Ladakh Marathon - The Race Day !!

• After the cautious rest the previous day, all were set to meet in our hotel lobby at 4 AM.
• We had a bus plying from the adjacent hotel to the start line at 4:30 AM, all of us walked to board the bus, while we had a brief stop to have some banana and tea
• Soon our buses departed at around 4:45 AM, our "First Marathoners" personal SAG by Mr /Mrs Sridhar, also started along with the buses to the start line. Appreciate the brave souls who woke up and set right on duty only to do a SAG.
• As we were heading towards the start line, runners in the bus were discussing on who will come last and literally trying to compete to the last position :)
• While I was still contemplating as to what time that I could target for the race, I was asked by shiv about my target time, was expressing my contentedness even if it is 4:30, although my secret target was still 3:45.
• In another 25 minutes, we reached the start line the Druk's school which is the school where the 3 Idiots film was shot.
• We could see many runners stretching and jogging around, many enthusiastic school children were all raving enough to run, it was moderately cold and windy which made us feel it even more.
• Totally there were 90 participants of which there were only 9 full brave marathoners who dared to challenge themselves against the altitude and that includes two ambitious women attempting their first ever full marathon.
• All 9 of us were from Hyderabad runners group. After few snaps were dressed appropriately to get warmed up.

START LINE

• In spite of the conditions, I stayed with my plan of running with my singlet with my arm warmers on, just when I transitioned to my running attire, there were enough questions about feeling cold or so, including the students of the school staring at me :)
• Went out for a quick 1k jog stepping out of the school, came back, did 6 to 8 fast strides in the school ground, feeling the warmth, I was all set for a solid start for the race.
• Wishing everybody good luck and emphasizing to finish strong to our debutantes Madhu and kiranmai, I was all set.
• Ashish, the race director calls in the head Lama of leg and director of the school to speak a few words and start the race. The head lama wished everyone god luck and thanked for giving the kids of the school an opportunity to run. Followed it with brief talk with the lama, while he was enquiring about our whereabouts and few snaps, we were ready to the race to start.

 

• There we go, at around 5:45 the race was on, I started strong, not trying to shy away from any pace less than 8:20/Mile, there were quite a few 10k runners, many from the local army battalions, few school students and honeymoon couple, racing there :)
• There was this one 10k guy who was driving me crazy with his pace, until I realized that he was just doing a 10k and felt better about myself :). I was feeling great, the mood lightened up when there were these school students interacting and still asking about if I don’t feel cold or so :)
• There were around 5 students running along with me at my pace and felt great to have some company, that too those rosy cheeked cute school kids around you, I was cruising along, only to realize that I did run my first mile @ 7:33 per mile, which is too fast from my target pace 8:15.
• I consciously slowed down, cheering those school kids to keep up the pace and continue on, soon I reach the first water stop, only to see that it was a beeline for water, people all around the table, there was no chance to grab the glass of water and run, I had to literally stop, grab a cup, and then began to run

3Mile/5K Mark

• Dropped my pace to close to 8:25, where I thought that I can stay for longer than my planned 8:15/mile pace, kept going strong, easing through some miles, passing through the water stations, felt great and kept my pace around 8:25/Mile
• Soon I saw a bunch of runners against me going super strong, led by the foreign national who was running crazy, realized at the end of the race, that he completed his 10k in 36 minutes !!
•  To my surprise, I was ahead of all 21k runners and obviously all the 42k runners, just confirming the same, I was all alone after the 5k mark, was progressing well.

6 Mile/10k Mark

• It was all merry until I reached the 10k mark, where I was helped with some enerzal for the first time, I missed the enerzal at the 5k mark, just because the water station was all surrounded by runners and did want to waste time there
• Soon I take a right turn only enough to see that there was a lead vehicle, basically an ambulance from Jammu and Kashmir Police, which was standing there and I also see the start of the so called rolling hills.
• With at most confidence and thinking about my 6 week double hill workout days that I had in training, I kept going strong, the very sense being treated special, lead with a lead vehicle, made me feel great
• Even 2 kms, the police vehicle would stop, once I reach the vehicle, they again start, and it kept going all along till turn around point at 21.5k

11miles/17k mark

• At around 17k mark is where I remember seeing the start of dry area with zero vegetation, start of hair pin bend kind of turn, and I see the police ambulance standing on top of the hill, realizing that I will have to start pushing, mentally prepared myself to face any hill, slowly started to climb them

 

• Post climb, it was an awesome view all along, I get my first gel, waiting to hit the next water station to get some water, the first time I felt the exhaustion a bit, literally started to stop at the water stations from there on, had water and enerzal and started to hit back at my speed going downhill.

