I did it all… but I’m still no Ultra Runner

You got to be seriously crazy to say, almost the entire year, that you would never run a 50k again, and then at the nth hour change your mind and decide to do it all over again.

You got to be really crazy to do the event even after you sleep-ran almost the entire run the previous year.

You got to be really crazy to run an event that starts at 1:30 in the morning when you still have not figured out a way to stay awake in the early morn.

You got to be really crazy to decide that you are ready to run the event just because you did a couple of long runs with some amazing runners training for the event.

You got to be really crazy when you want to do an event because you suffer from FoMo.

You got to be really crazy when you want to do an event just because you are seduced by the thought that you would have run all the distances within the first two months of the year.

Well I am that crazy and I somehow registered and ran the race.

So once again you find yourself at yet another starting line, for the third time this year, within the a period of the first two months of the year (part of the temptation as to why you decide to do this event). For the third  time you are trying to warm up between greetings and clicks and cups of black coffee and bananas and dry fruits. Thanks to your buddy Bijay, you managed to get yourself registered for the event.

As you patiently wait for the race to start off you have these lingering thoughts running through your head, doubts creeping in your mind, causing you to wonder why did you even take up this endeavour. It wasn’t like you had the best of times the last two time you did the event. You’ve even been a sleeping beauty at the last edition. But now that you are here you might as well give it a shot, and this time around hopefully you manage to stay awake.

So there you are, at the start line, eagerly waiting for the clock to countdown to the start of the run. And as it does there’s fireworks and smoke, and off the elite go. Then you have the next wave and then the next, till it’s finally your turn to go. 

So you take off amidst the shower of golden confetti. Well you don’t quite take off, you saunter slowly and steadily making your way through the crowd. Letting those in a hurry to pass you by. You’ll hold your course at a pace that’s comfortable.

You finally find your running buddies, who try to ensure everyone is there and try to find where the missing ones are.

For the first time you are running together with your running buddies. After all, friends who train together, run races together.

You have run with Dyloo at TMM before but by the time you reached Peddar Road you lost him.

This was not really the same. It was as if you were a wolf running in pack with Yogy and Tomcy setting the pace and we, that’s Yash, Kushgara, Ayaz, Satish, and yours truly, keeping pace.

To ensure that the pack stays together and no one gets left behind, cause the strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack (did I just quote from Disney’s Jungle Book!), Yogy suggest that each take a number, and throughout the run, at regular intervals we call out our number so that we know who is where.

And so you’re number six, which also happened to be your roll number in school. 

You are grateful that both Yogy and Tomcy are there to set the pace, to keep the pack in check, to ensure no ones going faster than they should, ensuring everyone is running at an easy steady pace, telling you when to cut the crap, I.e. going in a straight line on curvy roads, when to watch out for potholes and speed brakers and kaccha roads and vehicles.

You run past houses that are all dark with their occupants deep in slumber.

You run past sleeping dogs, who don’t bother themselves to see who’s gone by, who lift their eyes slightly, curious about who are these fools running at this ungodly hour, not bothering to give chase (thankfully).

Finally you reach INS Shivaji, and from there begins your ascend up Tiger hill. You are grateful that the pack, like the everyone else, are tackling it with a walk-run strategy, i.e. walk up the slopes and jog and not quite run when you are on gentle climbs (something you had done last year too thanks to the sage advice from Ajay and Quintin).

As you steadily make your way up Tiger Hill you can’t help get this sense that Tiger Hill is lit up by a thousands of fireflies on an almost dark night.

When you finally make it up Tiger Hill it’s time to run steadily. Though you run slowly and steadily most of the time, but there are slopes that you walk up. 

Although you have your headlamps on, you don’t quite need cause it’s a full moon that lights up your way. And the stars are there too to brighten the inky black sky.

It’s indeed a sight to behold. You silently wished you paid more attention during Geography, or you knew astronomy. It would be something if you could name the stars and their galaxies that lay in front of you.

You feel this sense of gratitude to have this opportunity to run beneath a sky full of stars that have come out to shine for you.

Instinctively you have Coldplays Yellow play in your head “.. look at the stars, look how they shine for you…”

So there you are running beneath a sky full of stars and a beautiful full moon, like fireflies (yeah thanks to your headlamp) in the night sky.

The route twists and turns, rises and falls, and all through it there’s something familiar about it. You’ve run this route before so there’s something warm and familiar, like a hug you need on cool February morning (you realise that though it’s dark, it’s not night but the early morning). 

You are aware that every uphill will be a downhill on the return, and vice-versa.

There’s nothing there that will surprise, except for the fact that the roads are in a bit better condition now than it has been in the past.

