Digging the archives brought in memories of first ever trail run I attended in Bangalore. The distance to be covered was 16kms with a elevation of approximately 4800 feet at Nandi Hills.
Nandi Hills, or Nandidurg, is a hill fortress in the south Indian state of Karnataka.
There wasnt much thought put in about the terrain and the event distance. It only meant to explore the unknown territory. However, it did cross my mind that such a terrain can lead to injuries by running on uneven surfaces and affect our regular road runs.
Representing our runners group RUN MACHINES OF SUTRA, we were quite a bunch that had signed up for 16km event.
In Pic: Navaneet, Yuvaraj, Shashi, Suraj, Vinod, Babu, Ajith, Joginder and his friend.
We were heaps excited to be a part of this event and with very minimal knowledge on trail running, the idea was to just keep running and cover the distance specified.
With 6am start time at Nandi, it was a long drive from the city and took atleast an hour to reach the venue. The biggest challenge during those days was to attend your natures call prior to the runs. To be at the venue by 5:30am, you had to wake up by 3-3:30am, freshen up, eat and leave by 4am atleast with a buffer time of 30mins. Bangalore is cold during the morning’s and as expected at the venue, the cold bothered me especially when we are dressed up in shorts and tank tops. Yes, wearing tanks tops was a teams conscious effort to stand out of the crowd :).
And so with the countdown coming to an end, the race began and we headed to the lush green farms and started finding our path to the first check point. The checkpoint was laid at a junction that lead to stair climb of 1200 steps. This was the most painful climb of the run and almost seemed never ending. I literally crawled using my hands at the top till we reached the temple and then proceeded to a descent.
In Pic: Navaneet, Babu, Yuvaraj
And yes, the views were beautiful, the terrain was slushy and with my new Kalenji Kapteren Xt3 trail shoe was doing what it was meant to do best. The shoe gave me much needed grip to run on the mud trails but had lead to shoe bites which was expected as it was the first time I was trying the shoe on that very day.
The climb had me in to pieces as I was loosing my breath towards the end of it and was looking to the next hydration point. Back then, i use to gulp Gatorade 30mins prior to runs to keep you hydrated with electrolytes and this could sustain well as it complimented the distance that needed to be covered.
Reaching the top was one mammoth task for me and so was running the descent. Having chasing the personal best on road runs, the determination to do the same continued in this run. Hence the declines were being run with pace but with caution to avoid any accidents on the route. The toes were hammered on the rocky downhills, eventually leading to swelling and bleeding by the end of the race.
Upon finishing the down hills, the tar roads lead us to the finish line at the school where we started the run.
The road run happened to be slow and painful owing to the toe injury. The ordeal however had come to an end now as I reached the finish line.
It was a happy run and enjoyed every bit of it. It was the first ever trail run that allowed me venture in to the unknown and opened path ways to this new form of running – Trail Running and had to be respected for the differentiation it created in terms of running as a sport.
The run was organised by race time india and I am yet to find the time i took to finish the race. I shall update the certificate once found.
