After a long night of ordeal, I finally arrived in Leh, yesterday morning. I am in Leh for La Ultra (www.thehigh.in), as part of a support crew member for one of the runners. This is the most looked forward to "event" all this year, ahead of even my cycling and running event. So, what about the ordeal at the Delhi Airport. I had a ovenight transfer with some business to be taken care of, which meant, that I could not settle into a coze little hotel room for sleep. Moreover, the transit time was too less for me to attempt such a thing. The T3 terminal is truly world-class, kudos to GMR, it matched up to the best international airports, I have seen, including Dubai and Singaport.
So what about the ordeal. It meant that I had to spend a sleepless night in the visitors lounge at the terminal, keeping an eye on my luggage. To add to that, my early morning flight was postponed by an hour-and-a-half, which added to the wait time. And to add insult to the injury, I learned that there was another flight, which went on time, and I could have made to it, had the airline staff informed about it. So, to sum it up, a long sleepless night at the airport.
The commute from Leh airport to my assigned hotel was very smooth, with the confusions handled between the taxi driver and the event organizing staff. After having breakfast in the flight already, I wasn't interested in breakfast either.
Having traveled an altitude of close to 3000 metres above from Bangalore, all it meant was that I had to rest all day. I am not a guy who catches sleep so easily during daytime. So, I had to resort to a book from the hotel's library. "A call of the man-eater" by Kenneth Anderson proved the right company for me during the next few hours, till I could get a little drowsy. I was always fond of colonial time Indian stories about the Indian country side, and this book was no exception. The author had an amazing touch to the descriptions of pre-independence India, some of which still remains. A good takeaway for me is that I can visit in person, some of the places described in the book.
The hotel was located just outside the city, with lots of greenery around. With lots of birds chirping around, and the view from the window covering might snowcaps, which still are snow-covered in this hot July summer, I am sure the rest of the days are going to be both exciting and refreshing.
The book, in all, talks about the hunting expeditions of the author, in which he goes after man-eaters. (Big cats which have resorted to killing humans).
The evening had a briefing meeting, where I got to my runner, Mark Wolley, who'll be attempting a distance of 222 kilometres a week from now. For mortal runners like us, running 22 km is quite a challenge. And Mark will be attempting 222 km. Distance is the last challenge in his attempt here. He is going to cross two different mountain passes both around 18000 ft, and also cover close to 30000 ft in altitude gain. The temperature in the Leh can go from a bone freezing -5 degrees in the cold of night, to a max of 40 degrees during the peak of the day.
Truly, this is a challenge reserved only for the elitest of the elite runners.
To support him for a continuous period of 60 hours, is an easy task, considering the runner he is. He is not going to present much of a challenge. Our challenge will be in keeping ourselves sane throughout those sixty hours.
I got to understand Mark's vital running habits during our hour long discussion, including, what types of food he would prefer, how he would like to run the course, and how we manage his fatigue levels. The list doesn't here. But in the end, Mark summed it up all in one sentence. "You will have to go by how I feel at the moment, at any point in the race".
This was best left to experience, than to planning. While we still have to do our fair bit of planning, we'll have communicate constantly with Mark and understand him more during the course of the race to help him complete this mammoth challenge.
The dinner back at the hotel was quite ordinary, with me getting finicky about what I eat. I did skip rice which I had been avoid for dinners during the last few months.
The next day...
There was a planned (small) marathon around Leh for all the organizers and crew members today. This was to give a high altitude running experience to whole team, and not just the elite runners.
The race started at 6:15 am, with a majority of runners taking part in the 21km half-marathon category. Interestingly, the HM participants outnumbered 10K participants by three times. Having arrived only a day early, and with limited training, I had to miss the race. Acclimitization was the prime reason. I was deeply disappointed that I could not run in such wonderfull surroundings.
Being forced to sit on the sidelines, I took responsibility of the Finishing line, along with Sakshi, another runner from Delhi. We saw through the 10K participants, the Half-marathon participants, and finally the marathon participants too. I couldn't control my urge to run, and ended up running and walking along with the last of the marathon participants for the last two kilometres.
Remarkably, Mark Collley, who I am crewing, came first in the Half-marathon, and the marathon finish was even better, with the lead runner sprinting up the hill for a complete two kilometres, which was the last of his 42km run. Everybody was just amazed at how much this runner had in store.
