Ordinarily, it takes lots of efforts to pursue a passion. But what if the job at hand is as time-consuming as it’s for an officer of the Indian Railways Traffic Service (IRTS) and the passion is marathon running? Well, Ms. Ity Pandey has been maintaining these both, and with quite an aplomb and flourish.
In fact, the marathon runs by Ms. Pandey, an IRTS officer of 1996-batch, have been quite a hit with people. These have also become a source of inspiration for many. What she has been exhibiting is the importance of remaining fit at a time when the nation is going through nerve-wracking pandemic.
In a span of 21 weeks last year, Ms. Pandey clocked 945 kilometers in her marathons, which she dedicated to the country’s fight against Covid 19 and the vaccination drive launched by the Government of India. This noble initiative, taken to spread awareness on the importance of fitness, is now influencing a lot of people in and around the country.
THE FIRST RUN
Ms. Ity Pandey graduated from the University of Allahabad and then pursued her master’s in psychology from there itself. Bagging a gold medal from her college, she was quite good in academics. She was also a athletic during her school days, but it took a back seat due to studies and other goals in life.
Ms Pandey cleared UPSC exam in 1995 and got into the Railway Traffic Services. Since then, she has been working in Mumbai (first with the Western Railways and then with the Central Railways).
Speaking with Indian Masterminds, she said “When I came to Mumbai in 2004, there was a Standard Chartered Marathon, but we did not participate that year. As the marathon is conducted annually, in 2005 a family friend of ours got us the forms and asked us to participate in the marathon. Since then, my running journey started and has continued till date.”
“The running culture in Mumbai really influenced me and made me want to continue with it. As my husband was also into the same sport, it was very inspiring to see your partner running. But at the same time, nobody can make you run until you get the inspiration within yourself. It requires commitment and discipline and there has to be a regularity to improve every day”, she added.
ONCE A RUNNER, ALWAYS A RUNNER
Being a civil servant and serving in the IRTS, it was very difficult for Ms. Pandey to schedule her running time every day. She said, “The kind of operation that railways have, makes it very difficult to have a scheduled run every morning. And due to the dual role of home and office, the runs remained irregular, haphazard and ill planned. Therefore, I used to schedule my runs according to the work for the day and try to run almost three to four times a week.”
After running for the first time in 2005, Ms. Pandey continued running the Mumbai Marathon each year, right up till 2020. From 2007 onwards, she ran marathons several other marathons in other cities, such as the Cauvery River marathon, Jim Corbett marathon, Jaipur marathon, etc. In these years, she completed 60 half marathons (21 km), two full marathons (42 km), five ultra-marathons (above 42 km), three 12 hour runs, and has finished the Podium four times.
RUNNING FOR A CAUSE
She said, “During Covid 19 lockdown, Railways continued with round the clock working but the staff was very demotivated and scared. Once the lockdown was lifted, I found out that a lot of my staff was exposed to the virus. I soon realised that the Fit India campaign is a must for the Railway families and hence we opened a gym in our building with basic machines like treadmill, cycle, cross trainer etc., which was launched on this Women’s day.”
Despite making running a hobby, Ms. Pandey also tried to influence people through it for a better cause. She conducted a lot of virtual marathons like Kargil Vijay marathon to support the cause of Kargil war veterans, Canthon run for cancer patients, and Delhi marathon. This motivated her to do a half marathon every Sunday.
By participating in half marathons every week for 21 weeks, she has covered around 945 kilometers to support India’s fight against Covid 19 and the vaccination drive launched by the Government of India.
She said, “When you run for a cause, you create awareness about it, with the result that your work environment improves and your staff gets motivated to perform better. Therefore, with the help of my running schedule, the people around me got influenced and become healthier. They adopted a behavior which helped to prevent the spread of coronavirus.”
OTHER CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
Apart from running and influencing people to remain fit, Ms. Pandey is also into philanthropic pursuits. She supports her husband Virendra Ojha, an IRS officer, in running classes through an online portal called Margdarshan, for the aspirants coming from rural areas and underprivileged backgrounds in preparation for Civil services.
She was also the first woman Senior Divisional Commercial manager in Mumbai and was instrumental in setting up the first unreserved ticketing system in Mumbai. While serving as the Chief commercial manager of freight, she wrote a book called ‘Riding the Freight Train’- a comprehensive overview of freight operations in Western Railways.