Although it’s dark you are familiar with what the place would look like in the light.

So all through the night, ok make that early morn, you are running in the dark, trying to keep up with your pack, especially when you take a rather long break because nature decides to call on you and you can’t help but heed to its call. So you’re constantly playing catch up with your pack. But never do you feel the strain that you are going to fast. You just continue to run and when taking the roll call you just say, ok make that a shout, your number (remember it was 6), giggling whenever Satish annoyingly says 7, cause you’ve got Monica’s 7 in your head.

All this shenanigans manage to keep you awake and lively and in check. Boy are you grateful for it, for running with your pack.

It’s dark all around and there’s nothing much that you can make out by your teeny tiny head lamp, but your grateful for it hides from you the area that you are running through that would have cause you some anxiety if you had seen it in the light of day with the sun overhead (there you see why I say I am not quite the ultra runner).

So you only realise you have passed the turn for Amby Valley when someone actually mentions it to you. By then you have passed u-turn for the 35k . Somewhere in your head you’re wondering how many more kms to go till you come to your u-turn.

By this time you have the Elites and faster runners passing you by. You cheer them and laugh when your friends hilariously comment on the number of jackets that have gone that have been kept for the first 15 finishers.

You cheer them on and cheer on your running buddies who are way ahead of you, somewhere wondering if you could just join them on the other side and finish the race. But hey you didn’t come so far to give up or take shortcuts. So you continue to trudge along, not quite grumpily but thankfully awake and running steady.

By and by you reach the halfway mark and you’re still wide awake. Though you do feel a bit drowsy and a bit of sleep coming along but there’s nothing a splash of water on the face won’t fix. So all the flashbacks from your run the last year and all the anxiety that it induced are all for naught.

You run through the u-turn as your pack encourage you to keep up. 

It’s still dark and world is till a sleep. You continue to splash water on your face to keep awake and keep up with your pack but every time you pour water on your face you have to play ketchup, oops I meant catch up with your pack. But thank god for walk breaks, you just had to run through them and you were back in the mix. But then that also meant you had cut short your walk, you just had to keep focus and keep going onwards.

You once again reach the 35k turning point. This time around you do meet the 35k runners unlike last year when you were at the back of the pack and all the 35 runner had already passed by.

So you meet you friend Pareshji, who’s playing music on his Bluetooth speaker (to think of it, he was actually running the 50k). You pass your friend Meghna and you share interesting she baking talks. You also see your friend Masuma go by running (or was she power walking) strongly. You’re genuinely happy to see all of them and many more running buddies.

So till now there was no signs of cramps, and sleep just made a brief appearance only to be dashed away with a splash of water. However, you begin to feel a soreness in your glutes and lower back. Nothing serious, nothing that would hinder your run. 

It took you by surprise and Satish’s annoyance to find out that the water stations were out of sprays. Finally, your fellow pack member Ayaaz hands you both a spray which you share with Satish and Kushgara.

Although the soreness doesn’t prevent you from running, it does slow you down. So by and by your pack goes ahead and you are unable to play catch up. So you find yourself on your on. Well not quite all alone, you do have Kushagara for company. So you continue to run-walk steady and strong.

By now it’s been a few hours that you have been on your feet. Though you started your run in the cool, dark morning, the sun is slowly and steadily making its presence felt. The inky blue ness of the night sky is slowly making way for a crimson rusty hue. 

Like a veil that’s lifted to reveal the beauty beneath it, so it is with the light of the morning sun. The veil of darkness of the night is slowly lifting to reveal all that was hidden beneath it. And oh what a revelation it is.

Although you’ve seen this sight before, it still takes your breath away. On the east you have the rising sun that’s lighting up the sky with the beautiful river flowing through it, and on the other side you have the moon slowly setting over a town that’s slowly waking from its slumber. 

And you have you who is running through both these sites on your either side. How can you not stop to take it all in! How can you not stop to capture this moment, this sight that you are blessed to witness. You’ll always have that mental picture etched in your memory, but you want to capture so that your can share it on your social media, after all sharing is caring, and you sure want to show off the sites you’ve seen while you go for your run.

They say time and tide waits for no man, and you can say the same for runners. So while you busy capturing the sights, kushagara slowly moves ahead of yours.

So once again you find yourself running on your own. Your pack has gone ahead and you are left back all by yourself. Somewhere you can hear Celine Dion singing the soundtrack of your run “all by myself, don’t want to be, all by myself, anymore!”

There’s nothing much you can do but to soldier on. So you continue to run strongly.

By now the suns up and your little bit anxious as you wanted to be done before it gets hotter.

