Krishna Prasad said everyone is quite amazed that they managed to do this at this age.

A Hyderabad-based industrialist celebrated his 60th birthday in a unique manner - by running seven half marathons on seven continents in seven days. The feat, in which his 53-year-old wife was a partner, has earned the couple a place in Guinness Book of Records, that too for third time in a row.



The industrialist, Krishna Prasad, said everyone is quite amazed that they managed to do this at this age. "It is more a mind game and emotions. People ask how do you run and I say it is all in the mind. If you make up your mind, everything else will follow."



His wife Uma Chigurupati said she dismissed the entire idea as absurd when her husband first proposed this. "When I first heard about it, I thought it's absurd. How are we going to do 7 continents in 7 days including Antarctica - a continent most unpredictable to even go and land there."



But Mr Prasad was very keen, though he agreed to make it half marathons, instead of the full length, as a concession, to convince Uma. The couple has always run together.



"There was nice competition between us. Which marathon, who is finishing first, there is inspiration and support too. So we do share a special bond because of that," said Uma.





The couple started running about 12 years ago, when Uma passed the 40-year milestone. From leading a 10 km run in Hyderabad, organised for their employees in 2003, to half marathons and full marathons on Antarctica and the North Pole to doing marathons on seven continents in seven months in 2010, it was as though they couldn't get enough of it and wanted more."We discovered this beautiful run at Bordeaux in France, it was wine-country, we had to go through different chateaus and they would give you wine, something we both have a passion for. That is where we ran our first full marathon," said Mr Prasad.

The couple knew this year's run was going to be tough. Mr Prasad would wake up at 3:30 every day and start running. His wife would join him an hour later. They knew the challenges were going to be like never before and therefore more the excitement. "Not just temperature and time zones, wherever you land, whenever you land, you have to run, catch up with sleep on plane/bus, eat whatever is available on flights, changing in washrooms," said the industrialist."We have always been running as a couple. Either we do it together or we don't do it. I can't imagine myself running alone. We really enjoy it. It is best time we spend together... talk of so many things because there is so much time and we are virtually alone on long runs," Mr Prasad added.