Months after the 2023 Brazil 135 and almost two weeks since the year’s edition of Badwater 135 concluded, one of the most remarkable performances by an ultrarunner hailing from India, has stayed little-known.

Sonia Ahuja grew up in Gurgaon near New Delhi. That’s where her journey began. Her parents were teachers. “ My father and I walked a lot. We would walk miles and miles to go to various places. I remember walking a lot as a kid,’’ she said mid-July 2023. It was past 2PM in India, hour of sleep in Los Angeles but as the ultrarunner put it, alright for a chat and just an hour shy of the regular commencement of a running day.  Following her post graduate course in computer application (MCA), Sonia joined Tata Computer Services (TCS) and within months, reached the US. “ I was a generally ambitious person,’’ she said about her tendency to work hard and excel. In due course, she did her MBA from College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. She also got married (to Sameer Nayyar), started a family and focused on raising her daughter (Rhea).

Aside from all the walking she had done with her father in India, Sonia had not participated in sports through her years in school and college. Emphasis was on academics. Running entered her life in the period that followed her joining Wells Fargo, and her taking on increased responsibilities at work. The appetite for more work induced stress. To address it, she jogged daily. To her delight, she found it not only good for physical fitness but also mentally refreshing. “ I became less anxious and thought more clearly,’’ she said. Eventually, running became a habit. “ I couldn’t work if I hadn’t run,’’ she said. It wasn’t long before, somebody suggested that she try a marathon. And so, in 2014, Sonia who lived then in San Diego, ran her first marathon – the Rock `n’ Roll San Diego Marathon. To everyone’s amazement, she returned a sub-four-hour timing. In the years that followed, she participated in several events; among them the Los Angeles Marathon and the iconic marathons in Boston and Chicago. She wasn’t a devotee of systematic training and big events. She wasn’t also into racing and running for medals. She preferred instead to run for her own enjoyment, set her distances accordingly and generally opted for low profile events where the pressure to chase targets and be around thousands chasing targets, was less.

What intrigued Sonia wasn’t as much these marathons as how she felt after running them. At the end of a 42 kilometer-run, she felt quite energetic. There was little exhaustion or sense of collapse. It prompted her to run more. Soon it became a trend with her – she would participate in a marathon and while others rested the day after or did short recovery runs, she would do a half marathon. In turn, that ability for sustained running, provoked her curiosity for distances longer than the marathon; the ultramarathon. Four years after her marathon debut in San Diego, she did her first 50 miler in Avalon, California, in 2018. “ It went off well. I felt great after completing it,’’ Sonia said. But further exploration of her boundaries in running was checked by work. She had become the chief operating officer of a private equity backed company; the job entailed considerable travel and the schedule affected her running.

In 2020, COVID-19 gripped the planet and the world sank into a period of lockdown and restrictions. The onset of pandemic put on hold, Sonia’s traveling. It freed up time; time that she could use to run. Although running events worldwide went into a hiatus, in a US that believed in the physically active lifestyle, Sonia was able to push her running and pile on mileage. She was doing weekly mileage of 80-100 miles. There were days when she hid her Strava data from public view so that her eccentricity wouldn’t be noticed. Her distances were now moving steadily from marathon to ultramarathon territory. It was partly fueled by the fact that she found the greater distances “ calming.’’ She also liked running on trails and during this time indulged in a lot of hiking. “ I went to Switzerland and ran and hiked in the Swiss Alps,’’ she said. In 2020, she signed up for her first 100 kilometer-race. It was a small event. Days before the race, she realized that she was feeling very good. “ So I changed the 100k to a 100 miler,’’ Sonia said. She placed second among women in the race. Once again, what stood out for her was the comparative lack of exhaustion. She had run (no walking) the whole distance and aside from a few blisters, she was absolutely alright. She continued to do many 50 kilometer-runs.

Around this time, another revelation occurred. She had struck up an annual tradition of hiking up and down Mt Whitney (one way is 11 miles); all in a day’s time. Whitney (14,505 feet) is the highest mountain in the contiguous United States and Sierra Nevada. On one occasion, she did the single day-hike up and down Whitney and ran a marathon the next day. She posted this on social media and among the responses she got was a suggestion that she attempt Badwater 135, the grueling ultramarathon through California’s punishingly hot Death Valley with a finish at over 8000 feet-elevation at Whitney Portal, the trailhead to Mt Whitney. “ I looked it up on the Internet and it seemed like the Holy Grail of ultrarunning,’’ Sonia said. In the ultrarunning world, completing Badwater is a coveted benchmark. As Sonia studied the details including race results, it struck her that no Indian woman had yet completed Badwater in the solo category. According to Sonia, in September 2022, she contacted Chris Kostman, the race director of the Badwater ultramarathon and spoke to him of her wish to participate. Given ultramarathons push people to their limits and can therefore be risky, the major events out there usually insist on prequalification. Kostman asked Sonia about the races she had been to. It was soon evident that her resume was weak. He told her that she should have done at least three 100 mile-races before thinking of Badwater.

