Yay!
900 km, 8 days, 1 ride: TFN 09 Yippee!
All posts filed under: Sports
Tour of the Nilgiris: Gear up for the exciting ride!
The Tour of Nilgiris meanders through the famed Blue Mountains of South India immersing you in the stunning landscape, bio-diversity, culture and heritage of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
It’s an uphill climb!
The training for Sunfeast is on! This is the Kanakpura stretch where we go when we want to do uphill stretches. This time we did a 4k stretch downhill to start with. And then we come back the same way, except this time it’s all uphill 🙂 Believe me, it’s not happy thoughts on your mind when you’re toiling up one of those hills. If you can spot me here, I look extremely surly and grumpy when Dr Rajat caught me on tape shuffling up on one of the steepest slopes. He was positioned there video taping us asking, “How are you feeling?†You can see me shuffling off. I had no breath left to tell him 🙂
Running in Mumbai
The Mumbai run was an exciting event for me. The registrations start way in advance so there is quite a build up over the months. It was another story that I wasn’t too prepared and hadn’t put in any long runs in the month prior to Mumbai. But I was excited, never the less. My mom expressed her surprise when I said I was going to Mumbai. To run. I had after all lived in the city for well over 5 years and she couldn’t quite figure out why at this stage in life, I was suddenly travelling all the way to another city just to run. Some things are just too hard to explain.
The ultra experience
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.
Finishing the KTM
Mostly, I remember the last few kilometers of KTM. Because I’ve never been so relieved that it was done. But then I say that after every run 🙂 Well, I probably wasn’t the only one : with the sun shining in all its glory : at times during the 3 hour affair I could feel it penetrating into my skull (through my hat) and burning holes and radiating out. I am not kidding. It was so HOT. We didn’t get an overcast day as we had hoped. Instead we had clear skies and the blazing sun and a delayed start : as a result of which most folks suffered quite a bit. The full marathoners were still running way into the 5th and 6th hour and I can only say that I am filled with admiration. I couldn’t have gone a mile beyond the 21! In fact the last 2 kms or so was quite bad. I had developed a bit of a headache (I usually do when exposed for prolonged hours to the sun) …