Pemmanda R Ganapathy

Pemmanda R Ganapathy a sportsperson from Kodagu who lives in San Francisco is the first Indian to run all the major world marathons in a year.

Family

Father

Pemmanda Raja

Mother

Pemmanda Ponnamma

Education

• Ganapathy holds two engineering degrees and an MBA from the prestigious Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania

Career

• Ganapathy picked up running in 2012 as a way to lose weight having suffered from severe back pain for a few years with three herniated discs in his lower back. A desperate measure to salvage his health eventually became his passion
• He signed up for a half marathon in October 2012 but unfortunately he lost his father in an accident a couple of days before the race. He continued to run and it helped him emotionally during those tough times. Eventually he signed up for a fairly easy full marathon and without having really trained much he did a decent time which got him started.

Achievements 

• He participated in the London Marathon in April and finished under four hours
• He ran the Tokyo marathon (Feb 22^nd) which was a pretty good race
• He finished the Boston Marathon on April 20, 2015

Running a marathon requires a lot of effort and hard work. And running all the major marathons in a single year is commendable