That didn’t deter Sonia. Given applications for the 2023 Badwater 135 had to be submitted in January, she knew she had very little time to wrap up three races and deliver a performance good enough for consideration by Badwater.  In October 2022, she emerged the overall winner at the Miami 100 ultramarathon with a run that nearly broke the course record. In December 2022, she completed the Rio Del Lago 100 miler in 22 hours. The final of the trio of qualifiers she picked was in Brazil – the Brazil 135, much respected by ultrarunners for its difficulty. An April 2017 article by David Green in Trail Runner magazine described the race so: “ The Brazil 135, a realization of race director Mario Lacerda’s dream, features 135 miles and 35,000 feet of climbing.’’ According to it, the race takes place on “ a storied trail—the “Caminho de Fé,” also known as the “trail of faith”—whose history goes back hundreds of years as a religious pilgrimage. Each mountain climb is rewarded by a descent into each unique village, a church and folks who whole-heartedly support the ultrarunners.’’

For Sonia there was a first; Brazil 135 was a race that required the runner to have a support team. Sonia describes herself as “ minimalist’’ in approach and “ low maintenance.’’ That lightness of being had been her attitude towards races too. During her races, she refuelled at aid stations. Brazil was going to be different. And yet, it shouldn’t break the relaxed approach to racing she was comfortable with – that was the thought. Sonia sounded out her best friend, Ekta Ranjan, about a vacation in Brazil with an ultramarathon on the side. Ekta did some homework and understood that Brazil 135 was no run in the park. It gave her an idea of how to prepare. By now members from Sonia’s running club (Mari Iwasaki and Crystal Alexander) were keen to crew; there was also a backpacker (Brian Matsuyama) headed to Brazil who joined in. Local knowledge was critical for the race in Brazil and so they recruited a person from there (Marcelo Bo) as well for the crew. The overall tenor was still one of vacation. The style hid a crucial detail.

Brazil 135 was terribly important for Sonia – a win there ensured runner an entry to Badwater. As it turned out, Sonia finished first among women in the race and third overall. It was remarkable. Besides the intrinsic difficulty of Brazil 135, she had done three 100 milers as best as she could in the period spanning October 2022 to January 2023. And she completed Brazil 135 without injuries, blisters and stomach issues. It was a strong finish. “ I now knew I was going to run Badwater,’’ she said. Of the six persons, who crewed for her in Brazil, four formed her support crew for Badwater (the rest turned up to support). For the event in California, she tweaked her approach and made it more target-oriented. She did additional strength training. For ease of crewing and monitoring her progress, the team visualized the upcoming race as five marathons. Sonia set a best-case scenario of covering the 135 miles in 24-25 hours (she later revised that to attempting a sub-24-hours pace); worst case was 28-29 hours. Plus, some serious planning went into hydration and nutrition; the conditions at Badwater are not to be trivialized with (Death Valley is among the hottest places on Earth. On July 17, 2023, The Guardian reported that the temperature at Furnace Creek in the valley had touched 53.3 degrees centigrade the day before. Furnace Creek is also where the hottest temperature yet recorded on Earth, happened: 56.7 degrees centigrade in July 1913).

On race day in early July, Sonia who commenced her run as part of the second wave of runners (there were three in all), covered the first marathon segment in sub-four hours. Some from her crew expressed concern at the pace. It was the early stages of the race and there was a lot of distance left to cover. The second segment went by in 4:15 hours. By the end of the fourth segment, she was still ahead of her personal target. Then came a section, where runners were advised a roughly 20 minute-ride in the crew car to get past a flooded portion. Sonia had thought of catching some sleep in the car. In her urge to secure a fine finish for India, she iced her legs hoping it would make them fresh for the last stretch. Her confidence was also bolstered by the fact that a month before, she had done a dry run of some sections of the race and in that, she had covered the last portion pretty fast. Inexplicably on race day, the last section proved agonizing. Her legs kept giving away and she had to almost crawl to the finish line (it is suspected, the icing of the legs may have caused the problem). Still, the first woman hailing from India to finish Badwater solo placed second in her gender category and fourth overall. According to Sonia, at 25 hours and 42 minutes, hers was the third fastest time to finish among women, in the history of the race. “ It’s insane. Absolutely fantastic,’’ Ashish Kasodekar, well-known ultrarunner from Pune, who has completed both Brazil 135 and Badwater 135, told this blog of Sonia’s performance.

News of Sonia’s podium finish created a buzz among runners in India. Badwater is one of the world’s toughest ultramarathons. People associated with India’s national ultrarunning team reached out to Sonia. But her work and life in the US had seen her take US citizenship; she was now technically a Person of Indian Origin. What the 47-year-old wishes for most, is to see her podium finish inspire female ultrarunners from India to attempt races like Badwater.

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai. This article is based on a conversation with Sonia Ahuja.)