A 12 hours run! Honestly, I don’t know what is the first thought that crosses your mind when you think of running 12 hours non-stop, but as someone who has experience of running a couple of 10 hour runs, I can say, it's scary even to think of it.
As serious runners based out of Bangalore, we are no strangers to the Stadium Run organised by NEB sports. In-fact in 2018 our team participated in the 12 hours relay where each runner is assigned a 2 hour running slot.
I had no intention of participating in this crazy event. But after returning from Annapurna Base Camp in April, in one of our practice runs, Babu sir asked me shall we run 12 hours in Bengaluru Stadium Run? Generally when Babu sir comes up with a running event plan, I just agree to it and it wasn't any different that time. 3 other guys (Aziz, Rajesh and Sourav) from our running group, Run Machines of Sutra also were ready to run this event. So I also sent a request to NEB sports for the registration.
I had a crazy schedule building up to this event. First of all, I was training for TCS-10k which was scheduled on 19th of May. So within 2 months I had to transform from a quick 10K run to a 12 hours Ultra marathon.
To make matters worse, I and Vishnu had almost finalised the plan for Stok Kangri Expedition in the first week of July. Given that Stok Kangri is a 6000er and was much higher than what I had ever ascended earlier, I was sure it would be a strenuous expedition.
We were planning a 12 hours run just 2 weeks after the expedition. I had no idea how my body would cope up with 2 such extreme tortures with in a few days time.
I had a detailed discussion with Babu sir about all this. He asked me to continue the training specific for TCS 10K. I followed the same and I was able to run TCS-10K in 40 mins & 26 seconds.
A strong run at TCS-10K
After TCS-10K I had planned a ride to Bhagawati Tiger reserve so lost one more week there.
Following 3 weeks we put good mileage doing 3 hour/3.5 hour runs on weekends.
On 22nd June, the weekend prior to my departure to Leh for Stok Kangri expedition, we planned a 60K run on Nandi hills road. But because of heavy rains in the initial part of the run we ran 50K and stopped.
I was worried that I will miss running during expedition so I packed my rucksack the previous day and on the day of departure, the 28th June, I ran a self supported marathon before going to office.
50K and the Marathon before Stok Kangri expedition
Stok Kangri expedition did not go as per plan & it sucked a lot out of me. It was an emotional and a mental torture but on the summit day, the climate was favorable and I was able to be the first one to summit Stok Kangri in the summer trekking season of 2019.
Celebrating the first summit of the summer 2019
After returning to Leh from Stok, I wanted to make sure I relive the training run we did in Leh before the Khardung-La challenge. So I went for a short run in the morning. It was difficult to run because I was damn tired because of the expedition, but I was not the one to miss a chance to replicated our training run here last year. I ran 10K at a very comfortable pace.
LEH - trying to replicate the run before Khardung-la challenge
After returning to Bangalore, we ran 4 half marathons and a 35KM on the only weekend I had. We ran our last run on Wednesday, the 17th of July.
During these runs, I and Babu sir discussed extensively about how to approach the 12 hours run.
We decided to go ahead with a simple plan, stick to 6min/KM Pace for 6 hours. And then depending on how the body reacts go ahead. We had a realistic target of at-least 100 KMs
On Saturday, I had simple daal-rice for lunch and reached Babu sir's home at 3PM. From there we went in Babu sir's car to the Stadium and we reached around 4:15.
We met our folks, Rajesh, Nitin, Vijay and Venu in the stadium. We went to Kadamba restaurant and had a strong coffee.
Since Sourav had collected our bibs, we waited for him inside the stadium. Basically he was coming with Aziz and both were stuck in traffic, but they reached just 5 mins before we were called to the start line.
We had 2 groups from Run Machines running the 12 hours relay at the same time. We also had a lot of friends and family present there to support us, I also met my good friend Pallavi before starting the run who came down just to cheer us for sometime. So we had good support form our Run Machines group through out the event.
As the run started, I and Babu sir stuck to our plan and were maintaining a steady pace in between 5:45 min/KM & 6 min/KM. We were running together but after some time the race director, Nagaraj Adiga asked us not to run shoulder to shoulder as we might block the fast runners. So we started running behind one another.
Lapping the 400 mtrs track for hours together is not a joke. Its not the distance but the nature of the event that is challenging.
Running 10KM on a road is easy but if you have to run it around a track 25 times, it is really demoralising.
It is so frustrating that Adharanand Finn, in his book about Japanese running says, Japanese use it as away to build their mental strength.
That’s when running as a team helped us. I and Babu sir started leading for 5 loops alternately. After 5 loops or 2KMs we would take a few seconds to drink water/electrolyte and change the position.
It was a way to trick our minds. We felt we achieved something at the end of 2KM and we start again (This is exactly what Dean Karnazes calls baby steps, in his book Ultramarathon Man).
I and Babu sir ran continuously for 3 hours and took our first break after 30KMs. The break was for a couple of minutes and we started running again. We maintained the same pace and from then on we took breaks every 10KMs. During these breaks our team members gave us everything we asked for.
After running around 60Kms, in an attempt to give way to another runner, I stumbled on the trailing part of a barricade. I was hit hard on the right foot. Initially it pained like hell, but I wanted to keep up with Babu sir so I kept running. After few loops the pain subsided.
After 80KM I took a little longer break that was when Babu sir moved ahead. After the break I started running alone. It was 8 hours and 5 minutes on the watch and I had covered over 80KMs. I was going strong, with no major issues. I was certain that I was going to run at-least 100KMs so I was becoming emotional.
Running alone has its pros and cons. On one hand you have that me time to think about everything, on the other, if you get stuck in a thought it is really difficult to come out of it. Unfortunately my mind was on the wrong end.
Whenever I feel like I have achieved something, the first thing that comes to my mind is the horrible accident I suffered 12 years back. May be its a subconscious way in which my mind makes me proud, saying "hey despite permanently losing a metatarsal bone, despite the plastic surgery you have achieved it". But when I get stuck thinking about the unfortunate incident, I get disturbed. I was a lot disturbed and wanted to come out of it, so I started running fast. I ran some crazy splits for someone who had run 85+ KMs (5:08, 5:10 and 4:49). This seemed to help a bit as I was running out of my comfort zone and my mind wasn't that free to think much.
Crazy splits after running 85KM to distract my mind
I reached 100KMs mark in 10 hours and 7 minutes. I continued doing this run/walk till 105KMs when I met Babu sir again. It was a big relief for me emotionally and again we ran together in the last 1 & half hour for another hand in hand finish.
I was also fortunate that my wife and then fiancee, who actually came for a couple of hours but ended up staying there till the run finished.
Last but not the least, a big thank you from the bottom of my heart to the entire RunMachines team for all the support and encouragement. It was really nice to see so many guys from RunMachines being awake all night to support us. A special mention to Nithin, Venu & Vijay who came just to cheer us and were supporting everyone from RunMachines.
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