At 95, Jayant Soni was the oldest runner at the Tata Mumbai Marathon. He’s just getting started
When 95-year-old Jayant Soni announced that he would run the senior marathon at the Tata Mumbai Marathon on Sunday, no one in his family batted an eye. They are used to that. Ever since he started running at the age of 85, Soni has diligently participated in the first Mumbai Marathon. This annual custom began when his Lions Club friends decided to participate in the event ten years ago. “I thought, ‘Why not join them?’” he says with a wink. What started as a casual challenge among friends quickly became a personal mission for Soni: to test her own strength and endurance.
The nonagenarian’s relationship with fitness began long before his marathon years. Born and raised in Mandvi, a coastal town in Gujarat, he learned to swim at the age of ten. “We had a lake nearby but it was too dangerous to swim in. So I learned to swim in a well, which was quite common at the time. » From his childhood, Soni understood the importance of physical activity, inspired by his father, an entrepreneur, and by his mother, a housewife, who led an active life despite her work.
