Kannan Sundararajan, also known as Coach Kay was born and grew up in the Ooty, Tamil Nadu in India. Since childhood, he was interested in athletics and as years had passed he had developed a passion for sports, staying active and energetic. He has a deep love for endurance running & coaching.
Coming from a Mechanical Engineering degree, Kay is also a certified project manager, agile scrum master and a Lean Six-Sigma black belt. He has played a wide range of leadership roles in various multinational companies including Parametric Technology Corporation and Siemens Industry Software. After working for 24 years, he left his corporate career (LinkedIn profile) and launched KaysFIT Academy in 2016.
Kay is an ACE Certified Personal Trainer, race director, ultramarathon running coach, fitness consultant and a motivational speaker.
OOTYULTRA marathon was founded by Coach Kay in 2018 and the first edition of this event had attracted over 278 runners across 10 different Indian states and few international runners and the 2019 edition had 717 runners. OOTYULTRA offers 60k, 30k and 15k distance categories to runners with a varying level of running interests and capabilities. Kay is also the founding partner for BAMA (Badminton Masters) a premium badminton tournament conducted in Bangalore.
Ultramarathon runner
| Distance | Personal best timing | Year |
| 10k | 44.43 | 2019 |
| Half Marathon | 1:41:41 | 2018 |
| Full Marathon | 3:51:11 | 2019 |
| The Border 100 miler | 27:59 hrs | 2018 |
- Enjoys running ultramarathons but at the same time regularly runs shorter distances
- A regular runner since 2011 and completed over 50 marathons & ultramarathons
- Comrades Marathon, back to back finisher (90 km ultramarathon in South Africa)
- 100-miler (160 km road race) at The Border 100 miler on the 22-23 Dec 2018 in under 27:59:00 hr
- The first-ever finisher of The Triangular Run Challenge, in May 2019, by completing 500 km in one month
- View running records summary
Running & ultramarathon coach & ACE Certified personal trainer
Style of coaching
Kay is a friendly coach and a mentor who brings in his in-depth knowledge on running, human anatomy, kinesiology, functional training and sports conditioning.
Give a Man a Fish, and You Feed Him for a Day. Teach a Man To Fish, and You Feed Him for a Lifetime
Coach Kay believes in this old adage and helps his clients with a lot of scientific and logical reasoning behind exercises and their benefits.
He combines his technical knowledge with people, program and project management, process excellence and attention to details to help encourage and motivate his clients in discovering their best and also in achieving their goals in a structured manner.
External references:
- The Safe Ultramarathoner (www.finishermag.com)
- How running left the jogging tracks and became a fun, community exercise (https://economictimes.indiatimes.com)
- Meet the ‘coaches’ who keep amateurs run-ready (www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
Race director & mentor
Kay enjoys organising events by bringing uniqueness and involving people from different background and age groups. OOTYULTRA, with the tag #ultramalaivsi, a challenging ultramarathon, is his dream event to encourage the residents of The Nilgiris district to take up running as a healthy hobby and to provide a unique experience to runners across the world to enjoy the beauty of the blue mountains. The events that he organises have a single objective to provide a “wow” experience to the runners at the same time offering a mutually beneficial and valuable partnership to the sponsors.
- Race director for OOTYULTRA
- Race director for Alertathon
- Mentor, technical advisor, marketing and communication support for the Yercaud Hills Marathon for the year 2017, 2018
- Friendly race director/key core member at the Val Vill Ori Ultra
He also regularly coaches a group youth on fitness and badminton skills in Sobha Althea & Azalea apartments, Yelahanka, Bangalore
Road safety ambassador
As a road safety ambassador Kay launched Be Safe! Be there to Save! Campaign and has completed #424242running(ran 42 marathon distances in 42 weeks in 42 different places by running nearly 1800 km) for spreading awareness on Road Safety from 2-Jul-2016 to 15-Apr-2017.
A good samaritan
Kay is a recipient of ALERT BEING AWARD – 2017, in the Individual Category for being a Real Life Hero and a Good Samaritan for saving lives/accident victims. Kay regularly organises First-Aid and CPR training to various corporates and individual communities. Through the #helpkiran campaign, Kay had raised over 6.5 lakhs within a span of one month to support an accident victim in Bangalore read about #helpkirantoday campaign
Road Safety Campaign in Limca Book of Records
The 2018 edition of the Limca Book of Records had featured the Marathon Safety Campaign under the human story section
External References:
- One Man’s Extraordinary Journey and What Indian Railways Could Learn from It! (www.thebetterindia.com)
- One man’s extraordinary journey and what Indian Railways could learn from it! (www.citizenmatters.com)
- HELP 22-year-old Kiran who met with an ACCIDENT – KETTO FUNDRAISER PAGE (www.ketto.org)
- Bengaluru Marathoner Stops Mid-Way To Help Out An Accident Victim, Raises Funds For His Surgery (www.indiatimes.com)
- How to save a life: This Bangaluru runner stopped his marathon to help an accident victim (www.thenewsminute.com)
- Bengaluru Runner Stops Mid-Marathon To Help Accident Victim, Raises ₹5.5 Lakhs For Treatment (www.scoopwhoop.com)
- Bengaluru Runner Helps an Accident Victim during a Marathon & Raises Rs 5 Lakh for His Treatment (www.thebetterindia.com)
- How a Bengaluru runner helped an accident victim during a marathon! (www.inuth.com)