Arun Rajaraman

I look forward to blogging how the year panned out, you can read more about how 2023 went here and first half of this year here . 2024 has been a rollercoaster year for me training-wise and personally, glad the year is over. Eagerly looking forward to 2025.  I limit my participation in racing events in general, 2024 was no different. Whilst I continue to train all through the year, I specifically train and run only one marathon race/event - I like to cherrypick races that I want to participate in. This year I ran the Tokyo Marathon, you read all about it here and the 12-weeks training buildup for that race here . I have been meaning to run an ultramarathon since 2023, finally got around to running one in Dec, The Border Ultra  - The Hell Race, the race lived upto it's name. I ran with a buddy of mine, it was a lot of fun to train with and race alongside him, details are here . I like to look at data and analyse how the year went by, now that we have got races out of the way....

I planned to run Malnad Trail Ultra 50 km along with Sriram to ring his 50 th  birthday, however that didn’t happen. Whilst I was planning 2024 races, I wanted to split races such that I do one in the first half and the other in the second half of the year that way they are nicely spaced out. One was Tokyo Marathon early March, you can read about that outing  here   and Malnad Ultra end of November, which is certified by  ITRA  and also a  UTMB   index race, which seemed perfect. During one of the weekend runs in GKVK with Vinay, he mentioned to about Border Ultra and about his plan to run 100 km at that event. Why I chose Border over Malnad is below. I'll go run Malnad some day though. The Border Ultra was conceived to celebrate and cherish the valor and supreme sacrifice of Indian soldiers in the Battle of Longewala. 120 Jawans of the 23rd Battalion of the Punjab Regiment, held this post for the entire night until they were reinforced the next day....