13 miles/21 k Mark

• Feeling the thought of nearing the turn about point, was going strong still, being guided by the police folks stationed there, and also strictly following the signs put up by the race organizers, I hit the half way point
• I was verified my name and location to get it knocked off in their list, I confirm my details, hydrated and when I was about to start, something really amused me. I was clocking 1:50 at half way point
• A really concerned police constable from within the ambulance who has been seeing me run all along till there, offers me a chair and kindly with deep concern, asks me to sit and take rest for some time :) never before incident :)
• As I started to explain the concern in resting like that, I was mentally happy starting to run back towards the finish line, with an out and back route, that feels good and I was keeping my pace strong.

 

14 miles/24k

• At around a mile or little over while I am returning, met shiv on the way, he was looking great, wishing him all the very best, I kept going
• Had a relief to see some faces, after being running all along in the deserted valley, soon when I was climbing one of the hard hill few meteres before the upcoming water station, I saw Gupta and Balaji, they both were in a happy mood, going great, happily chatting, wishing them I kept going. Soon to be followed by devayani, exhanging wishes I move on.
• Stopped at the water station, literally stopped for almost few seconds to regain my breath, then hydrated well, by when our official photographer was already snapping multiple snaps, I really wanted to smile, but I was already beaten up by then, I still had another 10 miles to go, and few more hills to tackle
• After that stretch was a nice flat long stretch, where I was offered a banana by the mobile SAG guys, quickly had a half banana, and sipping some water as I ran, kept going.
• Soon I sighted our debutant marathoner, Madhuri, walking at ease, she looked confident, was just checking on her condition, she sounded confident as well, wishing her, I maintained my pace, I was literally starting to slow down, but managed to maintain my pace

16 Miles 25K

• Before I hit the next water station, I see Mr/Mrs Sridhar, with their supplies waiting to help out kiranmai who I soon met downhill, which she was walking up to climb the same, with her encouragement, I kept going on.
• Had a quick does of enerzal and stopped to snap to the official photographer, I again started to maintain my pace.

20 Miles 32k

• I went through all the small rolling hills along the course then, and soon was approaching the more critical 20miler/32k mark where usually runners get to know if they are hitting the wall or not
• I was feeling great with my physical strength, no pain, no cramps, all intact, but my breathing was totally out of sync, out of control

 

• The moment I stopped at the water station, I couldn’t stand, was coughing loud, almost started to get blurred vision.
• Without a second thought, I started again and kept moving along.
• I was mentally preparing myself for the last 6 miles/10k, already started to count every half mile.

23 Miles - 37 k

• Man it was starting to sink in me, yes the very high altitude effect, coughing much more regularly now, the passers by looking at me and few checking on me, as to if I am ok and fine.
• I was now feeling the pressure in my head, the blurred vision effect increasing much more. I know that I was anyways off from my 3:45 time target, which was far from reach, but I at least wanted to make it before 4 hours at least
• Started to to walk for few feet and started to run, the first time ever I had walked on my race day, I had to and forced to do it, otherwise I had no confidence in finishing the race

25 miles - 40k

• As I reached the next water stop, more than me the volunteers were really happy for me, they were wishing my all the very best and even was checking to pull in the ambulance if required.
• I was literally feeling light headed then, I was holding on to the table and that drove the volunteers frenzy, had a two full cup of water and enerzal, I felt much better, assuring them that I will finish strong and no worries of my condition.

The Epic Finish

• After another brief walk I see AK47 walking, he was wishing too, with all their wishes and my so called will power whichever was left over :)  I started to pick the pace, feeling it really heavily around my ribs, still managed to go on
• Soon I see Ashish shah, the race director who was checking back on the route, he assured that it was just few meters away from finish, the moment I saw the main road, my joy knew no bounds really
• I started to sprint now, towards the Druks school entrance, I see a volunteer signing my arrival to the folks at the finish line
• I absolutely with all joy, and satisfaction, sprint across the saga finish line, with many of the hyderabad runners waiting there, not realizing that I was almost finishing where they were posing for the photographs
• Yelling at them, I went through the sides of the finish line and waved my victorious signage to the official photographer, who has been following me for over an hour now, thanks to his close coverage all along

 

• Finally there I am proving the folks who doubted my sub 4 hour ambitious target, wrong finishing in 3:58 minutes, with exactly 4 hours of stoppage time (at water stops, 4 or 5 short walks inclusive)
• I felt accomplished at the finish line, loudly cheered and congratulated by fellow Hyderabad runners. A happy ending to a horrible experience along the course.

 

• Glad that I finish strong, within my target time in great style, I couldn’t have done any better that day, I was pretty satisfied!

