The ultra experience

November 18th, 2008  |  Published in Living, Personal, Photography, Running, Sports  |  19 Comments

Last year’s Ultra was my first long dis­tance run­ning event. Besides the fact that I had no idea about the route (espe­cially the uphill sec­tions), I had also not run more than 10–12 kms in train­ing. So it was quite an expe­ri­ence for me. But what was really moti­vat­ing was the fact there were so many run­ners out there doing it for the first time and giv­ing it all they had. Very inspiring. 

From Ban­ga­lore Ultra 2008

This time around I was a lit­tle bet­ter pre­pared. I made sure I put in a cou­ple of long runs (of course, the train­ing never seems enough on D-Day). The day of the ultra dawned on us : it was cool and there was a cloud cover : in fact it was driz­zling lightly as we packed up in Pankaj’s red bus (com­pris­ing of Pra­teek, Toufeeq, Meher, Sat­sang, Ashok, Pankaj and me) and left for Hesaraghatta at 5 am.

At 730 am (the start time for the 25K run) the cloud cover hadn’t gone yet : I was keep­ing my fin­gers crossed. Any­thing is bet­ter than run­ning in the blaz­ing sun. 

Unfor­tu­nately, I got off to a really bad start with my calf mus­cle swelling up just at the 2 km run after the first incline : it was painful to say the least. I had to resort to putting loads of Relispray then itself and the lady at the aid sta­tion kneaded the area to ease the dis­com­fort. After that, the pain was quite bad for the next 3–4 kms and I was won­der­ing what was happening. 

After com­plet­ing loop 1 (12.5k), I started feel­ing a lit­tle stronger (loaded with peanut but­ter sand­wiches and elec­trolyte). I ran a lit­tle bet­ter till the sec­ond turn­around point (12.5 + 6.25 = 18.75 kms) and then picked up my pace. After that, I set­tled into a decent pace and man­aged to amble and not walk the uphill sec­tions too. 

At around the 23 k mark, I bumped into Mr Patel again who claimed he was wait­ing for me to pass by (for ref­er­ence, I had fin­ished the KTM with him)! He, of course, insisted that we run together to the fin­ish. We set a com­fort­able pace and then fin­ished off the 25 kms in 3 hours and 29 minutes. 

The weather was per­fect, the trail was lovely : green in parts, grass­lands in oth­ers and nar­row trails through tree cover and some road : a lit­tle dif­fer­ent from the last time around but great never the less. It was as usual awe­some to watch all the 50/75k run­ners still going long after we’d fin­ished. One run­ner, San­thosh, had been on the track since 630 pm the night before (attempt­ing a 200k) and he was still going strong when I saw him at around 130 pm. He fin­ished at 156kms : what a feat! 

From Ban­ga­lore Ultra 2008

Per­son­ally, I’m happy with 25K (pal­try as it seems com­pared to the 50, 75ks) and I am not very sure I want to go beyond it for the moment :-) I’d like to keep improv­ing my time over the next few months and hope­fully get bet­ter at it. 

Next: a half marathon in Jan­u­ary : Mum­bai here we come!

The Ultra 2008 Album

Links:
~ Santhosh’s 156 km effort and his work for Team Asha — Must read!
~ Shu­mit does a 100K
~ Swa­roop about his 25K
~ Jayadeep’s first effort
~ Sathish on the highs and lows of his 50
~ Venky on cross­ing the 25 k mark

And thanks to Tanvi for his painstak­ingly gath­ered list of ultra related blog posts that I quickly borrowed!

Responses

1. Aqua says:
   

   November 18th, 2008 at 10:39 am (#)

   Kudos!!! You run­ner girls rock I say!

   You need to tell us what moti­vates you to run, inspite of the run­ning injuries, ankle pain, calf pain, hot blaaaz­ing sun et al.

