NMDC Hyderabad Marathon 2026 In Numbers

The 15th edition of the NMDC Hyderabad Marathon was held on Sunday, 30 August 2026. The marathon and the half marathon started at People’s Plaza on Necklace Road before dawn, the 10K went off at 7 AM, and all three distances finished inside the Gachibowli stadium. Across the three timed distances, 16,426 runners crossed the finish line.

As is our tradition at GeeksOnFeet, we have crunched the timing data of every finisher. Here is what we found.

Finishers Trends:

Hyderabad has grown every year since the race returned after the pandemic, and 2026 was its biggest jump so far. Total finishers went from 13,653 in 2025 to 16,426 in 2026, a 20% increase.

• The growth came almost entirely from the two longer distances. Marathon finishers went from 1,478 to 2,394, up 62%. Half marathon finishers went from 4,606 to 6,403, up 39%.
• The 10K barely moved, from 7,569 to 7,629. It has been at this level for three editions now, which suggests the 10K capacity is capped by the organisers.
• Since the August 2022 edition, the marathon has more than tripled, and the half has grown 2.6 times.

Year	Marathon	Half Marathon	10K	Total
2021 (Dec)	314	1,588	2,310	4,212
2022	728	2,437	3,890	7,055
2023	993	3,085	6,490	10,568
2024	1,217	3,676	7,116	12,009
2025	1,478	4,606	7,569	13,653
2026	2,394	6,403	7,629	16,426

• Women made up 18.8% of all finishers, 3,090 of 16,426. Women’s share falls sharply with distance: 24.4% in the 10K, 16.9% in the half, and just 6.2% in the marathon. Only 149 women finished the full marathon.
• 277 runners who started the run, did not finish. The DNF rate rises with distance too: 0.7% in the 10K, 1.7% in the half, and 4.6% in the marathon. The elite marathon field had it worst. Nine of the 37 elite starters did not finish.

Where Gen Z Is Running:

In May we wrote about how Gen Z has given Indian running its second coming, with the TCS World 10K as the evidence: 25 to 29 had become the largest age group in the country’s biggest 10K. Let us ask the same question across three distances. The bands here are broader, so “under 35” covers Gen Z (14 to 29 this year) plus the youngest millennials.

Age band	Marathon M	Marathon W	Half M	Half W	10K M	10K W
Under 35	606	26	2,134	500	2,577	1,089
35–44	862	55	1,847	309	2,139	556
45–54	610	50	998	233	815	215
55–64	140	8	286	32	187	37
65+	22	0	53	6	38	11

• The 10K is where the new generation is. Under-35s are 48% of the 10K field, 3,666 runners, and the share is higher among women: 57% of the women in the 10K were under 35, against 45% of the men. If the run clubs are the entry funnel into the sport, this is their preferred distance of entry.
• 2,634 under-35s finished the half marathon, i.e., 41% of the field and the largest band at that distance too. That is more young half marathoners than all the finishers of half distance in 2022.
• The marathon is still the middle-aged distance. Only 27% of marathon finishers were under 35. 35 to 44 is the largest band at 39%, and over-45s are another 35%. It is the same shape we saw at Mumbai in January, where 40 to 44 was the largest category.
• The gap between the distances is widest among women. Three in four of the 139 women who finished the marathon were between 35 and 54, and only 26 were under 35. The women’s marathon field is still the generation that came to running in its thirties.

The Elite Race:

The men’s marathon came down to the last few metres, and the timing system could not separate the first two to the second.

• Ethiopia’s Seboka Negusse and Kenya’s Felix Kimutai were both has 2:20:57 as the official finish time. Negusse however is the first with a gap at a tenth of a second. Francis Cheruiyot of Kenya, last year’s winner and the course record holder, was third in 2:21:29.
• Gopi Thonakal was the fastest Indian in fourth, 2:21:46, only 17 seconds off the podium. Man Singh (2:23:56), Pradeep Singh Chaudhary (2:26:12), Ranjit Singh (2:27:49) and Bugatha Srinu (2:29:56) followed. Five Indian men broke 2:30.
• The women’s race was an Ethiopian one-two. Emane Seifu won in 2:46:29, Tsega Desta was second in 2:46:57, and Kenya’s Teresiah Omosa third in 2:47:17. Nirmaben Thakor was the first Indian woman in sixth with 2:50:20, and Bhagirathi Non was seventh in 2:51:41.
• Despite much pleasant weather this year, both the course records set in 2025 survived: Cheruiyot’s 2:17:27 and Millicent Jemutai Kibet’s 2:39:27.
• 31 runners went under three hours, 23 from the elite field and 8 from the open field. The fastest open runner was Fuldhar Netam in 2:45:29. All seven women under three hours were elites; the fastest open woman was Nikita Hora in 3:35:23.