 

Ladakh Marathon Trip Day 7

• This was potentially a majority rest day, though we were told that we will have a local tour in the city or so
• We head out for an easy run at 6 AM, I was little late, hence had to run alone, sneaked through a different way where there were rolling hills, had a nice 5k and went on for a Yoga Session at 7 AM.

 

• We headed towards visiting the biggest monastery in ladakh, along with a potential visit to santi stupa, just few meters away from druk;'s school did our driver stop for a small monastery, but not many were interested in it
• We headed to Memis monastery, which was close to 45 to 50 km ride, that too in the return route from Pangong lake.

 

• That was quite a different place to visit in the first place, my first view of a monastery and their practices within.
• Monastery was really colorful, with a chinese effect to all the paintings inside and outside the monastery
• There were two main deities, one being Buddha, another unknown figure, and a kali temple
• There were lamas around and one of the lama was reading some scripts from the old papyrus kind of stuff which looked really ancient and authentic

 

• We stepped on to the first floor to have a good view of the whole area around the monastery.
• We had planned to be back to the cars after the visit by 12 Noon, but myself and shiv were lagging behind a bit, sneaked into the Museum there only 3 minutes to spare
• Quickly went through the exhibits in the museum and a brief view at the sovineurs and we reached our cars in another 15 minutes

 

• We headed back to the hotel , during the return trip we tried to see how the race is going to look like since we thought we were on the potential route
• We were to go to santhi stupa, but it was really late and within the constrained lunch time at the hotel, and we ended up going to hotel
  
  
  
  
• We had a heavy lunch and planned to have atleast 3 hours or rest, all hit their beds to get some rest in for the race the next day for which we had to start by 4 AM.
• We had our pre-race dinner with pasta scheduled at the adjacent hotel at 7 PM, we headed to that hotel and had a brief chat with Ashish, the race director about the SAG plan.
• With quite a bit of carb loading with pasta and potato, we wanted to hit bed early on so that we can have some sleep by 3:30 AM when we had to wake up to get to the race the next day

 

• At around 9:15 we headed to our hotel and with the pre-race chuckie made up, I hit the bed by around 10:15.

Ladakh Marathon Trip Day 6

• Padma was planning to get the recording of yoga postures which would help runners, but unfortunately her battery was down, nor did I get up in time.
• Shiv, Gupta, Balaji and myself were set out to climb a small cliff that nearby, on our way we met Dr.Mala who was sharing her running experience and her husband's attempt at Comrades.

 

• We walked towards the small cliff, were gupta wanted his cover page picture to be clicked, was a nice view, post few clicks we start to climb that small cliff, reaching the top was already setting our heart rate up.
• What a nice view it was, indeed a nice one to cherish upon, as gupta was enjoying his lonely view at the lake, we found couple of Yak horns, with which we were snapping snaps.
• As I was trying to breath in and out, did I speak about brahmari and nadeeshwara pranayama, soon did shiv and kiran set out on their seats and were attempting brahmari. Nice relief post that.

 

• We were to pack our lunch and leave at 8:30 AM, so we started ascending down, while we met brunda and gang, couple of us set down to the lake, trying out some yoga poses, while gupta, uday and ashish did walk a bit towards the  3 idiots shooting location and back
• We finish our breakfast soon and set on to our respective cars, with lunch being packed and loaded, we were so particular, that we will not have long stops and set out our travel for the day at around 8:30 AM
• Within few kms, we stopped at the 3 idots spot, we removed our shoes and start to jog towards the small stretch of sand where it was potentially shot, nice view from there, with clear waters, I tried to step in only to realize that it was soon getting so deep and the sand was giving away, was quickly helped by shiv to pull me out.

 

• We had all funky snaps taken there, jumping, running pose, train pose and some solos, and soon did we jog back to our cars and soon we set on to the trip.
• We saw a lot of bikers on Bullet bikes, who were showing all their stunts to negotiate all the bad bumps and bad roads, yielding to all the bikers we were cruising at nice speed.
• We did stop briefly at our previous day's lunch spot to have a quick tea and some parle G biscuits, we were planning to have some maggi along the way, so we parted our lunch box with our driver, holding on to just one

 

