78 K, 9:57, Yipeee!

Exactly a week after the ultra, I have finally worked up the words to write about 'the best footrace this side of the planet.' But if I sit myself on the psychiatrist's couch and think about why it took me so long to get down to business and write about it real time, as Girish insisted I do, it is not too tough to figure it out. Imagine six months of hard-assed training, living and breathing the ultra. 78Km was part of every single conversation with every single person I knew. Hmmm, that might explain the dwindling set of friends :-); and suddenly it was over. And writing a blog about it is like the final sayonara to it. But I do have to start training for the Mumbai marathon, so I guess I have to let go!
My ultra adventure actually began the afternoon before the event. Carbo loading at Little Italy (where else would it be with Rajat around) was followed by a loooooooong ride to Our Native Village. As kismet would have it, we went through every road hazard, from traffic jams to street fights to accidents to getting horribly lost to of course, the inevitable flat tire. I swear running the 78K was a whole lot easier.
But reach ONV we finally did, around 8 pm and were greeted by a semi-hysterical Sabine. Now I have seen a whole load of reactions to stress, from tears to breaking out into a sweat to constant visits to the loo to fainting spells and the rest. But dear Sabine has the best of them all. She giggles, loudly, continuously and infectiously. So all I can remember of the night pre-ultra is eating a hell load of pasta, and then indulging in prolonged bouts of the nervous giggles with Sabine and Farah. It was a great, fun way to start off the event. Girls, love you!
The next morning started really dark and early. 4 a.m., a few of us were up for a much needed breakfast of bread, jam, bananas, cookies, and oatmeal. We geared up, gathered in the holding area and took loads of photos. Well, we were not really sure we would be smiling at the end of the race, so we quickly gave our best shots right at the very beginning.
5:50 a.m, Nisha Millet, Madhu and Arvind Krishnan gave their ultra speeches, and 6 a.m, flagged off the 78K and 52K events. Heart a thumping the doob-a-doob beat, I set off for my longest ever race.
There are many upsides to doing an ultra, I discovered. The most obvious one is the sheer adventure of it all, the pushing of the human mind and body to levels beyond the fence. What a sense of achievement that alone is.
Second is the amazing people you meet. I ran past and with at least a dozen or more people whose tenacity and resilience will remain with me for a long time. My fondest memories are of a few people: Girish, a runner from Mumbai, who had the misfortune of having the bib number 007 and was running the 78K as well. Imagine being on the trail for 11 odd hours and having to endure Bond jokes/remarks being thrown at you through the entire course. Running with him gave me a steady pace and also made me a Bond girl for the first 39K.
Then there was the intermittent blurring of vision as Madhu and Rajat kept whizzing past me. They are the most motivated as well as motivating runners I have ever known. I cannot forget the immense pride and joy I felt when Rajat completed his 100.6 K.
Sabine and her hysterical giggles escalated to full fledged war screams and whoops on race day. She greeted every runner as if she had not met them for a couple of years. And trust me, nothing , no not even the Gatorade, Electral and Endurolyte tablets buoyed up the runners more than a good old dose of Sabine.
When I speak of sheer dynamism, three names spring to mind instantly: Manoj, Nitin and Satsang. All three were recovering from major injuries, were under-trained, but when put into the race zone, outperformed and outran all of us mere mortals. I kept thinking of this quote I had read a while ago “Human beings are made up of flesh and blood, and a miracle fibre called courage.” These three guys seem to be swimming in that fibre.
Sridhar was the biggest boost ever in the last lap. Looking at him sprint across the landscape made me believe in the supremacy of the mind over body.
There were many more, of course, like this aged gentleman who huffed and puffed and wheezed past Girish and me around the 25K mark. We were pretty much sure we would find him in a heap somewhere along the trail. But he finished the 52K at the top of his category. The best part of it all, when he finished his race, his son was still on the trail trying to complete his 52K.
But my love and gratitude is reserved for lovely Farah, who completed her 26K in a record time (2:14), and then cycled across my last loop with supplies and good humour to carry me across the finish line. I owe my 78K to her. As Sunil Chainani said, people like her are what keep the ultra spirit alive.
The third and immensely blessed part of an ultra is that it is like an exorcism. It cleanses, purifies and makes brightly luminous your innermost thoughts. I felt like my whole life came into sharp perspective over this run. Well, I did have plenty and more time on my hands, and the mind wandered, vroomed and whirred round and round. And as the laps got tougher, lucidity hit the wave of endorphins. Phew, I am still reeling.
This being my first ultra ever, I messed up quite a bit with my nutrition and hydration. My paranoia of having to use the portaloo kept me away from all the food at the aid stations (peanut butter sandwiches, peanuts, chips, bananas). I survived on Gatorade and 2 jujeps till the 65 K. By then I was famished, dehydrated and completely wiped out. I sent word through all the runners going towards the main podium area to get me some plain white bread. The last 13K was a picnic with watermelon, oranges and lovely, lovely white bread. With proper nutrition, who knows, I might have bettered my time to a large extent and finished strong. Oh well, lessons learnt the hard way last the longest, too.
I finished in 9:57, 33 minutes shaved off from my target time of 10:30. I could not help but get really teary eyed at the end of the race, I hugged one and all fiercely. These were the guys who had worked with me patiently for the past 6 months, helping me move from a maximum distance of 21K to an ultra distance of 78K. Madhu, Athreya, and Sabine, you guys are my ultra superstars. Thanks for all the patience and love.
After-effects: a twinge in my right foot that persisted for a couple of days, an immediate loss of appetite for a while and a small wave of depression. But I went on a beautiful long run this morning, my first training run for the Mumbai marathon on Jan 20. Manoj, Girish and I plan to do a sub-four, Inshallah!!
Sometime back, a new runner girl asked on the RFL website, “How do you guys run?” and a whippersnapper replied with “You take your right leg forward, and then your left, and then your right….” I found the post hilarious when I read it, but that is what running is all about, I guess. It ain’t easy, but it sure is simple.