A marathon sounds like the dumbest business in the world.

You are literally paying money to run on a road.

That road was already there, your legs are your own, running doesn’t even need special equipments!

So why does someone charge ₹5,000, sometimes more, just to let you suffer publicly?

A marathon is not selling running. Running is free. A marathon is selling permission.

Permission to shut down roads, put ambulances, barricades, bibs, timing chips, water stations, security, toilets, photographers, cleanup crews, and so much more.

All this so thousands of strangers can run together.

That is the product. The run is free. The event is what costs money.

A beach is free, a music festival on that beach is not.

Running is free, but turning it into a badge, a deadline, a community, and a post worth sharing is what people pay for.