Top 10 Men and Women (gun times)

Men	Time	Women	Time
Seboka Negusse	2:20:57	Emane Seifu	2:46:29
Felix Kimutai	2:20:57	Tsega Desta	2:46:57
Francis Cheruiyot	2:21:29	Teresiah Omosa	2:47:17
Gopi Thonakal	2:21:46	Viola Jelagat	2:49:49
Man Singh	2:23:56	Chepchirchir Truphena	2:49:53
Pradeep Singh Chaudhary	2:26:12	Nirmaben Thakor	2:50:20
Ranjit Singh	2:27:49	Bhagirathi Non	2:51:41
Bugatha Srinu	2:29:56	Meenakshi Negi	3:08:43
Manoj Moond	2:30:00	Priyanka Shukla	3:18:22
Anant Gaonkar	2:34:40	Bhagwati Dangi	3:31:28

Finish Time Distribution:

Hyderabad is the toughest city marathon in India, and the rolling course and the monsoon humidity show up clearly in the finish times. We have looked at each distance separately.

Marathon

• The median marathon time was 5:07:06, a pace of 7:17 per km. Half the field finished between 4:28 and 5:49.
• 269 runners (11.2%) broke four hours. 634 (26.5%) broke 4:30, and 1,082 (45.2%) broke five hours. One in five finishers, 466 runners, took more than six hours.
• The busiest quarter hour at the finish was 4:45 to 5:00, with 265 finishers.
• The round-number goal is visible in the data. 94 runners finished in the five minutes before 4:30 and only 51 in the five minutes after. The same thing happens at 4:00, with 52 before and 41 after.

Half Marathon

• The median half marathon time was 2:45:27, a pace of 7:51 per km. The middle half of the field finished between 2:22 and 3:08.
• 480 runners (7.5%) broke two hours, and only 29 broke 1:30. 2,094 (32.7%) broke 2:30. A third of the field, 2,133 runners, took more than three hours.
• The busiest ten minutes at the finish were 2:40 to 2:50, with 747 finishers.
• Unlike the marathon which has bunhcing around 5 hour mark, there is no bunching at the two-hour mark. 153 runners finished in the five minutes before 2:00 and 166 in the five minutes after. On this course, the sub-2 half is not the target as it is in Mumbai or Delhi.

10K

• The median 10K time was 1:33:30. That is 9:21 per km, which is a slow jog or brisk walk. 4,273 runners, 56% of the field, took more than 90 minutes, and 957 took more than two hours.
• 293 runners (3.8%) broke the hour. 65 broke 50 minutes and 20 broke 45.
• For comparison, at the TCS World 10K Bengaluru in April, 37.5% of the field broke the hour and the median was 64:36. The Hyderabad 10K starts at 7 AM, two and a half hours after the marathon, and it is where the first-timers, the families and the corporate groups run. Most of the field is out for a long walk in the city, and the data says so.
• The busiest five minutes at the finish were 1:25 to 1:30, with 777 finishers.

The full picture, by percentile

	p1	p10	p25	Median	p75	p90	p99
Marathon	2:53:30	3:57:09	4:28:08	5:07:06	5:49:26	6:23:31	7:09:37
Half	1:37:08	2:04:52	2:22:56	2:45:27	3:08:51	3:32:59	4:20:09
10K	51:07	1:08:50	1:20:06	1:33:30	1:48:28	2:02:48	2:28:06

The gap between men and women at the median is 14 minutes in the marathon (5:06:22 against 5:20:34), 19 minutes in the half (2:41:40 against 3:00:58), and 13 minutes in the 10K (1:29:52 against 1:42:52).

The Start Line:

The open marathon at 4:35 AM, the half at 5:30 AM, and the 10K at 7:00 AM. Gun time minus chip time tells us when each runner actually crossed the start line.

