Church Street First – 12 Hour Run

12^th day of the 12^th month, 12 runners, run 12 hours - from 12pm to 12am, I was bib #12

I was in Mumbai when I got this call from Dharma, he just started the 12, 12, 12… chant and I immediately agreed, didn’t need a better reason to sign up. The weekend of 12/12 was that of a packed week – quit old job, join new job as bookends, thrown in hospital duties, a motivational talk, a not-so-socially-distanced flight – all in 5 days, where’s the room for a run, you would think.

The more you squeeze me, the more I find a way to wriggle out for a run.

There was some excitement build up – bibs, posters, my pretty face on 6 x 2 flex cut out, etc. I packed a gym bag with some gels, electral, date syrup – my go-to race day nutrition, with some warmers and a windcheater. I had many familiar faces in the 12 member team, having known Ashwini, Shyamala, Dharma, Ramesh, Naresh, Atif & Jay for a few years now. In a last minute addition, Rajesh from racetime.in agreed to count our laps.

The course was simple – run down the Church street cobble path 500m towards Koshy’s and then turn around and run back to the timing mat at the start point, turn around and repeat for 11:59:59

The rest room was inside the Karnataka Pollution (Control) Board building and there was water station at the start point.

Church Street is off vehicular traffic on Saturdays between 10am to midnight to promote a place with “Clean Air” for social gatherings, street food, drinks, live music, dance shows, painting, art work, and running of course. The best part of the run was to weave through pedestrian traffic as the vibes & the feel of Church street changed through the day.

The race started on time, in hot noon sun, with Darshan and Sunil joining us for the first few hours. I set off with Atif for about 3-4 laps, but he then took off. There were just a handful of photo buffs, solo hip hopers on the road then. I managed 11k in the first hour, but was already feeling the heat.

I only remember taking a few breaks to the restroom to pour water on my head to cool me off. The next 3 hours went with 10k, 9k, 8k. 38km in 4hours and the marathon mark in 4:25!!

This was a good lesson for running in the heat. A few things had happened by now. By around the 2 hour mark, the BBMP marshals who were patrolling the street requested the organisers to have us run with masks! Four of our 12 runners found this disgusting enough to quit the race! I realized that there was no real food on the offer. 

My pal, Raghu decided to finish his maiden 150km bike ride alongside me. My dad and mom dropped by 3PM, and left behind some Kadale bele payasa and bananas. Most importantly, the crowds had begun to swell up.

As the sun was getting less hot, the crowds were getting hotter! I had to take off my sunglasses to stay focused on the job at hand.

Church Street was awesome! It had the feel of one of those European Saturday nights and I sorely missed my family and was making silent plans to get them the next weekend. Hour 5 and 6 came and went with some poor mileage - 47k by 5hours and 55k by 6hours. I was also cramping by the 4^th hour and had to slow down to ease things off. There were other running friends who stopped to say ‘hello’, have a few drinks. Shuvi, Gokul & gang were busy setting a personal best for the amount of time spent on a coffee table at the café.

Then suddenly, just as I was taking yet another U-turn, I heard a familiar voice call out my name. I looked up a wife and family were making their way through the barricades! It was such an amazing moment. Turned out, she heard from my dad that there was no solid food, and so, she had cooked some and brought it along! Truly blessed to have such as supportive family.

I had a great time showing my kids around the various sights – the live music, the lights, the paintings! Then, other friends – Tima, Raagi, Vidya joined the party. The temperatures dropped quite quickly and my support team stayed cozy in the cafes while I was adding to my lap counts. By now, the rhythm was steady, the cramps had eased, but fatigue had taken over.

By the time my family left, I had about 3 hours to go. The 7^th, 8^th and 9^th hours had yielded 5, 7 and 5kms only! Sometimes, you have to stop to smell the roses!

The next 3 hours were about staying on course and getting the job done. I added another 20kms to take the tally up to 94km. It started to nice and cold, the crowds had thinned down, the girl selling roses still shouted “fast”, “fast” as I limped by.

It was great to finish yet another near 100k effort on my feet, still running!

Run To The Moon 100k

Of Performance and Perceptions

That's a strange opening line for a report on a 100k run, you reckon. What's perception got to do with a 100k run, what's it got to do with running from 1am to noon, what with running on a 1km road, with being tired or happy at the end, with feeling positive or negative - EVERYTHING! Perceptions Matter.

