The Vagamon ULtrail 2022

So, at the beginning of the year I had set certain targets for myself - This usually works in enabling one to stick to being disciplined and focussed. I sincerely urge anyone and everyone out there to set specific targets and stick to those. Getting carried away is a recipe for disaster, injury, overuse and all of those things which take you away from regular training and practice. One of these targets was to run an ultra this year - to go beyond the 42.2K distance. And so I was on the lookout for an event which will give me the thrill to go beyond 42.2K - I asked around and had a lot of recommendations come in for the Vagamon ULtrail - with everyone telling me it will give me the thrill & challenge I was after. And so, without giving much thought to it - I went ahead and signed up for this event. They have limited slots for the event so I was in fact sitting online the day that the registrations opened for the fastest finger first towards registration. With registration done and dusted - I was at peace. Little did I know what was in store for me up ahead.

As the days to the event got closer, We got a couple of emails from the organisers - giving us a heads up that this was a tough trail - moreover, it had not been organised in June previously - which meant that there will be a lot of rainfall during the time that we will be doing the run. Never before have I come across an organiser who sends the participants emails putting the fear of God in them - it was almost like they didn't want us to come and participate. We had time cut-offs - some stories of crazy elevation etc. Post my TCS 10K event, I had 4 weeks to the event with the event being on the 4th Weekend falling on 11th June 2022. Immediately after TCS, I increased my mileage. Now, some people have mentioned that I have hardly done any long runs in the build up to the event - but what you fail to notice is that I have been running consistently for over 10years now, I have been trekking on a regular basis and have really upped my game in Strength & Flexibility in the last one year - in addition to that I have raced a Marathon in April and post TCS - I was doing Half Marathon's every other day - ALL OF THIS is training.

Anyway, I increased my weekly mileage ramping up the weekend long runs - thing is time was really limited and there were many a times I asked myself Why I had signed up for TCS with this event looming around the corner. As it got closer, I started panicking a couple of times and am very grateful to have people like Dinesh Heda & Arun Nambiar who spoke to me and helped me calm down and stay focussed. When I spoke to Ankush & mum - they both were supremely confident that I will be able to cruise through the event - with Ankush going - don't over analyse - you will be fine at Pokemon - Mum was like - you will cruise through 40K - just be wary of the last 20K - so easily and calmly they gave me advice. Me, on the other hand was hyperventilating - I asked around and found the elevation chart - kindly see below:

Of course you can see the huge descent and climb around the 23K mark - but if you notice closely - the entire chart is jagged. Since I have spent a fair amount of time in the mountains in the past - I knew that this will not be child's play - so the first thing I did was source proper trail running poles from the States. I got them 2 weeks prior to the event. I thought I maybe able to get some mileage on them but sadly I was not able to. The next thing was weather - the weather changes everything - if it was going to be torrential rainfall - it would slow me down considerably and make the trail even more treacherous - considering how slippery and slushy it would make it. In addition to this the discomfort of running in wet clothes. The leeches were another consideration. Due to the weather we would have long stretches without any aid stations - which meant that I could not rely on the aid station for nutrition and hydration. I was getting overwhelmed. So I decided to break it down and look at one thing at a time.

Running pole check, hydration bag check, trail running shoes check - nutrition check. Hydration bag, I had an old one which I had bought many many years ago for MTB cycling and it had barely ever been used. Nutrition - I hate consuming gels - but have to, when I race - but for 12 hours there is no way I would be consuming gels - so I made dry fruit laddoos ( with mum supervising), carried some snickers & peanut butter & cheese sandwiches. I would wear my Brooks Caldera 5 Trail running shoes, long dry-fit pants to provide maximum safety from leeches and off course my Brooks racing singlet ( because itna pride hai mujhe apne brand ko represent karne main). I did a couple of runs with the hydration bag - these runs lasted 3-4 hours tops and I had worn full coverage tops at the back when I used it. So, I couldn't even begin to fathom the extent of equipment failure I would have at the event.

Anyway, moving along - the run was one part of the event - but even the commute to and back was a mammoth journey in itself. Thursday evening is when I left home for the event on saturday morning. Headed to the station and caught an overnight train to Ernakulum. The last time I travelled by train was possibly in 2018 when I was travelling extensively ( just for fun). Sleep quality in the train is not that great. As luck would have it I found runners travelling in the seats adjacent to mine - in fact one of them I have known for a long time Shilpa Deo - we all chit chatted until it was time to crash for the night. Now I sleep on a huge bed and initially it is in starfish position - so I really didn't know how to accommodate myself in that little berth and spent over 3-4 hours tossing and turning until I passed out. Next thing I knew, it was 6am - we had entered Kerala and truly it was gorgeous - so lush and so so green - my heart was already smiling. By 7:45am we had reached our station. Kuljeet and me had been speaking for a while - he had helped me with my hydration during SPBM and we had worked together on his nutrition - he was also attempting his first Trail Run at Vagamon. He had already done the Ultra distance previously but this was to be his longest for sure.

