:32 hours. Sridhar said as he prepared for his Mumbai trip, “TMM will be my 100th event where I am running the 21-plus km (the half marathon or longer distance).”