HYD- WGL chase - Segment5.

"The thing about a long grueling journey is that it strips away who you’re not, and allows you to discover what’s left, or who’s left.  One damn good reason to pursue endurance and choose suffering is to get to know yourself inside and out. When you reach that moment where you have more than you thought you had, and accomplished more than you thought you could, it’s clear who you are" - The Pursuit of Endurance.

We did it !! Greatful for the wonderful memories!! 

Suren , Siva and few the friends came up with a plan to do a relay run from Hyderabad to Warangal and retrace the route back . The distance was to be covered by 8 runners and the target was to finish the run in  40hours or less. 

Did my part as runner 5 of the HYD WGL relay run. My run started from the 1000pillar temple at WGL and ended 43km westward at the NH163. My heartfelt gratitude to Mudit, Sandeep, Madan and my pacer  Raju garu. More than anything,  this  was a team run of all 5 of us..there is no other way I could describe this effort. Thanks lot Mudit who rode a bike  with me the entire distance wading away the trafic from me,  often putting yourself at risk to the fast moving traffic. Thanks Madan and Sandy for escorting with the with SAG material and wonderful words of encouragement and great pictures.

Raju garu joined me from the 22 km. His encouragement and even splits helped me a lot as I was really down by 25km.The performance would have degraded a lot without him. 

My friend Suren and coach Siva , the duo who envisioned and executed this inaugural event from HUR so nicely . 

Race preparation and performance:

Race kick off (Friday 29Jan 2021) Thanks for the well wishers !! 

A lot of hard work went into this run . To begin with , we had to finalize the segments of 43KM (it has to be above 42.2 :) )  The run was split into 8 parts starting from BHEL , touch the Warangal 1000Pillar temple and return back to BHEL . The order was finazlied as Suren, NageshwaraRao, Satish Gantireddy, coach Siva, myself , Veera, Dipak Roy and the final leg was Veda.

Siva and me got the late morning to  afternoon . We also knew that the route was mostly the ️ with no shades and good rolling elevations. So we trained for the day with many highway runs and runs at noon time and runs post lunch.we also attempted at no time target FM at Chilkur on 10 Jan as a precursor.

Siva looking strong  inspite of the gruelling 41K 

All Smiles at start point (1000 Pillar temple).

The heat and dehydration was one thing that I was mostly worried about. Fortunately ( for me ) Siva took up most of the heat doing the 10am to 3:00 pm slot . I cannot imagine how he pulled it through .

Race performance:

passing the baton.

0-22k : 🧘😇
My plan was to do the first half in 2:10 minutes at 6 to 6:10 pace and the next 15k at 6pace and last 5k as per energy levels .
The first half went fine and I completed the duration by 2:04 or so. Raju joined me at the 22k .

At 21K after drenching myself with water to cool mybody..
 Helps control the heart rate.Madan cheering me as always :)

*24 to 30 k* 😰😭: 

the most tiring session of my race with a constant uphill that hit me like slow poison lost most of my energy and rhythm in this stretch I finally took my first big break at the 30k mark and loaded myself with buttermilk and sugarcane juice. By now the HR was settled at the RED zone and I was constantly looking for a downhill to steady the HR while I maintain the pace. Asked Raju garu to lower the pace to 6:20 from 6:05 and he just locked me with the right pace. He is a genius !

With Raju garu.
My pacer at the toughest part of the run .

sunny roads

35K : 🎅 Took the next break at 35k to take my favourite SOS SAG . A good gulp of regular coke !! More uphills 😭 on the way. Raju garu was constantly talking me out of thinking about it and keep focussing and not breaking the stride ..that helped and I was slowly feeling a bit better I skipped my break at the 38 k and instead stopped at 39k ( yes , post 32 k every km is a milestone ) Some more helpings of coke !!

Last kms 💪: With the last few kms I started to try longer strides without worrying much about HR spike .Atlast the downhills were coming . Oddly, I was feeling good and did my 40 and 41 at good pace. The finish line was now in site..the final km was good and I finally passed through highway hell and handed the relay baton to Veera.

All smiles at the finish line.

with Mudit.cannot thank him enough for the support 🤗

My main takeaway from the run is to NEVER underestimate a FM no matter your past performances .Great respect to anyone who completes the race as they had planned🙏🙇.

Veera takes the baton from me.

We did it ..thanks lot folks for this.

Nutrition 🍛🍳:
Pre -Run : Idly , dal rice and Curd.
On Run : dates + salt every 5k until 25k. Many shots of sugarcane juice , Coke post 28k .
Post run : Generous portion of Unived vegan protein.

midnight reload 😃

Endorphins 🤣

Felicitation:  Suren , Sandy and the fitsocial team along with BHEL , LBNagar, SMRAceRunners  and Vivantis runners had arranged an elaborate felicitation ceremony . Felt so good to share our experiences and gratitude to all involved.

Press Coverage: Glad to see some new papers pick up the story . here are some pics from them .

The New Indian Express -04-02-2021