Ladakh Marathon Trip - Day 3

• Nice beginning of the day, slept the previous night at around  4 AM after the FIFA Final, and woken up around 7 AM by our coach, to make sure if Argentina won the finals :) , that too with a penalty shoot-out :)
  
  
  
  
• We were expected to be ready by 8 AM when the breakfast was going to available, but then quick thought of trying out a short run came in my mind, and I hopped out with my sneakers on out for a 4 k run.
• Just to put out my experience of run, the first mile I was running a 10 min/mile, but was having feel of doing a 1:20 400 repeat. May be the mental feel of altitude and people speaking about it made me feel that. But my second mile came down to 8:10/mile and was able to keep up that for the next half mile as well. Though the heart rate was little up for the pace, I am confident that with couple of days of 5 to 8k run, would feel comfortable to get to race pace.
• Post run and a shower with a guilt feel of being late went to the officer's mess to realize that the breakfast was still not ready. Within few minutes it was on and had fun pulling each other's legs.
• We were fortunate enough to be helped out by the captain of the army camp Mr Manish to visit one of the LOC camp post, we were helped with permission letter for visiting the camp
  
  
  
  
• We headed out to the LOC post, was explained in detail about the various LOCpoints, we were possibly less than 100 meters from 3 Pakistani posts. We could see the Pakistani flags, and was appraised that they could see us as well at ease.
• There were some Indian posts were at 12000+ feet which we were able to see, where supplies have to be taken by the men and with a difficult climbing conditions. Man salute the men being posted there and their tenacity to be there and handle the conditions and that too susceptible ones.
• It was already past 12 noon when we were wrapping up our visit to the LOC camp site, headed out from there with a plan to avoid any pit stops that is not important.
• We went past a nice set of dry vegetation less hills with multi colored patches, which accordingly to our Scientific expert Balaji is the mix of Asian plate mixing with Indian plate(God knows where he picked it up from ;)
  
  
  
  
• With barely any stops for lunch we kept going to make sure for a reasonable reach out before dinner to leh we kept going, man that was one long ride which made majority of us feel tired and few of us sick, yet we had to do it
• We were kept entertained for some time by madhuri with her dragon story and the anxious kid balaji eagerly listening to it :)
• Stopped for a late lunch at around 5PM, and with our typical hyderabad runners trademark of emptying the hotel, we were on a rampage once again eating for around 3k in that small town :)
• Soon at around 6 pm we again depart from there and we had another 129k to cover, with it being majority of downhill , we covered a lot of ground and reach leh at around 8:30 PM
• Once into to town we were in the hunt for the hotel, with some hiccups we managed to reach the hotel at around 9:15, with quick freshening up, went on to have our dinner
• Everybody literally crashed on with the tiredness of travel all over the day, I am sure everybody should have a sound sleep and for a early start again the next day at 5:30 AM.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Managed to catch up with some writing of this blog and slept by 10:30 PM. Had a good night sleep.