A short story of a long slow run – Ladakh Marathon 2018 Race Report by Ajit Terdalkar

A race report by Ajit Terdalkar

Acknowledgement

I sincerely acknowledge my wife – Reema in her whole hearted support of my weekend runs, sometimes these are the only times we get amongst us two otherwise independent individuals. I acknowledge Kevin who seeded not only the repeat idea but also the increasing length idea over my last Ladakh Marathon. I certainly acknowledge Atul Godbole, my coach at Motiv8 Coaching, not sure you know but I do tend to cling to your words more seriously that it appears and I know somewhere my results of this run dint go down as well with you. Mom and Dad, not many know that you have both been athletes in your youth and that is possibly where the seed was sown.

For the ease of reader and to do justice to the entire trip, this story has two chapters:

1. Chapter I – Why Leh – The run-up to the run

2. Chapter II – The Ladakah Marathon – the Race day and all that went into it

Running enthusiasts can skip Chapter I, I know stories are boring, I would do the same in your place. Click here and go to the Run Experience.

CHAPTER I – LEH AND THEREABOUTS – THE RUN-UP TO THE RUN

 

For some unknown reason I have been very impatient to share this story with all of you. It is my experience of running 42kms at 11,000 feet above sea level in a beautiful town of Leh in Ladakh. Honestly this is not the first time I did a marathon in Leh, I am a repeat offender in this as I had managed to limp across the finish line at the smaller version of this marathon (21kms) just the last year, almost feeling like I had completed a full marathon, especially given the wall they expected us to climb for the last 6kilometres, where no one runs.

Let me start by listing the various reasons why people visit Leh, firstly it has the most beautiful mountains in all colours and textures, some capped with snow, some green as if the grass has just been watered, some golden brown without any remorse all surrounded by the truest sky blue skies. But then there is also a great lure of a digital detox from the omnipresent internet (read external world) and all it’s the related boons and banes of the well tech’ed modern society. It could also be the weather (cold but not freezing) that can let you have unlimited supply of parathas, maggi, paneer bhurjis and custom made Jain food (more on that later). Finally it could be a buzz that the lack of oxygen at this altitude which gives your brain a mild pot like addiction, tipsy but not high, long live king Marley.

A marathon at such an exciting venue was just waiting to happen and there was no surprise that it was lapped up by all types of runners once it was put out there, including the self-proclaimed serious (but seriously amateur) runners, like your truly.

Human body needs gradual acclimatisation to such high altitudes or humans are knows to suffer from Acute Mountain Sickness which actually is quite similar to suffering a hangover (and hence mostly mild) but in its most extreme form can lead to Pulmonary Edema which can even be fatal. Thus any experience of running a marathon at this altitude needs to always be accompanied by minimum days of resting in the mountains, getting used to the rare commodity called oxygen or the lack of it and gently urging your body to functioning fully under these tough circumstances.

To ensure that we have enough companions for our mountain misery we found ourselves a group of foot soldiers who had the similar lofty aim to conquer the Ladakh Marathon -2018 and for four such unaligned foot warriors, myself with three other friends Kevin, Sameer and Ripple (don’t go by the names Kevin and Ripple are god-fearing lent observing Jains, hence the Jain food in the holy week), decided to join a strong contingent called Shivaji Park Marathon Club (SPMC). For the uninitiated, Shivaji Park is just a small affluent hamlet in Dadar West, Mumbai, famous for creating the greatest Indian cricketing god and home to eateries offering the many lip smacking Maharashtrian delights like vada-pav, chura paav, missal and thalipith. SPMC has a very illustrious history and they sent their best this year for the Ladakh Marathon. Our SPMC colleagues included Anant B, Anantkumar, Kedar, Leenesh, Sandeep, Sharad (plus the missus) and Vasant (in an alphabetical order). A special cheer to Leenesh who eventually ran the longest version of the Ladakh Marathon- the Khardungla Challenge and who completed 72kilometres of running climbing 4000 feet cutting across multiple weather conditions starting at 3am and finishing at 430pm down in Leh Market. He was wearing 5 layer of clothing on the top and 4 layer on the bottom throughout the race, hats off to you Leen.