He had also reached Ernakulum in the morning. I also met Sujith, Mayank, Charan. Aditya and the entire RTC gang at the station. It was nice. We headed on to have breakfast at a hotel near the station. Some other runners also trickled in from the other stations. Kuljeet had hired a room close to the station where we all went to freshen up before heading onto the next leg of the journey. At apprx 11:30am - we hired cabs and made our way to the Decathlon for bib collection and bus travel to Vagamon. As Dinesh Heda rightly said - it was the day of maximum footfalls at decathlon and barely any sales (giggles) anyway - we were all hanging around there - hassling the organisers ( special mention of Anoop, Charles and Parvati - who so sweetly were responding patiently to the same questions over and over again. Post bib collection we went to a restaurant around the corner and stuffed our faces with some really kickass biryani. We finally all boarded the bus, settled down and moved from Decathlon around 3:30pm. All through the bus ride, we were gossiping - excited little puppies I say!! oohing and aahing at the greenery and the gorgeous scenery around.

We finally reached our respective resorts around 9:00pm. By the time we settled into our rooms, it was possibly 9:30 - then we moved & grabbed our dinner and came back around 10pm. The next hour or so went in prepping for the next day - packing the race day bag and then repacking the main bag since we had to check out in the morning, having a shower etc. I was bunking with Aditya Devi and Radhika Wakharkar - both with incredible energy and spunk. The three of us chatted for the next 40-45 mins and finally settled in for the night. It was around 12-12:30am that I fnally fell asleep. We had been instructed that our bus would leave at 3:45am - which meant that the alarm went off at 3am. So 3am and we jump out of bed - it was raining!!!- quickly brush & get ready in the race day attire - I was even lucky enough to manage a fairly decent dump at that time of the day. Say what you may - but if you are a runner you will relate to the importance of having a clean light tummy while on the move. Post getting ready we grabbed all our stuff and headed downstairs for coffee/te

a prior to piling into the bus. I was annoyed cos there was no chai and only black coffee. It has now been over 2 years since I quit coffee - I have found that no matter what time of the day I consume coffee - it affects my sleep quality and so now I avoid it like the plague. But beggars cant be choosers and so I had the damn coffee - everyone slowly tottered into the room and before we knew it we had turned it into a photo-shoot area - obviously wanted the before ( fresh, clean and happy) and After ( destroyed, filthy and relieved) pics. We all knew that this will be a difficult day ahead.

It was 4:15am when we got ourselves into the bus and made our way to the start point. Around 4:45am we all got off the bus and headed to the hall that had breakfast being served. We dropped off our finish line bags. There was bananas, bread, peanut butter and jam available at the breakfast station. I had carried my own peanut butter & cheese sandwich which I stuffed into my face. My stomach was in knots!!! To grow - you must push outside your comfort zone and today I was heading into a space way out of my comfort zone - terrain, weather, distance - all elements new to me. We all were standing and chatting away - Vijay, Yuvaraj, Kuljeet and me. As my nervousness grew - I moved away - I needed to just be with my thoughts and myself. Soon it was time to head to the start line. Warm Up? hahahahah - with 60K ahead of me - I didn't need no warm up bruh!!!. The plan was very simple - Start slow - at the back - take your time and start getting strong towards the second half of the race. Easy to say - hard to follow!

We never really spoke of running the event together - but as we walked to the the start line, it was clear - Kuljeet and me were going to run this event together - this would be 'our effort' to cross that finish line. And so it began - as they dropped the start ribbon, off went the 120 people who had signed up to attempt this Ultra. The rain was now a very light drizzle, there was fog and we could not have asked for better weather.

Kuljeet and me started at the rear end of the pack and stayed there - " We got 60K to go - there is no hurry!!" was the thought and mantra for me this entire event. The first section is a descent, so it is very easy for people to get carried away. Within the first 300mtrs was the first climb. We had not accounted for this and here we encountered our one and only traffic-jam.

