June 21, 2025 – Bangalore
I recently took part in an ultra run. We ran from Vidhana Soudha to Isha Foundation hence the name Adiyogi Ultra organised by Odu Running Club. It was nearly 78kms and 13 hours of running.
My day started at 3am, often for an ultra you hardly get any sleep, you got to wake up really early and the night before the run, nerves and excitement kick in. Anyway, I caught a cab and reached the location. I was one of the last to get there. I knew a few there, I went up to them said hello and then prepared my bag for the run.
P.S. – The dog in the pic ran with us at least 6-7kms
Light had just creeped in as we started the run. This wasn’t a race, since it was the first edition we ran as a group as advised by the organisers. But eventually the group broke into 3, the fast set of runners, medium and slow. I was part of the medium pace group, three of us decided we’ll run it together and so we did.
The route took us through the city– starting from Vidhana Soudha, going via Sankey Tank, Jalahalli, Avalahalli then eventually exiting the city. The main challenge in this race was the traffic, not the bustling city traffic but since we ran on narrower roads running became challenging when a big vehicle approached us. The weather was favourable, mostly cloudy and windy, there was a patch of heat along but nothing we haven’t faced before. This is a point to point run so we had 5 vehicles supporting us. Three cars at different points in the race, a mini bus and an ambulance on stand by. The mobile aid crew did a splendid job supporting us throughout the day.
My plan for this run was to finish it with relative ease. I ran with my Canyon Sandals, the feet took a thrashing, felt the brunt of it after 50kms, I did carry my Asics Noosa Tri along but chose not to use them. I want to get used to running ultras with sandals one because it’s minimalist design allows the feet to breathe and it’s pretty economical compared to a good running shoe. Plus I love running in them, it gives you a raw feeling and raw pain too.
For this run, I wanted to change my fuelling and nutrition strategy, I didn’t have any energy gels, I had a little bit of breakfast and lunch, wanted to keep light, three snicker bars along the way, 2 to 3 bananas, a bit of watermelon, downed a red bull entering the last 15km, the occasional electrolytes and lot of water. Of course, I had some junk too, coke and chips to the rescue.
I felt I was overdoing the energy gels and electrolytes so I decided let me reduce the intake for this run. I didn’t have any problem but I don’t know how the plan will fare when the distance goes over 100km. I plan on running for days and I don’t think relying on energy gels for such ling duration is a sound plan.
My group reached Isha Foundation around 6.30pm, it was such a relief to enter the premises, we thought we were done only to find out that we had to run another 2-3km that to up a hill. Briefly, I stopped at a shop bought a cool bottle of water and I drank it, and off we went to finish it. As we were nearing the finish, we were treated with a glorious sunset, hues of purple, orange and red painted across the sky. It felt like all that running was worth that beautiful sky, at least at that moment it did.
We finally finished the run, it took us awhile to find the group since it got dark. There was a laser show on display, we sat down and watched it. We freshened up, wore fresh clothes and there was a small closing ceremony, some mementos were distributed and we took a whole bunch of photos. We had dinner and headed back home in the tempo traveller.
The main goal for this year is to make it to the Indian Backyard Team and I really need to put in the miles. This run was the starting long run of the season!
The end.
Practice 