Less than 48 hours to the 6th Bangalore Ultra

With under 2 days to go for the 6th edition of the Bangalore Ultra  the buzz is building up among the running community not just in Bangalore but across the country. The Bangalore Ultra is India's 1st and largest Ultra marathon. The event has grown in leaps and bounds since the first edition in 2007 with not only more number of participants each year but also newer categories as well as other innovations from Runners For Life. After 5 years of the race being at Hesarghatta , this year the venue has moved to the bamboo forest off Hennur road which is something for all the ultra runners to look forward. to. There have been a couple of RFL runs at the Hennur road forest route including one in April 2009 when I did the 9th of my 12 marathons in 12 months. The new route for the ultra seems to be flatter and less uneven apart from being a 25Km loop (12.5Km out and 12.5Km back) instead of 12.5Km loop. From a logistics and organisation perspective it will be challenging for Runners For Life - as there will be no support of a resort. Port-a-potties, changing rooms, large holding area, food, waste management etc will need to be taken care of. With the experience of over 5 years in organising high quality running events behind them I expect RFL to do well and meet the runners expectations. 24 hours run and splitting the event between 2 days are the other changes that have been brought in this year.

Since my last marathon - Mohawhk Hudson River marathon on 7th October - I have been in a dilemma as to whether or not to participate in the ultra this year. Had I met my timing goal of 3:38 the decision would have been easy. However, since I am now targeting this time for the SCMM in January 2013 the advice from my coach Bill Pierce as well as running coach Dharam is to skip the ultra and focus on training for the Mumbai marathon. While my head also says I should focus on training for the Mumbai marathon and not run the 50K I decided to go with my heart. Having been involved as a core team member for the 1st edition of the event and having run 50Km or more every year since then I am keen on continuing the streak as long as I possibly can. I am verye xcited about the new route off  Hennur road and am glad that I decided to register for the race. Hopefully this will not have an adverse impact on my training for SCMM and more importantly on the race itself. Well one will have to hope for the best.

Though I am in a shape to run the 50Km in about 4:45 or so  this year, I am going to try and take it easy and not push myself in order to conserve energies for the next race. My best time for 50Km  was 5:22:24 in 2009. I should be able to beat this time comfortably. By what margin depends on how the race goes. My strategy  will be to do the 1st loop of 25Km in  about  2:18 at an average of 5:30 per Km and try and do the second half in 2:30 at an average of 6 minutes per Km to try and finish around 5 hours. A lot will also depend on the weather on race day - if it rains then this new route is going to be very slushy slowing me down. Very warm weather will also take a toll on the pace in the 2nd half. My main goal with the Bangalore Ultra  is not the target time but as always to enjoy the route, race ambiance and the tremendous comradarie of fellow runners doing 50Km or more -  I understand that nearly 50 runners are doing either 75Kms or 100Kms or the 24 hours category!!

20th FM/Ultra finish

<--- Running Solo for a short period

After the finish

Dharam leading the way

The Hennur RFL run on 19th April was my 20th completion of a Full Marathon/Ultra distance. My first attempt at a Full Marathon in December 2002 ended disastrously - more about this in the enxt post. I am happy with my 4 hours 32 minutes finish (my second slowest f in the current series after KTM in October 2008) considering the stressful week (professionally and personally), the trouble we had locating the starting point and the hot weather.

The week leading up to the run was extremely hectic at work – with post 11PM conference calls on three days. The Saturday was a stressful day with personal chores – I had dinner after 11PM and went to sleep at quarter past midnight to wake up at 3:45am. Dharam, Manoj and I had planned to meet at the ring road/Hennur Road intersection at 4:45am with the goal of starting the run between 5:15 and 5:30. Unfortunately, both Dharam and myself overshot the intersection(albeit from opposite directions in the ring road) and woke up Manoj to get some directions. Dharam and I then drove down Hennur road and missed the right turn towards the start of the run. Eventually we reached around 5:40am and started run just after 5:45 – that is over an hour and a quarter after I left home - which was a bit frustrating. The route is a full trail run on either side of the start point – one loop measuring 4.4Km and the other 4.1Km. Dharam and I completed the first couple of 4.4Km loops at an average pace of 5:56minutes per Km. While running the 4.1 Km the first time we were joined by Manoj. And at the end of this loop Uday also joined us. At this point in time over 60 RFL runners had hit the trail. That’s a good number considering the location was quite far from the city and not easy to get to. As the foliage was dry in several areas there was less shade than what I had experienced the previous time we had run here. However, still a nice route to do a long run – no traffic, no pollution and occasional sights and sounds of birds. It was great to have the company of Dharam, Manoj and Uday. I am thankful to them for ensuring that I had company for pretty much the entire 4 and a half hours. Also many regular RFL runners who were aware that I was doing my ninth FM in nine months cheered me very enthusiastically which was a high motivator – not that I needed any external motivation. We kept a steady pace and by the time Dharam (and Manoj) stopped we had clocked 30Kms in 3 hrs 15 minutes or so. Not a bad pace and still on target to finish below 4 hrs 30 minutes. However the last 12 kms turned out to be much tougher and the pace dropped considerably. I did 3 loops of 4.1Km accompanied by Uday in the first and the third one. He had cramps and took a break while I did a loop solo. Even though there were more gradients in this loop and the terrain was a bit rougher in parts I still felt it was easier to do mentally. Mainly because I could visualize this loop much better than the other 4.4Km. This can be very important. Specially at distances beyond 30Km and in warm weather it helps to know what to expect. I finished just after 10:15 to loud cheers from Nikhil and a bunch of RFL support staff and as always it felt great to have another one under the belt – the ninth in this series. The great thing is once I got going I was able to keep a reasonably steady pace and the thought of giving up did not come to me even once. Just three more to go to complete the 12 in 12 – the next one will be in the RFL run on 17th May!