My experience — Ladakh Full Marathon

September 10th, 2023 was a milestone day for me as I successfully completed 42.2km Ladakh Marathon in 5:36 hours. Never had I run at such an altitude before.

Day before the run, I had my doubts of whether I would be able to complete well and that’s why the earlier blog Final Countdown blog

While I had spent 8 days in Ladakh at / above the altitude, I was not sure the impact of low oxygen on my health vitals. On top of it, I started having cold, blocked nose, slight headaches 2 days prior to the run resulting in less sleep. Further there have been negative news about fatalities in ace runners due to cardiac arrest and ultra-runners not being complete 122km Silk Route Ultra / 72km KhardungLa challenge.

These internal and external factors made me quite apprehensive going into the event morning.

I got up at 4 am on Sunday morning, had cup of hot tea, apple & banana before embarking on the 3km taxi ride to start point at 5 am. The flag-off was at 6 am with the weather at 9-10°. We were about 600 runners going for the full marathon.

The first 5-6 km were descent which helps in a good start and then the terrain starts changing with several ups & downs. The first 10 km took me 74 mins. I had made a mental plan of sticking to a heart rate at 145. So I started walking whenever the HR touched 150 and restart running at HR of 140. This helped me in not exerting as well as giving an opportunity to click some photos/ videos while I was walking. Also made it a point to keep updating my family who were anxious back home about the run. In a way, I took my whole family on the run for most of the route !!

The sun came up at around the 11th km, increasing the temperature by few degrees. From the 15th km, the sun was out there through till the end and the headgear helped in reducing the impact.

The route is very scenic with sandy mountains and blue skies in the background. We cross the Indus river twice through bridges filled with fluttering prayer flags around the 6/7th km and then at midway 21st km. There are a couple of monasteries and several chortens en route, which ensure that we have some beautiful / peaceful thoughts instead of stressing on the run.

Being a Mumbaikar and running SCMM/ TMM since 2009, I have been pampered with loads of crowd support during the entire runs. That was definitely a miss in this high-altitude run as there were several road stretches where all had for company was the beautiful landscape and sound of your feet & breath.

There were ofcourse the support crew every 3 kms and cheerleaders dressed up in local attire and singing/ playing local music.

With all the above, I crossed 37th km in 4:45 hours. Then came the last leg where we had to complete the loop on Leh-Manali highway i.e the same 5 km descent at the start now became the ascent at the end. I was made aware of this and was prepared mentally to walk this leg instead of trying to run/ jog. I chugged along at pace of ~9:30/km for the balance route.

With the finish line in sight, I took a deep breath and made a dash to loud cheers from my friends who were waiting after completing their half marathons.

That was my first marathon in the Himalayas and while it was almost 70 mins slower than my fastest Full marathon, I was ecstatic to having completed it and it has definitely inspired me to run longer and faster. It has opened

  Y up my mind towards attempting something more challenging, will definitely work towards that !!

I would like to end here with a quote attributed to Edmund Hillary - "You don’t have to be a hero to accomplish great things - to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to reach challenging goals. It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves ".

Until next time & next adventure !!

Cheers

Sunil

Final countdown - one day to Ladakh marathon

Tomorrow I am running the Ladakh Full Marathon. It is not the first time I would be running the 42.2km version and I have trained well too with ~500km mileage over 10 preceding weeks and multiple strengthening, mobility, flexibility sessions with coach Pravin Upadhyay.

But the last 8-day leg of this event preparation has been an altogether different experience, starting from 2nd Sept when I landed at Leh airport.

For starters, the marathon would be held at an altitude of 11100 feet (a completely new terrain for me) and the 42km run would have an elevation gain of 1800+ feet. The oxygen levels in the air would be lower and the lungs would need extra work to extract maximum oxygen needed for the efforts.

Till I reached Leh, there was a mental calculation on how to finish the run with pace-markers, but soon the whole plan got chucked out as breaths became harder! The SPO2 levels were below 80 causing headaches. I spent the entire Day 1 inside the resort, most of it lying on the bed. It was only after 3 days, the numbers started improving to 85-92 levels.

As a part of acclimatisation, we embarked on a 3-day holiday into the majestic Himalayan villages. We travelled through 2 of the largest motorable passes - Khardungla Pass (17892 ft) and ChangLa Pass (17600 ft). We spent one night in a tent next to beautiful Pangong Lake (14500 ft), a night which didn’t seem to end and the suffering with low oxygen, shivering chilly air made me wonder whether I should have registered for the event too !! The Nubra Valley sand dunes was a God-sent blessing to the battered mind with mighty mountains, desert, flowing water & green vegetation all in one picture frame. We also visited the last Indian villages (Turtuk/ Thang) on the Indo-Pak border. I plan to write on the holiday separately sometime.

The mesmerising Ladakhi landscape of massive Himalayan mountain ranges, rivers and white sand dunes helps in refreshing the mind & soul. (and also gives opportunities to click lots of photos 😜) Check out my Instagram handle for some photos and videos.

The roads carved out of massive mountain ranges show how little speck we are in this vast world !! A big salute to the Indian defence forces and Border Roads Organization (BRO) for their immense contribution in making the far-off villages connected to India.

Now for the training part - I had 3 walks of 5-6 km, and 3 runs of 6km, 8km and 15km in the 8 day leading up to today.. while the initial days were tough, slowly I could feel more confident for tomorrow. But each day is different and this 42 km tomorrow would be the farthest I would have attempted in this terrain, so I have no idea how tomorrow will end !!

Hope to capture my thoughts on the run later - either be the outcome - finish or do not !

Thanks a lot to wonderful wishes and prayers from loved ones, families, friends, colleagues for keeping up motivated. Equal or more thanks to my parents, my in-laws and well-wishers for ensuring (or trying to ensure) that I don’t push myself beyond what my body can endure for now. Special thanks to my coach Pravin whose sessions helped in preparing me for the event.

Thanks to the amazing gang for the amazing Ladakh holiday and best wishes to Ajit, Karun Nair and Pramod for your half marathons tomorrow!

Now the loudest shoutout is reserved for the one person who bore the maximum of my training plan - my better-half (in all aspects) who has been the pillar of support day-in day-out.. my nutritionist, motivational coach, para-medic, critic, listening board etc a complete package plus being an amazing mother to Arnav and Anika !! A big thanks and love you Roshni for being there !!

So that's it for now, will look forward for an awesome day tomorrow and would love to write about my experience later.

Cheers

Sunil