You patiently continue to run-walk-jog, wondering as to when you would reach the downhill section of Tiger Hill.

You’ve run past bends and water station that have everything but have run out of water, much to your surprise.

You start to get impatient wondering where the hell is that downhill, considering that by now you’ve passed the 40th km with only 10 more.

Although you seem to be loosing a bit of patience you are grateful that cramps and sleep have eluded you this time around and you are grateful to them for it. 

You keep wondering when you would run round the bend and past the Airforce Base to finally reach the downhill section.

Patience is a key here, especially when you are a quicker runner over a short, cause marathons and ultras require you to be slow and steady, conserving your energy when you need it for that final push.

You are glad that though the sun is up it isn’t too hot, thanks to the nip in the air.

You finally run past the Airforce Base and you know it’s all downhill from here. Again you know you need to go down steadily, you don’t want to injure yourself or hurt your knees.

The downhill is a piece of cake, you don’t have to put in much effort and let gravity do its thing. All you need do is run steady.

And just like that you reach INS Shivaji, the base of Tiger Hill. From here on you know it’s just rolling hills.

You check your watch to see how you are doing on time and according to it and the pace at which you are going, which is not fast just nice and steady, you should be done around the time you estimated you would complete. So you don’t have to do anything fancy, you’ve have to just keep running, running, running.

You meet a couple of friends who had done the Atal Seth run the previous week and were now doing a 50 here. You marvel at the craziness that runners do, putting our bodies through the wringer.

You indulge in some chit chat and click some selfies before you continue down those last few kms.

You finally manage to catch with Ayaaz, a fellow member of your pack, who’s slowed down due to cramps. You check on him to see if he’s ok and try to encourage him but you know it and he does too, that its best he takes it the way he feels than then pushing it. So you give him thumbs up and continue to make your way.

And then you see your dearest Shivanna who’s doing his 35. He’s someone who always brings this feeling of joy and happiness. It’s the energy that he radiates. You couldn’t feel more happier to see him go strong and steady. He’s looking fit and handsome as always (he’s your laughing Buddha), there’s no struggle and looks awesome.

You run upto him and give him tight hug and scream “Go Shivanna!”. You give him a thumbs up and not wanting to break his rhythm, or for that matter even yours. So you give him thumbs up and continue you on.

By now you begin to get this sense that you are so close to the finish line. The markers that have being counting backwards from the very start now tell you that you have just a kilometre to go.

You taste that finish line (please don’t ask me how it taste). You can feel it, you can hear it and you can see it (or at least you visualise it in your head). But then you can also feel  your back and glutes that have been tightening. They are not sore, they are just tight (or is the tightness also an indication of the soreness). 

So even though you know the finish line is so close, you need to one final walk break before you go ahead and finish strongly.

You have the runners who have finished their race, walking by the side of the road, who begin to cheer you on.

You take this energy, make your way strongly down the ramp and to the finish line, raising  your arms in ecstasy and giving a fist pump and letting out a joyful scream.

You did it! You completed your second 50k! And this time around you did much better and stronger than your first one. And most importantly no cramps and you didn’t sleep.

You couldn’t have felt more prouder of yourself and at the same you couldn’t have been more relieved that you finally are done with it. You marvel at the fact that you actually went from not ever doing to doing a 50k again!

You collect your medal and your towel and you look around to try to find your pack. When you finally find them, you just collapse to the ground and cover your face with your new towel. You’re exhausted and your back and glutes and hamstrings are all screaming. 

But then this is not the time to lay on grass but go around and greet your friends, hope they don’t ask you for the time you took to complete. 

You congratulate and click pics with your pack proud of their timing (and secretly wishing you could have done better).

You then over to your other group l to celebrate with them (see it pays to be part of more than one group). You are so happy and proud for your friends Shazia and Seema who have had an amazing 35k. You give Seema a twirl, and then proceed to be part of the Seema wala selfie.

And there you have it, you done it all. The pre-race, race and post race shenanigans, you done it all. It’s time now to head back to the hotel and rest , before you head back home. So you say your goodbyes to your friends and hobble to your friend’s car for the journey back.

So with this you’ve literally gone from never ever doing this run again to finally conquering it, all within a span of two weeks and thanks to your pack and great big help from Bijay.

With this you’ve done a Full Marathon, a Half Marathon, and now a 50k or an Ultra Marathon (a week later you would also do a 10k), and with that you run all distances within the first two months of the years. There’s a lot or be proud of. There’s a lot to be surprised about. You somehow, by some crazy logic at managed to do it all, and for that you deserve a pat on the back, cause you’re one crazy fool.