To successfully kill the digitally and otherwise unpolluted time for this acclimatization days our contingent decided to march into previously unchartered territories like Nubra, Pangong and other tourist hot-spots in and around Leh. So to lead out contingent we found ourselves three generals Dorjay, Jimmy and Rick (in the order of increasing height and decreasing age), who packed our contingent into three battle tested Toyota Innova’s for this journey. I should have mentioned one more reason to visit Leh earlier, to experience sun, cold, chill, rain and snow all in a short span of 2 hour covering circuitous mountain journeys where our generals got us across less than 40-50 kilometres, typically generally sailing through the some mountain passes like Khardung-la or Chang-la with our multiple layers of clothing coming on and off as we continued.

We started out travails with a rest for the day 1 (as strongly recommended by everyone), followed by the most exciting bib collection early on day 2 once. With the bibs in our hands and a seat assured for the Sunday run, we all commenced our journey to check out the cool and pristine locales in Leh. Day 2 passed with us having clicked a few dozen of pics, including our solo and group selfies at a lot of local monasteries (outside not inside the temples, mind it), we saw some mighty rivers joining forces (Zanskar & Indus), we saw some miracles of nature holding up vehicles without the hill-assist features at the Magnetic hill and finally there was the Shanti Stupa, which looks supremely serene from any altitude or distance and if I might add this monument also embellishes the logo of our Ladakh Marathon.

Day 3, was when the longest road journeys would start, taking us from the highest motorable pass in the world – Khardung-la to the Diksit Monastery far away in the Nubra valley and to see the beautiful two humped camels, I heard the rest of India has only the single humped variety and I say its better with an a hump more, especially given the cold. Staying at a camp in Nubra was exciting as we all fought for limited users of wi-fi and played an interesting board game called Sequence (you should try it, maybe you will be able to play a multi-player electronic version of it soon, thanks to our friend Tech savvy entrepreneur friend Sameer).

 

Day 4 we started out journey to Pangong through Shylok, again starting the long travel covering heights and distances as the weather, the altitude as well as the scenery changed every 30minutes, giving us views of glaciers as well as the most famous animal of the land the Marmot (actually pronounced as Mammut, by all locals).

The beauty of the Pangong River was truly a sight to behold, naturally unparalleled to any natural memory I had ever experienced. The various hues of green, blue and turquoise the water shone as the sun threw its light on it and as the clouds cleared. Again a location for long photo shoots including some camera tricks and some professional posing by all of us single legged and single eyed animals. Did you know that the Pangong river has salinated water and it has waves, not as big to surf but isn’t it a river, go figure.

 

As the evening approached and the temperature started to drop, we all got high on the sights, the hues and some on more interesting but potent mixtures. We all slept fighting the violent and scary weather digging ourselves deep into every piece of warm cloth and we all somehow lived to tell this story for another day.

We started Day 5 to get back to Leh, where the reality and the finality of our Marathon started making all of us anxious, I am confirmed our hypothesis that anxiety compounds at higher altitudes and manifests as hunger, headaches, calf pains, wait did we not overcome our AMS in the last 5 days of being above 11000 ft. We all tried to stretch the Saturday as long as we could to avoid rolling into the Sunday, but night took over and our heads crashed as we hit the pillows from the mileage, from the lack of sleep and mostly from worries of DNF (did not finish).

CHAPTER II – RACE DAY AND ALL THAT WENT IN IT…

What I have purposely not shared so far and which has been the constant accompaniment from the time our flight landed in Leh, till the night before the run, was the incessant run talk (gyaan as we would call it in local lingo). Either it was the full group or between a few isolated members, run talk continued at its own brisk pace and intervals. It served mostly to soothe our nerves it was also a great pool of ideas, which we could hear for any interesting strategy that could raise our performance, like the last minute revision a school kid indulges in hoping all that he reads now would be the only questions which would magically appear in his exam paper tomorrow.

While one of the best known mystery for the race day was always going to be the weather. While Leh would typically be a comfortable cool, it had rained the previous day and there were apprehensions of the temperature being less 5 degrees. Completely on the contrast was the thought that since some of us will be running till about afternoon, it would heat up to a disturbing level. In such high altitudes without any ozone layer, the sun pricks and the heat from the mildest sun is unbearable. Worst case, what if it actually rains.

As the day dawned the gods had been grateful and the temperatures were cool, but not chilly and there seemed no signs of rains. Every room the energy levels were visible, as all the members were getting into their battle gear, bottle of water-check, gel satchets –check, snickers – check, cap – check, etc. This was most our generals would be able to do for us from here on we all would be on our own. Each man fighting his own battle, fighting what he chose to fight, each one of us decided to go our ways and conquer Mount Leh through the same routes but through their own journeys.

