Border Ultra 50 km, Jaisalmer, Rajasthan


I planned to run Malnad Trail Ultra 50 km along with Sriram to ring his 50th 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. This ultramarathon is a dedication to the martyrs and the brave soldiers who confronted the Pakistani soldiers that entire night, more on that here.

I registered for the Border 50 km category on Jul 1, the day registration opened, also booked flights and hotel stay by end of that week. That way, there is no ambiguity around participation. Bharath, my friend also signed up for the race. As enthusiastic I was with the race participation, registration and other logistics, my training was only about 85% of what I would have liked to put in for this race distance. A bare minimum of 300 km/month is what I would have expected in the 3.5 months before the race. I averaged a little over 250 km/month for those 3.5 months – which is par but not great. Bharath and I were able to carve out couple of 20 milers and one 22 miler run during the training block. We did one of the long runs starting at 8 am, but none to simulate a 12 noon start. So, there was this unknown on how the body would respond running in the afternoon.

We flew into Jaisalmer Friday afternoon taking a redeye that morning via Mumbai. We met Vinay and his other friends, Priya, Lakshmi, Sundar and Ravi at the hotel. In the name of carb-loading, we were belting kachoris, samosas and other Rajasthani delicacies all through Friday. We went to the Expo Friday evening to collect our running number and also drop the bags containing our change clothes as the race was point-to-point and not out-and-back. The Race Director and his briefing was amazing and very local, I haven’t attended such a fun-filled race briefing ever before.

Race day: We had light breakfast, nothing fancy, some eggs, poha and coffee and in the name of brunch we had some dal-khichdi at 10:30 am. We arrived at the start line around 11:40 am for a 12 noon start. It was bright, sunny and a warm afternoon. All set as we’d like to think. The terrain was rolling hills, no tree cover, rural and for most part deserted in the literal sense. As the race calls itself ‘Hell Race’ it perfectly lived up to that expectation. As per the race rules, it’s a self-supported run, so camelbak aka hydration bag is mandatory because hydration support is only every 10 km unlike other events where you have access to water every 2-3 km. We set a comfortable pace of 7:05-7:12/km and cruised for about 30 km uneventfully with gels every 7-8 km and salt tablet every 10 km. Bharath started to cramp and slow down between 35-40 km plus he also ran out of water. We collectively decided to run-walk-run and get to 40 km for refill and then accelerate which is what we did. Barring some slow miles between 36-40 km – we ran the distance accordingly to our plan. The weather between 0-40 km was bad – hot/sunny/dry. Between 40-50 km it started to cool down a bit due to sunset, it also started to get dark. We crossed the finish line at 6:20 pm, just in about 30-45 minutes of our finishing, the temperature dropped considerably and it started to feel very cold. The dinner post-race felt heavenly, I think anything does especially when you are hungry.








The following day with the help of my friend, Col Krishna, we got passes to visit the Indo-Pak Border (near Tanot), Tanot Mata Mandir and the War Memorial at Longewala. The passes helped save ton of time and cut queues everywhere. I owe Col Krishna for making arrangement literally at 6-hours’ notice. Love you, Col Krishna! We returned that afternoon and did some local sightseeing and ate some more kachoris. We left Jaisalmer on Monday with lots of great memories after an uneventful ultramarathon debut having a ton of fun before, during and after the run.








 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tokyo Marathon

Image
I made  a 13 weeks training plan for Tokyo Marathon with the training block starting early December. Nothing fancy really, 5-6 days of running every week (most runs were Easy/Aerobic/Zone 2 Heart Rate runs, 1-2 steady runs and one day of intervals to keep me sharp) and two days of full body strength training using some light weights and body-weight based exercises. The 3 weeks of taper originally had lot more miles every week, but chatting with Neeraj Engineer, I cut down the weekly mileage drastically to keep my legs fresh and body rested closer to the race, which surely was super useful. The detailed weekly buildup is  here  should you be interested. Before the race  My maternal cousin (Sairam) lives in Tokyo   and was very kind to host me. As this was my first trip to Japan, I did want to get there early to make time for some sightseeing before and after the race, Sairam helped plan a rough sightseeing itinerary based on my interest for days before and after ...
Read more

Sub 4 hours marathon

Image
Background: Due to work travel in mid Oct 2018, I had to take a decision to skip running Bangalore Marathon. As a result, I ramped down my running mileage in Sep as there was no marathon in sight. This sadly also meant I would not run a marathon in 2018. But hey ho! Surprise training plan: Amongst numerous topics that we talk during our runs, during one of such easy runs with Shailja Singh, we were discussing which would be a good marathon for me to train for, she suggested I run the Mumbai Marathon in Jan. Given the horrid weather in Mumbai, I was not too inclined and got myself off that trap. I casually told her I could consider running the Tokyo Marathon (if I made the lottery) or run the New Delhi Marathon in Feb. Shailja at that time was making a training plan for herself for Tokyo Marathon, New Delhi Marathon a week earlier was a perfect race to choose, that way we could training together is what she said. After that chat/run in the morning, I got to work and was quite sur...
Read more

TM - Weekly Buildup

Week 12, updated Sunday, 25-Feb-2024, 0945 1000.98 km (crossed 1000 km in 12 weeks), average of 83.41 km/week. 2 days of strength training with half the usual reps. Office was hectic as expected, managed to complete work well within the deadline. Did one 10 km at steady marathon pace and 10 km easy during the week. I moved the weekend 8 miles to Friday as I wanted to run the Epsilon 5 km race during the weekend. Epsilon 5 km race was fun, managed to run a negative split 5 km which would be a confidence booster for coming Sunday. It was a pleasure to see a lot of people from my team getting up early in the morning, lacing up and running or running-walking the 5 km. It was an electric Saturday morning. Distance: 40.54 km Exercise duration: 3:52:38 Weight: 71.2 kg Week 11, updated Sunday, 17-Feb-2024, 1048 960.44 km in this training block thus far, average of 87.31 km/week. Another 2 weeks of taper to go before the race. Managed 2 days of strength training during the week - will reduce th...
Read more