P. Venkatraman is a Mumbai based Chartered Accountant who had successfully started two startups which were acquired by US/UK companies. His feat of running had started in the month of January 2008, where he had laced up his shoes and set out to run for Half Marathons at the age of 51, setting up an jaw-dropping example for thousands of youngsters, giving them a reason to join with him for the run.

This year Airtel Run For Education Marathon 2017 is honoured to have Mr.Venkatraman amongst us helping us raise funds to educate the less privileged children of our society. He has completed a over 118 half marathons and has been since running for 21kms every single month of the year. Run beside him for the Pre-Run Event of the Airtel Run For Education Marathon on 10th of September, 2017. The venue is City Centre I, Salt Lake, the meeting point is Adidas Merchandise showroom situated on the ground floor of the mall.

Completing a marathon would be an commendable accomplishment for anyone to be proud of but his story gets even better when you get to know that he had undergone an open heart bypass surgery in the year 2007 and he was quick enough to get back on his feet to join and run for SCMM Half Marathon, 2008.

He has now taken upon the responsibility to promote and spread awareness amongst the youth of today’s generation. After selling both of his BPO’s he ventured into the social mission YouTooCanRun, promoting for,” Running for good health.”

YouTooCanRun spearheads several initiatives and in the three years since its launch has notched several firsts. It various initiatives include

• India’s first and only Running Specific Event registration portal and back office support platform. Has done more than 300 events and registered in excess of 350,000 runners so far. It has been successful in relieving event organisers to deliver value to the runners and sponsors while permitting
• He is India’s first and only RRCA – US Certified Race Director and has successfully conducted Race Management of several acclaimed running events. YouTooCanRun is currently mandated to manage more than 30 running events across the country.
• He is also a RRCA – US certified Long Distance Running coach. His training group, ‘Zippers Club’ consists of cardiac patients who run Half Marathons regularly

Published several books such as:

• Handbook for Medical Directors in Running events
• Sofa to 5K – a beginners handbook for running which has been translated into Marathi, Gujarathi, Telugu and Tamil besides the original English.
• Unstopables – A compendium of inspiring stories which features runners who surmounted obstacles to pursue running
• Trainers log book
• From Mountain to Ocean – The life story of Run with Roshini Rai fame.

His other achievements:

• Medical profiler for capturing runners health data.
• Pacing teams all over the country.
• Pace calculator to help first timers determine their optimum pace and chose the right pacing bus.
• Treasured Moments for photo tagging of runners.
• The Indian Running Summit which has been in its fourth successful edition.

He lives in Mumbai and his wife Varalakshmi is a Corporate Solicitor.. His first son Vivek is a Cinematographer while his second son Vighnesh is doing undergrad studies in US. All of them run events regularly too.