Distance	Finishers	First minute	99% across by	Last starter
Marathon	2,394	378	11:52	36:40
Half Marathon	6,403	712	24:52	50:56
10K	7,629	538	27:18	53:30

• The marathon field cleared the line in about 12 minutes. Self-seeding worked: the fastest quarter of the field started 1:44 after the gun on average, and the slowest quarter started 7:55 after.
• The half marathon was a steady flow of 200 to 300 runners a minute for a full 20 minutes, with a whooping 712 crossing in the first minute. Organizers definitely need to look at introducing start waves for half-marathon.
• The last starter of hal-marathon crossed 50:56 after the gun, and still ran 2:42.
• The 10K went off in two clear waves. 2,896 runners crossed in the first nine minutes. Then the line went almost quiet for two minutes. Then 4,583 runners crossed between minute 11 and minute 25.

The Overtakers:

Since we have both gun and chip times for everyone, we can count how many runners each person passed on the way to the finish: everyone who started ahead of them and finished behind them.

• The busiest runner of the day was in the 10K. Bib 74091 started 23:50 after the gun and ran 53:20, the seventh fastest woman’s time. In those 53 minutes she passed 6,449 runners, 121 a minute, two every second, from start to finish.
• In the half marathon, the fastest runner of the day was not the first into the stadium. Harmanjot Singh (bib 29717) ran 1:11:57, more than three minutes clear of anyone else, but he crossed the start 6:19 after the gun. Humen Senapati (1:15:10) and Makesh S (1:16:34) reached the finish before him. He passed 2,918 runners on the way. The timing data ranks him first on chip time.
• In the marathon, Gaurav Tolani (bib 44037) started 10:04 after the gun, ran 3:53:40, and passed 1,964 runners.
• For the typical runner, the numbers are smaller but not small. The median 10K runner passed 780 people, the median half marathoner 631, and the median marathoner 233.

The Roll Call and Other trivia:

Some of what we found is just for fun. Here it is.

The names

• If you shouted “Sai” inside the Gachibowli stadium, 162 men would turn around, and 278 runners have Sai somewhere in their name. Amit, the most common name at Mumbai this year, only makes sixth place in the half here. Among the women, Divya (31) edges Priyanka (30), followed by Vaishnavi, Neha and Anusha.
• Names are an age proxy too. Aditya is the second most common name in the half and does not make the marathon’s top ten. The Adityas who are running the half now and will be in the marathon in a few years.
• Kumar appears in 1,085 names, Reddy in 732 and Singh in 342. The most recurrent full name is Amit Kumar, nine of them, followed by eight each of Pavan Kumar and Kiran Kumar.
• The longest name on the results list belongs to a half marathoner: “Venkata Sri Rama Lingeswara Sai Mamillapalli”.

The clock

• The first runner into the stadium was a half marathoner. Humen Senapati crossed at 6:45 AM, five and a half minutes before the marathon winner, and six half marathoners were in before Negusse.
• At 7:25 AM, 16,032 of the day’s 16,426 finishers were running at the same time.
• The finish line was busiest at 8:29 AM, when 234 runners crossed in one minute (across Full,half & 10K), four every second.
• The last marathoner came in at 12:22 PM.

The astronomical field

• All together, the 16,426 finishers covered 312,392 km. That is 7.8 laps of the equator, or 81% of the way to the Moon.
• They spent 42,270 hours on the course, which is 4.8 years of running without a break.

Oddities

• Five 10K runners stopped the clock at exactly 1:11:11 (bibs 70425, 71784, 76038, 76097 and 76191), and one half marathoner at 3:33:33 (bib 25645). Three 10K runners ran 1:23:45 (bibs 73905, 76971 and 77017). Bib 21978 ran the half in exactly 2:00:00, bib 24225 in exactly 3:00:00, and bib 43372 finished the marathon in exactly 5:00:00.
• 76 pairs of runners with the same surname finished within three seconds of each other, 41 of them a man and a woman. Bibs 76113 and 80609 crossed the 10K finish at 46:49 and 46:50. Bibs 78120 and 78124 got the same second, 1:11:27.
• 150 runners crossed both the start line and the finish line in the same second as someone else. They ran the whole distance side by side.

A note on methodology:

• All times referenced here are chip times, except for the elite and podium results, which are gun times.
• Finisher counts for 2021 to 2025 are from mytimes.run.

Hope you have liked the insights. If you find any additional insights, please do write to us via email or through any of our social media channels.

Special thanks to fellow geek, Chirag Kothari, who took the intiative to put together mytimes.run.