As we climbed up, we came to an open clearing - the fog, the greenery, the beauty was breathtaking. And so we started moving, at our own pace - moving one foot in front of the other - slowly but surely. Yes, we were dropping people as we moved ahead, but that was not the motivating factor. Thats the thing about an event like this - you have enough of challenge being given by nature - you do not really think about competition in this case.Slowly and surely, jogging where we could and walking where we couldn't - but moving at all times.

Vijay, Kuljeet and me were more or less moving together for the first 1/6th of the race. The entire trail was marked with orange ribbons and we needed to keep following these ribbons to stay on track. Even before we completed the first 10K, we had already veered off track and done a few hundred metres or so extra - so suffice to say, it was easy to get distracted and lost - there was just so much going on - the stunning landscapes, the terrain itself, streams to jump through - it was heaven. Before we knew it, we had reached the first aid station at 9Km. We were still in good spirits - grabbed some oranges, drank enerzal and kept moving. As we came to an easy downhill section, Kuljeet picked up pace - and here is where the quality of the shoe really shows its true colors. It was wet from the dew, it was also cemented - and as he was prancing away - he slipped and fell on his butt. At first was the customary - are you ok? and then there was the LOL moment. He was wearing trail specific shoes - but those were for a light trail. I was wearing my trusted Brooks Caldera 5 and those babies took me for a sweet sweet ride over these 60+km. The grip, cushioning, protection and the breathability were all on-point for this heavy trail race.

As we moved a little further I saw a bunch of people on the next elevation. by the 12K mark we had caught up with this bunch of people - around 12.5K was yet another massive elevation - we continued at our pace. Both of us marching up together. It was time! Time to take out my stunning running poles. Out they came much like the swords of the samurai warriors. Ah! the relief they gave. I asked Kuljeet if he would like to try them to see the massive difference. He tried it and felt it. It was immediately decided - we will share the running poles for the remainder of the race. And we moved. The next aid station was at 18K - we stopped there for a quick restroom break, refilling the hydration bladders and grabbing some more oranges. When I took off my bag, I knew that there was a malfunction of my hydration backpack. Since this was not body-fit, and I was wearing a racer back, the stitching on the back was chaffing the skin on my back. " This is going to be a long and painful race" I told myself. I filled the entire bladder up so that I had to minimise taking the bag on and off. After a fairly long break, we started moving. As we moved, we realised that the people we had left behind had overtaken us during this break. Mental Note: Cannot waste too much time on aid stations. Eitherway, we picked up pace. It was just so gorgeous around us -we were running through tea estates, climbing through meadows, running on ridges, through the pine forests - we also got lost multiple times, backtracked & retraced our steps and continued moving forward -meeting people along the way, spreading as much positivity along the way as we could. We reached a stream after a while and it just looked so inviting - so Kuljeet and me, took our shoes off, soaked our feet in water - it was heaven! - We stayed there for a while, washed our faces, I drank from that water - Nature gives us everything we need. The entire experience was ethereal - It was like running through a picture postcard.

But the pain was excruciating - the mammoth climbs followed almost immediately by never ending descents.And after a point, you become numb to the surroundings - this is what is known as active meditation. You become oblivious to what surrounds you and are only in that moment, looking at where to put the next foot - only looking for the next ribbon, only focussing on this very moment - this is the FLOW - you're in the FLOW and to be in the flow it is imperative to focus your mind on the positive. I reached this state around the 30Km mark and I stayed there until the end. There were so many negatives to think about - I had blisters on my feet by now, on both big toes, on the ball of the foot and on my left heel. My back was chaffed and the salt from the sweat was burning with every step that I took. Calves and quads were crying with the beating that they were taking due to the elevation - every part of my body was singing a different song. But my focus stayed on avoiding a fall ( especially with fatigue setting in) keep moving - just don't stop, stay on track and keep the spirits up - Sumit had also joined us somewhere along the way - and we were all feeding off each others energy.

The thing to remember ( and this is a general rule for life too) is that everyone is suffering - in an event like this ( and in life) the most success comes to the one that can learn to suffer the best. Kuljeet was having the toughest time with his quads. He was not used to the elevation and his quads were getting locked. We were punching his quads and applying pressure every few kms to open them up and keep them going. This tightness was causing a lot of issues and pain in his knee - he was still moving as well as he could. Somewhere around 35K we got a second wind and picked up pace, trudging faster as we forged on ahead. Crossed the 42K cutoff point, met Yuvaraj again - who was really encouraging about the way that we were moving. We were well in time. The volunteers there were going to fill the hydration bladder. I had to take off my backpack to give them access to it. When they saw my back, they retracted in horror. I smiled and told them it doesn't matter - now that I had made the cut-off nothing is going to stop me from reaching the finish line.