   I am inspired to run look­ing at your girls. Maybe the day I throw my bunch I will start run­ning too :)

2. Tanvir Kazmi says:
   

   November 18th, 2008 at 10:46 am (#)

   Con­grats! Good to see you com­plete the run, and com­plete it well, after that ini­tial hic­cup. All the best for the upcom­ing Mum­bai half.

3. Anita says:
   

   November 18th, 2008 at 1:02 pm (#)

   @ aqua: hehe :-) i think you get addicted to the pain after a while! 

   now, i’ve been hear­ing that for a while ;-)

   @ tan­vir: thanks a lot!

4. Venkatesh says:
   

   November 18th, 2008 at 10:15 pm (#)

   Thanks a lot, Bora.

5. Anita says:
   

   November 18th, 2008 at 10:18 pm (#)

   @venkatesh: did i man­age to catch one of you in action? :-)

6. Venkat says:
   

   November 19th, 2008 at 8:55 am (#)

   Hi Anita,

   @Thanks and con­grats to you too on com­plet­ing your sec­ond ultra.

   and btw, the pic­tures are awesome!

7. Prashanth M says:
   

   November 19th, 2008 at 2:42 pm (#)

   con­grats! btw did you com­plete thr ultra lug­ging your SLR?!!

8. shumit says:
   

   November 19th, 2008 at 5:34 pm (#)

   Thanks for the com­ment on my blog. I saw you run­ning but I was too screwed up to say hello. My apolo­gies !!! Come join team asha and run with us.

9. Anita says:
   

   November 20th, 2008 at 8:34 am (#)

   venkat: thanks! glad you liked them!

   @ prashanth: hehe :-) no, these were after i fin­ished my race. i went out into the trail again and took pictures.

   @ shu­mit: no prob­lems :-) yes, would like to do that! what do i do next?

10. Sathish says:
    

    November 20th, 2008 at 8:31 pm (#)

    thnx anita… gr8 effort and just luv the pho­tos… so next is cycling trek??

11. ravi says:
    

    November 21st, 2008 at 6:28 pm (#)

    wow awe­some.. pics and nice writeup.. i m run­ning the Hyder­abad 10K marathon end of this month :)

12. Sonia says:
    

    November 21st, 2008 at 10:51 pm (#)

    Hi Anita,

    I have been fol­low­ing your blog for a long time but, this is my first time post­ing a com­ment. Your pic­tures inspire nos­tal­gia and make me want to return to India. In your pic­tures I see a pos­i­tive blend of mod­ern India with the old.
    From your blog entries I under­stand that you have strug­gled to main­tain a healthy weight. You look great in these pic­tures :-) Way to go girl! And, I love your pink T!

13. Anita says:
    

    November 24th, 2008 at 12:15 am (#)

    @ sathish: yes! have no idea if i’ll sur­vive it though!

    @ ravi: thanks! and great — all the best for that!

    @ sonia: thanks! and it’s nice that you finally decided to leave a com­ment :-) and thanks for the encour­ag­ing words!!

14. sagari says:
    

    November 25th, 2008 at 2:30 am (#)

    very nice nice post anita

15. noni says:
    

    November 25th, 2008 at 11:29 am (#)

    is color of the street that much red.…
    or it was enhanced in pic.…

    first pic, deep red and sharp green in contrast

16. shalini says:
    

    November 26th, 2008 at 4:32 pm (#)

    i do not know what new to say except that I am a fan of your writ­ing and your photography.….

17. anita says:
    

    November 27th, 2008 at 2:23 pm (#)

    @ noni: yes, colours have been touched up in pho­to­shop, it was a very dull day :-)

    @ shalini: thank you dear!

18. Grasshopper says:
    

    November 27th, 2008 at 5:27 pm (#)

    This red earth looks so invit­ing. Didn’t you feel like run­ning bare foot?

19. manoj says:
    

    November 28th, 2008 at 8:48 pm (#)

    Hey, the Ultra long post is up. Ready to be crosslinked ;)

    Cheerz!

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