Where to run in India

Why 37 cities and not 200

Because a running-route page is only worth anything if the routes exist. It would be trivial to generate a page for every district headquarters in India, each listing "City Park" and "Lake Road" with a plausible distance attached, and it would rank for a while. It would also send somebody out at half past five in the morning looking for a path that is not there.

So this list covers the cities whose running places are genuinely well known — the Marine Drive promenades, the Cubbon Parks, the Kukkarahalli Lakes — and stops. Every distance is marked approximate because park perimeters are not surveyed and your watch will disagree with ours. If a route here is wrong, closed, or has become unsafe, tell us and it gets corrected or removed.

The two things that decide when you run

In most of India, heat and air quality matter more than route choice. Between March and June across the plains, an outdoor session after seven in the morning is a genuine health risk rather than a hard workout. Between November and January across the north, the air itself is the problem, and the worst readings arrive at dawn — exactly when runners go out. Both are covered properly: running in Indian heat and running and air quality.