XLRI's virtual marathon, Xhaust-2020, held on Sunday saw the participation of 100 students, faculty and staff.

Conducted by SportsCom, the umbrella unit that organises all sports activities at XLRI, the marathon saw participants opted for the run in the two slots (7 am and 6 pm) in 3 km, 5 km and 10 km categories.

The participants were required to install the "Pacer" app on their mobile phones to track the run and to share details within 10 minutes of finishing the run. The aim of the event was primarily to nudge the XLRI community to bring back physical fitness into their daily routine after months of inactivity.

The event received positive feedback from participants. "It was great running for a long stretch after several months. Feels good to be active again," said one runner.

Vaibhav Hinduja, a member of SportsCom, said many participants considered it as a stress buster event.

Top performers among men were Yash Naiknavare (Mumbai) and Pranav Bhatt (Nainital). Among women, Rucha Kalekar (Pune) and Chandini Gunaparthi (Bengaluru) posted excellent timings.

All top performers were students. While Yash and Pranav belonged to the Human Resources and Business Management stream, Rucha is a Business Management student, and Chandni is pursuing Human Resources Management.

All students are away from the campus because of the pandemic.

Members of the organising body said they are planning to present trophies to the best performers when they return to the campus. “For now, we have decided to send them some goodies via post," said a member of SportsCom.

Fr. P. Christie, director of XLRI, congratulated the performers and said the B-school would continue to promote fitness through various sporting events.