 

These are strange quarantimes - "getting positive" is the most negative thing and I have been trying to find excuses to not "fatten my curves".

So, ever since the lockdown began, I have been running alone on a long 1km road (4th cross road, to be precise) behind my home.

The Kanyakumari to Kargil virtual run (#KANKAR >> report here) helped build the mileage, 2 weeks of over 200km+ mileage. I had continued with some steady 40km+ runs during the subsequent weekends.

 

NEB Sports used the KANKAR template for a moonshot, quite literally - a relay virtual run, all the way to the moon and back! During a casual chat with the NEB Boss, Nagaraj, I offered to run a 100km as a #GiantLeap to finish the Run To The Moon (RTTM). 

RTTM is a 31 day challenge, where runners get to contribute between 2.5k to 10k per day for 31 days. The overall mileage (from the 14000 participants) adds up to the distance between Earth and the Moon (… and back… to home quarantine, of course). The event is raising more than 14 lakh rupees towards supporting Support staff of various sports departments.

 

As the D-day, 18^th July, neared and cases rose, the lockdown rules started to get stringent. Perceptions Matter. I'm covidient, Cubbon park or Nandi hills as possible locations for the 100k were considered and dropped. My initial plan was to run the 100k on empty (with no calorie intake), this plan I dropped too.

 

So I decided to run in the comfort of my locality, a 1km stretch of road, quiet with low traffic, small elevation, up and down, 50 times.

Perceptions Matter - I decided to start early, to give me the comfort of having done significant distance before 6am.

 
1AM to 5AM

The early hours felt like I was on the moon, there was no human in sight!! Running up and down and stopping only to be a “Super Spreader”. No no, not the virus, the Peanut Butter on Brown Bread, my top of the hour snack. I kept to a steady pace of about 10kmph. Perception-related challenges in my current job kept my mind busy. In 4hrs, I had covered about 40kms, some stray dogs as spectators. By 6AM, still running alone, I made 50kms in 5h:03

 

Perceptions Matter. The idea of this run, was also to show “the art of possible” so far as fitness is concerned, during these “unprecedented times”. In an attempt to get as many involved, I had short Covideo streams updated on Instagram (follow me on @ultrabhat NOW) and FB.

 

By 7AM, this got a few runners from my side of town to drop by and provide support and cheers. The runversations, selfies and pics slowed things down a bit, but was very refreshing. Thanks for coming!

This 2 hour slot was the busiest. My kids came to visit and wanted to run a bit with me. By 9 am, I was done about 73kms.

 
9AM to 12 noon Finish

Perceptions Matter, but Performance, perhaps more!

By 9AM, there was no more fanfare. I was alone once again, this time I had the sun for company for the remaining 27kms. I was still running steady – walking the short uphill every loop, but running the rest. But just as my energy was waning, Shreya brought me curd rice (I sent her back for seconds).

 

Then I had Santosh and Shilpa come back again by 11am to pace my last 13 km or so. My Dad and another runner, Naveen joined my swelling support crew. My kids got on their bikes and we polished off the last few laps in style.

 

Pic credits: Ramesh, Naveen

While I get back to worrying about Perceptions and Performances during my work week, I’m happy to have rediscovered my Passion over this weekend!

 

Not everything that counts can be measured, and not everything that can be measured counts.

 

If you still want some counts, the stats are on Garmin Connect (https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/5253339689), I particularly liked the Heart Rate vs. Elevation

Lockdown Dairies

How I engaged the physiological (stomach), the physical (my body), the mental (my brain) and the metaphysical (my soul) during these lonely times.

On March 21^st, I waved my family a double good-bye, with both hands, little did I know I would spend the longest time away from them, ever – 72 days. Like Tom Hanks in Cast Away, I went into a transformation, while he grew a beard, I grew a Mohawk!

As the goalpost of their return kept shifting from Lockdown 1.0, to 2.0 and so on, I took up multiple “projects” to keep myself engaged.

The Physiological – “that which is related to the physical upkeep”

For most of my basic requirement of food, I relied on my mom, lunch was the only time when I would get to talk to them. I ate there and brought home the sambar for my rice + egg burji dinner. But I did a few experiments in the kitchen – including baking a banana cake for my 40^th birthday! The pic does no justice to how good some of these tasted!