• We were expecting to reach leh at around 4 or so, but we were doing really good to not spend lot of time at breaks and soon we reached a shop where we had a spicy maggi, was a nice treat to taste buds, in that cold climate, again we set out on our drive and started cruising.
• We took a short route on the way down, which potentially cut short a 10 km ride, while we were sneaking through a small village, where we saw all the cars in a queue, soon did we realize that the villagers were forcefully stopping the vehicles stopping with a tree's trunk :) and forcefully selling Tea, that was amusing
• Our driver just paid for a tea without having it and soon started driving along, in few hours we were on the manali highway, which we thought would be the potential race route. We were strategizing about how we approach each section and we saw the start point, which is the Druk's school, which again is where one of the scenes of 3 idiots shot.
• We were to collect our BIB numbers at around 5 PM, headed to the adjacent and collected our bibs and t-shirt, quickly got introduced to the other runners outside of hyderabad runners group.
• Since we had some time , we started walking towards the local market, we hit a so called German Bakery which was selling everything from Dosa to muffins :)
• We stopped at a tibetian market, where we found quite a few antique collectibles, and many small stone studded necklace and anklets, many of which were huge enough to be only used on an elephant :)

 

• Shiv sneaked into a leather shop were we found intersting stuffs, important one was the potentially fuel belt , that was amusing moment to see something like that.
• We got some medicines, got some raisins, while gupta had ordered some mammos and had some wait time, while did we window shop Adidax shoes and BMW shoes, funny to see such brand names and were making fun around it.
• Once gupta collected his mammos, we starting walking fast towards the hotel since the dinner was available only for an hour's time.

 

• We had our dinner and set out to our rooms to have a nice rest.

Ladakh Marathon Trip - Day 5

• Early we raise, that day getting ready to take up a travel to pangong lake, planning to leave by 7:30 AM, had an early breakfast and hopped on to our respective cars
• Tried and sneaked into one of the cars to get the front seat so that I can get some of my writing done, and managed to cover up for quite a bit

• Many were so interested to get to the Pangong lake, for its familiarity were the Climax Scene of 3 idiots was shot, not knowing the long drive that we had to go through
• It was totally 185 kms from leh to pangong lake, with majority of it through ghat roads, with some parts being washed away and some parts being worked upon by the Border Roads organisation

• Briefly did we stop at a tea shop and munching stuffs, when we were told that the lunch stop just 5 kms away, we had a nice lunch, first chance to meet all the fellow runners other than hyderabad runners
• After lunch, headed out towards the lake, soon after few kms we had a glimpse of the lake, by fact 40% of the lake is in the Indian territory and 60% by china.

• We were appraised by the driver that we will reach the camp in some time, but after off roading, he went on and on and every single person in every car for sure would have lost patience
• It was like the climax scene which had suspense to just have a glimpse of some camp site, finally after close to an hour's off roading ride we reach our camp site
• We dump our baggage into our respective tents and settle for a high tea, was a great relief after a long drive
• Quickly we set out to walk along the lake, tons of photos clicked, myself , gupta and balaji went on walking along the stretch to the level of covering over 3 kms or so. It was nice and different views

• Walking across some sections along the shore I felt like getting stuck into quicksand, the layers were like that it gives such instant feeling
• We climbed on to a high spot, where we had quite a different view, awesome feeling, lying on our back, with wide lake in the foreground and pale blue sky up, what a serene experience it was
• We potentially walked for around 2 hours, and soon to be joined by madhu, devyani and santhoshi, we tried to find our way back to our camp jumping over some fences :)
• Soon did madhu realize that she hasn't run at all, starting running towards the camp, only to stop few hundred meters ahead :)

• We finally sneak into our camp, settle in for dinner, everybody was getting introduced to runners from other parts of the country.
• Our own Uday was potentially overselling runners from Hyderabad runners group and luring folks to register for Hyderabad marathon.

• We did see one of the folk struggling to breath, later to realize that he was really low on oxygen levels and also potentially had infection, doctors in the crowd was helping out to get him back to normal.
• Gupta having first hand experience with high altitude sickness during his trek in roopkhund, was worried about the guy, checking the camp site owner and doctor about the potential evacuation plan.

• Upon inquiry is when we realized that there was NO evacuation plan set in place and the tour organizers did not even have the basic stuffs like stethoscope, BP monitor which the doctor was asking the tour organizer. A feedback to the tour organizers for sure
• Had a awesome dinner, the tastiest food that we had all over the trip, with some veg mamoos and hot soup, was a tasty dinner, with prolonged conversations with fellow runners.

• While we were busy having dinner, few of the Air-India pilots who were on their road trip , were there into our camp kitchen to invite the whole crowd for a bonfire.
• Post dinner few of our folks set out to the bonfire, it was a clear sky, pitch dark, with umpteen number of stars to sight with a sight of milky way as well.

• We spent some time around the bonfire, with the really drunk pilots, who were happy to have some company. We headed back by around 11 PM and crashed into our beds

We were to wake up by 5:30AM the next day to have a sunrise walk, so all set into their tents.