ROshni Rai

A Bit About Me

Roshni Rai is an Advocate, the ultra marathon runner, a motivational speaker and an Author. Her book ‘From the Mountain to the Ocean Run with Roshni’ is published from Mumbai in September 2015. She is a Goodwill Ambassador of Everest marathon for India.

Roshni went to Mumbai in 2004 to do her LLM (Masters in Law) from Mumbai University, which she completed in the year 2006. She ran her first Half Marathon during Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon 2007, in which she badly injured her knee due to the lack of proper training. In 2008, she got a job of Legal Executive in a Multi national Company, Colgate-Palmolive (India) Ltd. In Colgate, she was introduced to a running club and she started marathon training under the guidance of her Coach Daniel Vaz. She has run more than fifty races, which includes 10km races, half marathons, marathons, ultra marathons of 50km, 75km and the Comrades Marathon of 89km in South Africa. The longest distance run by Roshni is 100km Bangalore Ultra Marathon in November 2015.

Roshni has participated in seven international races. Two in UK, one in Czech Republic, one in South Africa. On 29th May, 2016, Roshni got an invitation to run Tenzing-Hillary Everest Marathon in Nepal, which is probably the most adventurous and highest trail run in the world. In September, 2016, Roshni participated in Xingui Mountain marathon in China and in March 2018, she participated in Lumbini Peace marathon, the only spiritual marathon of the world in Nepal by invitation.

She is a founder of ‘Run with Roshni Foundation’ through which, she is supporting underprivileged Gorkha runners from Darjeeling to run marathons in Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Shillog since the year 2012. Despite being a non athlete during her school days, she could graduate from running 10km to 100km, which Roshni attributes to her Gorkha genes, who are physically very strong due to the geographical locations in which they grow up. She says, if the Gorkha kids get proper guidance from the right age, they have the potential to become world class runners and compete with the Kenyans and Ethiopians.

Vision of ‘Run with Roshni Foundation’ is to create a team of Gorkha runners, who will win Olympic Marathon for India, which will ultimately help to eliminate the identity crisis faced by Indian Gorkhas. In every marathon, they participate, her team, wears t-shirts with slogan - WE ARE GORKHAS PROUD TO BE INDIAN. JAI GORKHA JAI HIND!