The Mental – “that which is related to the brain”

The easiest project was to pick up a popular series such as the “Family man” (talk about irony here) and binge watch. I admit, I got a prime membership and watched 6 episodes, mostly out of curiosity. But dropped it, when I saw how easy it was to get hooked to this.

I then tried to learn the Vishnusahastranama, got till about mid-way. But I completed 2 certification programs for a data mining course. It did come down to the wire during the 2.5 hours exams that I had to endure, right down to the last question to decide if I would cross the line. In the Dhoni style, I hit the last ball for a six! Binge learning, way better than binge anything else!

The Physical – “that which is related to the body”

I took a long break from running after the Bengaluru Ultra in Dec, nearly 10 weeks of ZERO mileage. Just when I was getting back to running, COVID hit us. 

Not the one to take “lockdown” as an excuse, I continued to run responsibly – alone and in a 1 km stretch of a road that goes nowhere, near home. I put in mindless runs of 5km, 10kms, 30 mins or 1 hour runs just building an aerobic base. It was too early for me to take part in the quarantine backyard ultra – a great concept in these times, details here.

But when NEB sports and Sunil C came up with the Kanyakumari-Kargil relay run (#KanKar), I was ready. The plan was simple – each member of the Indian team for the 24h and the 100k runs as much as she or he can, each day from 21^st of May. You log the mileage, the total team mileage for the day is marked on the Indian map, from Kanyakumari, all the way up to Kargil. The goal was to complete this 3815kms in 15days, to get the sponsors to contribute to charity. Each day of early finish, will get more money into the charity pot.

Of the 22 runners who began, the cyclone Amphan, the over 40 deg plus weather in Delhi and the seal down orders in Mumbai, meant no running for a few of our athletes.

Namma Bengaluru had no such issues – the evening downpours ensured that the mornings were cool till about 8AM or so. I was looking to log some consistent mileage, my wife and I decided that 30k should be doable. From day2 onwards, I stuck to a routine – wake up at 4:15AM, start the run at 5, run for 2.5 hours or so, 25kms. Notably, all my runs were done

1. In the 1 km long road, up and down 12 times each morning
2. In about 2:27mins to 2:40 mins
3. In the same set of singlet and shorts (washed immediately under the shower to rid of the Novel C19)
4. On an empty stomach, only sipping from a 1 liter water bottle once every 4kms
5. While passing a set of morning walkers and runners - with a nod, or a wave or a good morning!

The evening “recovery” run was almost always 6k, somedays I ran a couple of kms more. En-route, I logged my best weekly mileage ever at 223kms. As we approached Kargil, well before schedule, on the 10^th and the last day, I decided to take it up a notch, ran a 4:15 full marathon distance, again on empty, same loop, same singlet, same “hi”s and “hello”s!

My mileage count for the 10 days

	Leaderboard		May 21	May 22	May 23	May 24	May 25	May 26	May 27	May 28	May 29	May 30
Manoj	307		12	32	34	31	31	31	32	31	31	42

What was truly remarkable was the fact that my injuries did not flare up, especially the high hamstring injury that has been irritating me since the last 24hr run in Bangalore. My recovery was fantastic. I continued to have early dinners, slept as early as I could, sometimes as early as 8:30PM, this must have helped the rejuvenation. More importantly, I enjoyed every single run, barring a few patches. I told my sister one day “there will be difficult days. To do the right thing on a day when you are not totally up to the task, is what endurance is all about.”

… and finally,

The Metaphysical – “that which is beyond the physical, of the soul”

The truth is – I missed my family. And there were days of a weird sadness. But thanks to these “projects”, I pressed on, going from one distraction to the next. But what gave me most joy, was this one. Inspired by my friend, P, who drew a mural on her wall at her home in the bay area, I decided to give a go to draw my kids portrait on their room wall. I tried a few things, lots of innovative hacks, youtube vidoes, photo prints on transparencies, but eventually drew this with charcoal. They haven’t seen this yet.

After 72 days, they will be back tomorrow, the look on their faces will touch my soul.

Hope this has touched yours too.

Stay strong, Stay safe. Remember, now you got to wash your hands before you dig your nose! Cheers!

Update 12/06/2020: