Tale of the Run by muscleontherun

The debut edition at Goa by The renowned Hell Race Academy announced the Goa Ultra categories and I fell for it in true sense. Having beaten, almost drowned and burnt under the sun the numerous run editions of The Hell Race has taught me to immensely grow as a avid runner. The remarkable event of Solang Sky Ultra 100K race was a daunting task and a debut 100k in trails, and with my naive skills, I emerged as a character that possessed a strong will. yes, I surprised myself too and so to be called the famous DNF despite having completed the course and missing the timeline by 3 minutes. Not receiving the medal for the 32 hours long haul on the trails was not disheartening but helped me evolve as a humbled individual who witnessed the worst and still made it to the finish line. Since then I have been attending the Hell race events just to push my calibre and had it in me to look forward to the next big what!  Cut to 10 years after the Solang Ultra triumph, here I am at Goa Ultra tryin...

Shifting base closer to the western ghats has definitely made trails more accessible and the plans to venture out need no much of a thinking. It could be a Friday evening affair to head towards the mountains for a good night sleep and the mornings could wake us up for yet another trail event. As I have moved my preference to shorter distance runs now, the longer ones have been knocking my door since then. Could it be the feeling of missing out or its just not a good feeling anymore having done the longer format races in the past and the longevity demands for a whole new perspective of ultra distance running. Mixed trail could be your favourite too, if you plan to explore the trails but also want to taste the tar at the same time. K2S is one such race that can cater to this requirement but the elevation can still pose a challenge considering the mountain terrain both on and off road. A familiar route if you have done jumping gorilla editions but the tweak here was a kilometre or two cli...

Talked about a photo finish a day before and guess thats what we bagged incidentally. While Subham was at it since 2:30am in 50km category, my plight began at 6am and much relieved with less or no rain during the entire run of 21kms at Lonavala Varsha Marathon. This was the first for me at Lonavala and was pretty overwhelmed with the number of people not just turning up for the event but the usual tourist made their presence felt with the long queues of vehicles right in the heart of this hill escapade. If you plan to be in Lonavala, its advised to cross the bhushi dam before 10:30am else the travel time bound to increase by 1-2hours especially on the weekend. Having rested the legs from the Ultra runs, the shorter category was chosen to keep the momentum going and keep the strings attached to the events that help me try something new. So far, I have been in a hurry to finish the shorter runs, but eventually I am also getting to know how demanding it gets when you try to be competitive...

Firstup, its so good to see the trail running community growing and meeting familiar faces is a motivation in itself. That assures we are doing something that everybody vibes sure. Having raced the Great Mawla Ghati Trail short category run, this was yet another stint but pretty technical in the shorter format as the climb itself is a trek that needed all the effort upwards and downwards quite equally. Also, having done the 30 km category in previous edition, the route was known to me to an extent and I knew the initial climb takes a lot of toll on you as the elevation changes quite drastically and this time the navigating through the crowd on these narrow trails was certainly a challenge. Requesting people to give way and being apologetic for close brushes was all a part of the effort at this stint. The fellow runners were kind enough to let us pass through and cheer us here and there as pushed harder in the treacherous trail. This a regular trekking path, however it does get technica...