Being late from the race, I took a quick shower, and took a quick lunch at El Forno restaurant, the pre-determine rendezvous location for our team, which included Romila Sil, the scuba-diving instructor. The rest of the afternoon was spent shopping, first for the run along with Mark, and then for me, to carry something back home. We picked upon some fresh juicy apricots, and we liked it to the extent that we went back and got an extra serving.
With another briefing in the evening, I could just find enough time to write this blog. There may be something more coming, so stay tuned.
So what about the ordeal. It meant that I had to spend a sleepless night in the visitors lounge at the terminal, keeping an eye on my luggage. To add to that, my early morning flight was postponed by an hour-and-a-half, which added to the wait time. And to add insult to the injury, I learned that there was another flight, which went on time, and I could have made to it, had the airline staff informed about it. So, to sum it up, a long sleepless night at the airport.
The commute from Leh airport to my assigned hotel was very smooth, with the confusions handled between the taxi driver and the event organizing staff. After having breakfast in the flight already, I wasn't interested in breakfast either.
Having traveled an altitude of close to 3000 metres above from Bangalore, all it meant was that I had to rest all day. I am not a guy who catches sleep so easily during daytime. So, I had to resort to a book from the hotel's library. "A call of the man-eater" by Kenneth Anderson proved the right company for me during the next few hours, till I could get a little drowsy. I was always fond of colonial time Indian stories about the Indian country side, and this book was no exception. The author had an amazing touch to the descriptions of pre-independence India, some of which still remains. A good takeaway for me is that I can visit in person, some of the places described in the book.
The hotel was located just outside the city, with lots of greenery around. With lots of birds chirping around, and the view from the window covering might snowcaps, which still are snow-covered in this hot July summer, I am sure the rest of the days are going to be both exciting and refreshing.
The book, in all, talks about the hunting expeditions of the author, in which he goes after man-eaters. (Big cats which have resorted to killing humans).
The evening had a briefing meeting, where I got to my runner, Mark Wolley, who'll be attempting a distance of 222 kilometres a week from now. For mortal runners like us, running 22 km is quite a challenge. And Mark will be attempting 222 km. Distance is the last challenge in his attempt here. He is going to cross two different mountain passes both around 18000 ft, and also cover close to 30000 ft in altitude gain. The temperature in the Leh can go from a bone freezing -5 degrees in the cold of night, to a max of 40 degrees during the peak of the day.
Truly, this is a challenge reserved only for the elitest of the elite runners.
To support him for a continuous period of 60 hours, is an easy task, considering the runner he is. He is not going to present much of a challenge. Our challenge will be in keeping ourselves sane throughout those sixty hours.
I got to understand Mark's vital running habits during our hour long discussion, including, what types of food he would prefer, how he would like to run the course, and how we manage his fatigue levels. The list doesn't here. But in the end, Mark summed it up all in one sentence. "You will have to go by how I feel at the moment, at any point in the race".
This was best left to experience, than to planning. While we still have to do our fair bit of planning, we'll have communicate constantly with Mark and understand him more during the course of the race to help him complete this mammoth challenge.
The dinner back at the hotel was quite ordinary, with me getting finicky about what I eat. I did skip rice which I had been avoid for dinners during the last few months.
The next day...
There was a planned (small) marathon around Leh for all the organizers and crew members today. This was to give a high altitude running experience to whole team, and not just the elite runners.
The race started at 6:15 am, with a majority of runners taking part in the 21km half-marathon category. Interestingly, the HM participants outnumbered 10K participants by three times. Having arrived only a day early, and with limited training, I had to miss the race. Acclimitization was the prime reason. I was deeply disappointed that I could not run in such wonderfull surroundings.
Being forced to sit on the sidelines, I took responsibility of the Finishing line, along with Sakshi, another runner from Delhi. We saw through the 10K participants, the Half-marathon participants, and finally the marathon participants too. I couldn't control my urge to run, and ended up running and walking along with the last of the marathon participants for the last two kilometres.
Remarkably, Mark Collley, who I am crewing, came first in the Half-marathon, and the marathon finish was even better, with the lead runner sprinting up the hill for a complete two kilometres, which was the last of his 42km run. Everybody was just amazed at how much this runner had in store.
Being late from the race, I took a quick shower, and took a quick lunch at El Forno restaurant, the pre-determine rendezvous location for our team, which included Romila Sil, the scuba-diving instructor. The rest of the afternoon was spent shopping, first for the run along with Mark, and then for me, to carry something back home. We picked upon some fresh juicy apricots, and we liked it to the extent that we went back and got an extra serving.
With another briefing in the evening, I could just find enough time to write this blog. There may be something more coming, so stay tuned.
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