At the gun we all narrowed our thoughts down to the next few kilometres of this undulating terrain. Pacing, nutrition, hydration, gels all jumbling into our heads and the body trying to act as one, taking in the limited oxygen and converting muscle power into motion.
It is always difficult to run a marathon, especially the non-truncated version, theory says we hit a wall at 30kms, here at Leh we hit a wall at every minor elevation along the route, some of us walked even on the gentlest slopes, some brave-hearts were still thinking pace, nutrition, hydration, gel and they continued to belt out their rhythmic strides (later I will categorize this lot as elites).

The route did not spare anyone as the steep drop in the start graduated to a gentle yet rolling climb till we hit the half mark. We all had already got the taste of the low oxygen and we knew that this race was no longer to be run by our bodies. Maslow reigned supreme as I faced my fears and my mind refrained my body from going an extra mile, which is exactly what I have been coached to do in any other running event. Thus I conservatively ran some and I walked some as I came to terms that this was going to be a long long run (or run walk). With crossing the half line we saw the plain behinds of the Thiksey Monastery and some relief hit us with the knowledge that the previous climb was giving way to a gentle but rolling downward slope. I tried to recover some lost time, counting each kilometre with steps and judiciously dividing them in to easy runs, brisk walks and easy trots, some call this interval running, but very frankly I saw this as having some method in the madness, some sanity on a never ending road, counting kept me going. As I continued my counting, I came closer to some of my friends who were relatively ahead of me and I started to pass them by.

This continued till I hit the famous last 6 kilometres, we all realised that the Wall is Real and mentally I called this brutal finish, the Great Wall of Ladakh. Everyone seemed to be walking post the 36th kilometre, the elite had finished the marathon long back leaving behind the likes of us, the bourgeois of the running world. We all reached the finish line with varying sense of achievement, but mostly glad not that the run was over, but that we had somehow managed to jump over the Great Wall of Ladakh.

400 brave soldiers fought that battle of Leh and as a respect we did not count our loses (the DNFs -those who Did Not Finish). To those who came back home there was a medal waiting along with long memories, memories limited only by your ability to remember what your body felt, confirming that you had survived the worst and at the end the mountains always ruled over all humans.
As we all gathered early that evening to reminisce and the strong tried think what went wrong, finally we all converged that this run was just about finishing and that it was fine to hold your head high, even if you had added anywhere between 30minutes to an hour (or even more for some) to your sea-level timings. Just the right time to confess that I personally had added an hour to my sea-level best, which itself is truly modest.

I fought the body pain post completing the run later that day and nursed some oral antiseptics to wash away the residual disappointment, as my mind started to delve deeper into why, especially why again, not just why. Why had I put myself out there to dry again to barely survive and through such excruciating pain, there were many simpler marathons to run. As thoughts started to collect like rainwater at the bottom of a mountain, my mind tried to garner the most enchanting moments through the cold, the snow, the run, through all the breathlessness and the sleeplessness.

In front of my eyes, I could see the luminous smiles of all the locals we met since we landed. Then I remembered all the children extending their palms out to all us runners and shining away their best pearls, saying Jhulley, the pain in my run had very successfully camouflaged these sweet memories. The smiles in their eyes, providing us the warmth from their deepest hearts from their deepest darkness, praying we would finish our runs, hoping we would run to our best capabilities, hoping we would win in our hearts if not in our actions, hoping that we would come back to run-another day.

From the generals who led us from the front, our drivers, who kept sharing glorious stories of the locals, some stories including fighting at the highest glaciers (Siachen) of the world and sacrificing their lives to protect our motherland. Stories of how the community would converge as one organism and breath toghether when the temperatures dropped to -50 degreed in the winted. Our countrymen who were holed up six months of their lives in the harshest winters and who would come out with the same effervescent ever welcoming smile to welcome the visitors from their own country and from the world elsewhere. It dawned upon me that the most inhospitable weathers made the most hospitable hosts.

Then I realised something way deeper, I came back for this run to share my solidarity with these forgotten countrymen, to tell them I feel them and that every ounce of my body was proud to have such brethren. If they could welcome me despite of knowing that I came from some of the warmest winters, where I did not have to hole myself up in a small shack, they had me with their first smile.

So will I go back and run yet another Ladakh marathon next year, I wish so and I wish you do so too.

Till then, do remember the Ladakhi child who ran a few metres with you for the run, just because you smiled at him and said “Jhulley” and I am sure this run will help you in all your other marathons, till you decide for Ladakh in 2019.

Thank you….

 

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