Team Motiv8 athletes from Nagpur, Kalyani Satija and Rajat Nagpal smashed their maiden appearance at Comrades in style, finishing the 90K ultra-marathon in 10h21m. They did all their training together, and more importantly, managed to stick by each other (barring one hiccup, as we will see below) for the entire 90K distance.
Speaking about the difficulty in traveling to Pune for long runs, they said:
“Most difficult thing was traveling to Pune from Nagpur for all the long runs as Nagpur does not have any elevation or rolling routes, and also the level of support given my Team Motiv8 during these long runs was unmatched. They supported us selflessly, that too from midnight till morning. Yes that was the time when we did our long runs! Since the support team were themselves Comrades finishers, they understood easily what we needed at what times. A BIG THANK YOU to the support team.
Second difficulty was to maintain a proper sleeping schedule which was very important for proper recovery during the grueling training period.”
Speaking about a goof-up on race day, Rajat said:
“Me and Kalyani, pledged to start and finish the entire race together because we had done each and every run together and our pace was also the same. But on race day, at approximately 20K mark, I lost her at one of the water stations. The crowd was huge, we shouted each others name but still could not locate each other.
I glanced at my watch and realized that I had been running very fast since being alone. So I slowed down and actually ran backwards hoping to find her knowing that Kalyani must be running steadily at our decided pace. After a long anxious few minutes, I eventually heard her shouting my name and located her. We both breathed a sign of relief and thanked God for not ruining our race. But we lost a few minutes in this episode.
Second was cramps at 52K. This was a surprise as I did not suffer cramps during any of the training runs. I was hit my cramps and pains in legs at one point but I decided to ignore everything and just focused on my run. Spectators where shouting “INDIA INDIA” and cheering us on, so that helped and kept us going”
About keeping his motivation during the arduous training cycle, Rajat said:
“I find myself BLESSED as I was going to do the world’s oldest and most prestigious ultra marathon race. Not every runner gets this chance, even if he is a better runner than me. My family was also very cooperative during training, so I could not let their support go in vain. So there was not a single phase where I felt demotivated.”
Immediately after finished, Kalyani felt overcome by emotion…
“After crossing the finish line, my mind flashed back to when I started my training. And here I was today. I got very emotional, thinking of all the sacrifices and hard work I made to reach here. I wholeheartedly thanked God that both of us, finished, that too standing on our legs, as we saw videos where people were literally crawling to finish the race. I thought: “HUMNE KUCH NAYA KIYA. UPAR WALE NE KARWA LIYA”. My mind was thankful to God, my family and friends, and to my coach for his support and training, by which we achieved this.