Goals for 2008

I make four goals for this year; No. 1= 700 km in 7 days, it should come out in Athens 7-Days International Race in March. No. 2 = 200 km in 24 hr on track/road, should come out either on the first day of any multiday race or from a 24 hr race in Australia. No. 3 = 300 km in 48 hours from treadmill , and No. 4 = 666km+ in Colac 6-days, Australia.

After 102 mile treadmill run, I have done one more 24hr treadmill  run with 151.5 km in Pune sponsored by Vodafone. It was not for a record but just as a show of 24 hr running. I took it easy as it was only a promotional activity in support of Vodafone Pune International Marathon. Run started at 12.10 pm, with direct sun till 5 pm and again from 8am to finish, in front of SGS Mall. It was a wonderful and memorable event, also becuase Pune is my childhood city and I was visiting there after 33 years.

Today’s goal=running 11pm to 12pm. 

102 miles in 24 hours (on treadmill), Indian Record.

It was done on 26-27 October 2007, in front of Adidas store in Connaught Place, New Delhi (India). Very thankful to Adidas, especially Adhiraaj, who sponsored this attempt. My practice on treadmill was only 70 minutes 2 days prior to the attemmpt just to see how it works. (Initially I wanted to do it directly 100 miles with my first interaction with treadmill).

I never had any doubt about my ability to do it, though it was in the open area with the busiest traffic of New Delhi but 100 miles is not such a big distance to surpass in a day, regardless any type of running surface. Also I was filled up with so much energy by inspirational messages of Edit Berces, Phil Essam, Tony Mangan, Colin Gowan that it became so much easy. My friend Vikram also did a tremendous job of handler, though he is only a few months old in the world of ultramarathon. In him I see a very good ultrarunner in coming time very shortly.

Electronic media gave a wide recongition to it by telecasting directly, so it is a sort of recognition to my running madness :-). A short clipping may be see here english.ntdtv.com/?c=151&a=452

Firstly we thought it is an Indian record, but after making some research on treadmill records found that it is the case of 1st Asian to cross 100 miles in 24 hours on treadmill.

Night running

Again a night-run yesterday. It was fixed with Vikram to start around midnight and after taking a short nap with my kids while making them asleep I reached at our meeting point around 11.30 pm with a can of water (5 litres). We did 39 km in 5 hours very very easily without any pain and fatigue at all on our usual run walk pattern. Winter season has started and felt a little colder after 2 a.m., it was nice and reminding me of night-running in multidays. Drank 3.5 litres of plain water. 

90km for Zola

Yesterday was my elder daughter Zola’s birthday (DoB 23.9.199 and to celebrate it I did a 90 km run, from sunrise to sunset.  Vikram did 60 km and forced to sit due to cramps. Good effort. We did on the synthetic track. My aim was to do first half-marathon distance within 1.45 hr which I did in 1.44.32, a little faster than 2 weeks ago’s half-marathon  (1.46.51). Then the temperature rised up to 37 Deg. Celsius, with clear sky and 83 % humidity, and I chose to simply enjoy the day with gentle walk run walk run. Final timing was 12.49 hr Could not put on vest and though my whole upper body is sunburned. No blister, no cramps, no head-ache. Intake during the whole run: 2 bananas, 2 apples, 9 litres of electrole mixed water. :)))

Training update - 23rd August

Once again we four did a 6 hour night training. It was a little bit hot. Vikram did 47 km, I did 50 km , all was smooth except Devinder and Raj stopped after about 25 km. Devinder’s hip muscle were much paining. (On 10-11 Aug. Devinder and 4 of his villagers ran about 224 km in the relay manner starting from Haridwar to his village in 17 hours on the occasion of annual pilgrimage in the Hindu Shravan month for in with devotees bring the water of holy river Ganga to the Lord Shiva’s temple located in / nearby there village. It is the same festival from where I started my ultrarunning career.)

Raj was exausted due to fast pace in starting. I did first 21 km in under 2 hours and then did the rest part easily mostly by walking.

Vikram and I have done two practice runs of the same type earlier also. One on 3 Aug. 5 hr / 40 kms. Second on 8 Aug. 6 Hrs. / 46 kms. We are enjoying it.

 25 August ‘07: 10 km on 400m synthetic track with Gunjan. time taken 1hr 40min. Gunjan is a university going girl. We met a few days ago. I felt that she can do ultramarathon (though she was never been a runner). I saw her attitude and talked her about the wonderful world of ultramarathon. And now she is one of us. It was her first 10k.

 1 Sept.’07 : 12 k with Gunjan. Cinder track. Above 50% humidity. Time taken : 1hr 51min.

2 Sept.’07 : 52k in 7 hr (1 am - 8 am)with Vikram. Surface=road. It was first 50k for Vikram. Strategy was to Run 1k, walk 1k, throughout the duration except running 2 kms continuosly on completing every hour. It was a very easy and relaxing style giving average of 100mile/1day. Regardless time taken,  I am increasing Vikram’s distance to break his mind’s distance-barrier.

  8 Sept.’07 : Evening, 5.6 km in 25 minutes in Nehru Park in the Adidas Peltzer Race. It is the inaugural run of their once-in-a-month running promotion race series.

9 Sept.’07 : Noida Half Marathon in 2.46.51. Placed 80th out of about 1000 (exact no. is not known). My first ever half marathon. My target was under 1.50. Did run/walk of 8 km in 50 min. in morning before half marathon to reach the stadium from where we got the bus to Noida.

Back again

After a long while I am back again. I participated in the Greek 7-Days Race again this year. Everything was going in the right direction and I was confident to cover more than 700 kms. But not everything goes according to our wish. Last year I did 521 km on a hard hilly track with many bumps and turns in Loutraki Sportscamp. This was a national record for India. This time I could cover only 531 km. I got injured (shin splints) just on the second day and just managed to somehow finish the race with keeping me away from much worse injuries. I spent my full month after the race in recovering from the injury and setting my mind and goals again with a new plan more properly. I will try to write a personal report of my race in coming days.
Thanks.

Training

It has been a long time without training since doing Delhi-Shimla (370 km in 74.37 hr) from 1-4 Feb. I got a pain in the outer side of left knee, may be due to running on the left side of the road all the time. On 24th, did 16 km cycling. Sunday: with children at home. Firstly thought to start running from today but still having some pain in the knee so finally chose cycling to and from office to home (which is 25 km one side) as a part of training. It takes 1.15 hr for one side.

****************
Last week was satisfactory in terms of training and healing the knee pain.
Monday: Cycling 50 km.
Tuesday : Cycling 25 Km.
Thurs: Night running 1.hr
Fri: Morning:
Sat: Morning: 1.40 hr, slow running.
Sun: Night 1.35 hr, ran a little faster. Felt no pain.
Weather fluctuated too much. After a few days rising heat, it became rainy and all three kids got caught by cough/cold (and Zola with fever also). Since Sangeeta has to leave home at 5.40 in the morning, I look after kids more at night in order to let her take sufficient sleep.
It is painful to see kids suffering from illness and it also leave us with less training but it gives us the chance of becoming more tough and calm which is very useful in ultrarunning.
-Arun (5 March 2007)

Welcome to my blog.

Welcome to my blog. This has been a long time coming but i hope that putting this on the web will help to promote ultrarunning in India.

I will endeavour to place weekly posts on here and keep people updated about my training and my life. I hope you enjoy.

if you have a look on the pages list on the right hand side you will see that I have placed my biography and some other stories about previous races. I hope that you enjoy.