Runners are lacing up their running shoes and gearing up through carb loading for the Mumbai Ultra Run, a 12-hour ultramarathon (an ultramarathon is a running event that has a distance further than the conventional 42.2 km marathon distance) that is held at Shivaji Park every August 15.

The event is in its ninth edition this year with runners supposed to run ‘loops’ from Shivaji Park to Worli for 12 hours. There is a significant deviation in pattern. A blood donation camp is held alongside the run every year at the Swatantrya Veer Savarkar Smarak, Shivaji Park, and other locations where people are encouraged to donate blood for paediatric cancer patients on the same day.