With every step forward I was now doing my longest distance yet - We kept moving forward at a fairly decent pace - somewhere around 45-46K we missed yet another turn and veered off track possibly 600-700mtrs off the course. Before we knew it we had crossed the 50K mark - now it was all just single digits to the finish line. Beyond 50K even Kuljeet was now doing his longest distance yet. We gave each other a hi-five. Now its just about the finish line. Started moving forward and in another km or so Sumit joined us again. Around 55K - Oh how the downpour began!!! torrential rainfall - there was a split second when we three may have slowed down - but thats the thing right? Its that split second when the decision has to be made.

If you have noticed, when a child falls, he looks at the older person around for a reaction - if you look worried or anxious, the child starts crying - but if you give them a smile and tell them to dust themselves off and move on with their lives - they smile and do just that. So before anyone could say anything - I was like " Downhill hai baba, chalo jog karte hain" and just like that the decision was made. We were going to continue at our pace. We kept moving, there was a leech which flew onto my hand and I realised it almost immediately. Sumit quickly pulled it off my palm before it stuck its sucker into my skin. We kept moving through the downpour, through the estate, through some treacherous slippery trail - we were in a line - Kuljeet in front, Sumit right behind and Me bringing up the rear. As we climbed, we would walk, and as soon as I reached the highest point I would scream out - Chalo baba - downhill hain jog karenge. We crossed a couple more aid stations along the way. We moved through this for the next hour or so until the rain finally subsided. We clocked the 60K mark on our watches - finish line no where to be seen. This is where we would now know by how much we had veered off track. As we inched towards it 100mtr by 100mtr - we finally saw the finish line - the gong was rung and the crowd clapped for us as we ran through the finisher arch. We had smiles on our faces - the torture was finally over! The day had been a good one, Nature had bestowed us with a great day!

Kuljeet and me had run the entire 62K together, got lost together, seen each other suffering together. Sumit had joined us and stuck with us through at least 10K together. It was mutually decided. We are going to cross the finish line together - because this one was a team effort. That we each would have completed it individually is a definite yes. But would we have had so much fun? Would we have been able to endure all the pain and suffering without a break? Would we have had a happier 10hrs 21mins? Would we have pushed a little bit harder? We will never know! But I think I speak for all of us when I say, Misery likes company and we had bloody amazing company - laughing through the pain, looking after each other. We today are better for having done this together. The universe conspired to make it happen and it was our destiny to experience this together

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I have lost my Ultra and Trail Virginity -I crossed that finish line in 10Hrs and 21mins. I also managed to finish second in Women. I am grateful for this experience. Thank You to Soles of Cohin for organising this event - it is a labour of love. The love can be seen in the way you have organised everything for us - from the pick-up to drop, to warning us so that we are prepared, feeding us, I suspect you even used a machete on the trail to clear it for us, the marking - it was all just incredible and done with a painstaking amount of love - the patience that you have shown and the support at every aid station - almost like a formula1 pit stop crew. Thank You Kerala and Vagamon for being so gorgeous and for being kind enough to give us a beautiful day - cool foggy morning, relatively low humidity, heat through the day, and that torrential downpour which gave our legs a second lease of life towards the fag end of the event. Thank You to Kuljeet for hanging in there and pushing his own boundaries through the entire 62K - Sumit!!! your stories and spirit - grateful for it. We have suffered together and forged a forever bond. I am so so grateful for it. Thank You to the photographers, Vibin Balakrishnan and team - I don't even know how you guys reached your vantage points with all your equipment and waited there patiently for us - we kept moving - but you were standing still - I am sure the leeches had a gala time at your cost - thank you for giving us pictures that caught us in our element. Brooks India Team - always feel so strong with the support of an army of kickass athletes cheering and supporting you from across the country - there is a lot of love here - Kartik Shah, thank you for bringing us all together and making it a family, Mum, Dad, Ankush - unfaltering, unflinching, forever support - you three give me the strength to be me. I had thought I would cry at the finish line. I didn't ! But the tears are rolling off my face as I have written this and gone through this journey. This journey has changed in me in a way that words cannot explain. These tears are of joy and gratitude - so blessed to be able to live my dream.

Of course the journey back was another Ultra in itself. Whats next? My main event after this will be the Ironman 70.3 in Goa. I will, of course, have some training outings along the way and I look forward to the upcoming few months.