Pervin Batliwala (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

“ I did everything late. At the age of 40 I started going to discos. I got married at 45. At 50, I started running and at 60, I ran my first ultramarathon!’’ Pervin Batliwala said laughing.

We were at her house, in a quiet residential area that a newcomer to Mumbai wouldn’t suspect existed. As you ascended the hillside next to Babulnath temple and walked into the colony of houses belonging to the Parsi community, a tinge of quaint personal space took hold. Yet Marine Drive and the access to Peddar Road and suburban Mumbai beyond were all close by. As combination of long flat road with plenty of ups and downs at tangents, this part of Mumbai would be prized real estate for any runner. It came in handy for some of Pervin’s training runs. For the bulk of her life however, Pervin who will be 62 in October 2016, didn’t think much of running.

She was born and brought up in Mumbai in a very middle class family. Her father worked in a bank, her mother stayed a housewife. Schooling was at Bai Ruttonbai F D Pandey Girls High School in Tardeo; for college she attended Burhani College of Arts and Commerce at Mazgaon. Finally she studied law at Mumbai’s Government Law College. Then, she commenced work at Hindustan Unilever Limited (formerly Hindustan Lever Limited – HLL), the Indian arm of Unilever. HUL is an iconic company in the Indian corporate world. Not only are its products ubiquitous in India but working there was considered prestigious particularly in the early years of life by MBA in India. The company’s Indian headquarters sat tucked away in a sheltered lane in South Mumbai, on the edge of the city’s well known business district – Nariman Point.  Pervin worked at this office as well as at premises in suburban Andheri. Many of her years at HUL were spent as executive assistant to top officials. Like others of her generation, she stuck on at the first company she joined. She remained with HUL till retirement.

At the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon – SCMM (Photo: courtesy Pervin)

At the half marathon in Delhi (Photo: courtesy Pervin)

In school Pervin hadn’t been into athletics or games in the fashion expected of those seeking identity in such pursuits. She was an active person – that description suited her. From what she said, she appears to have always floated on a reservoir of energy and appetite to do many things. When she got around to doing something she had plenty of drive to dig into. On her visits to the city’s discos, she would dance through the night, all the way into the early hours of the morning. There appears to have been two other trends too. There was a turnover of activity in terms of variety plus, once something caught her fancy, she went after it diligently. “ I would take up something – like swimming, yoga, gym, Shiamak Davar dance classes – and go crazy about it,’’ she said.

During her years at HUL, the company decided to invest in some level of daily activity for its employees, from a fitness point of view. Very close to HUL’s South Mumbai office was that Mumbai landmark – Oval Maidan. It is a vast playground, home to several simultaneously played cricket matches with a jogging track all around. In monsoon, when the cricket pitches become muddy and overgrown, football takes over. Amid city notorious for its ever hungry real estate lobby, this patch of land for play and exercise has survived, thanks to citizens who fight to protect it. HUL had stretching exercises and walk-jog routines for its employees at Oval Maidan. Among those who joined this group was Debasis Ray, currently Head – Public Affairs at Tata Trusts, who at that time worked in the corporate communications wing of HUL. He recalled, “ When Standard Chartered announced the Mumbai Marathon, many of us got enthused. The result – typical of HLL style – was a gym in the basement and a trainer who would train us at the Oval and Race Course. Pervin was part of the group. I too joined in. I recall Nitin Paranjpe, Prasad Pradhan and many others. Pervin, I think, found out that running is her passion.’’ The person HUL entrusted with overseeing the training was Savio D’Souza, a former national champion in the marathon and one of Mumbai’s best known coaches for running. According to Pervin, one day, Savio suggested that the group go onto the road. That brought them formally to Marine Drive and its many runners. Pervin’s tryst with running had begun.

Pervin (left) with Chitra Nadkarni and Vaijayanti Ingawale after a race in Thane (Photo: courtesy Pervin)

Her first official participation in a run was the short ` Dream Run’ component of the annual Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon (SCMM). The following year, she attempted the event’s half marathon. Well into the race, she ran out of energy. She “ hit a wall.’’ She couldn’t move. “ I was a gone case,’’ she said. Those days, you could get a refund on the timing chip but that had to be done immediately after the race. “ I wanted my money back,’’ Pervin said. Not to mention, finishing what she had begun was also important. She convinced Kushru – her husband – that she should somehow finish the race, walk if she must and get that refund. She did just that. Savio would later tell her that she had committed the mistake many do – she ran the first half of her race, too fast. But the coach told her that she would do well for she seemed to enjoy what she was doing. “ I was disappointed but I took it well. Savio said you will be able to do it, nothing to worry. That half marathon was a learning for me,’’ Pervin said. Savio’s observation was correct. That same year, Pervin ran the Airtel half marathon in Delhi. She won in her age category. In many ways that’s the Pervin Batliwala, Mumbai runners have come to know. She is a frequent podium finisher in her age group. So much so that Pervin honestly admits that in her retired years with ample time to train and attend races, she picks events where she has a chance for a podium finish. She enjoys getting prize money.

At the Goa marathon (Photo: courtesy Pervin)

At the Bengaluru marathon (Photo: courtesy Pervin)

Runner born, Pervin trained regularly. She ran early in the morning, a schedule she stuck to even when her work shifted to premises in Andheri entailing daily commute. The mileage she put in every day was modest. “ I used to do very limited mileage at that time,’’ she said. One reason for the measured approach was the findings of a medical test done ahead of joining the fitness-group at HUL. Pervin hails from a family with a history of arthritis. The test showed that her bone density was poor. However what subsequently played out was encouraging. According to Pervin, although she stayed cognizant of the need for caution, fact was – the more she kept running, the better she seemed to do at bone density. In all this time since getting into running, she hasn’t been laid low by any major injury. Slowly she transitioned to the full marathon. Such shifts, usually well thought out and momentous for others, appeared to be a breeze in her case. She doesn’t recall getting stressed by such transitions. Her first full marathon was at SCMM. “ I like 42. You don’t have much tension over timing in that distance. In 21, I feel the pressure,’’ she said. For several years after that win in Delhi, Pervin maintained an annual diet of races in Mumbai, Goa, Bengaluru and Delhi. The races spanned half and full marathon. By now she was also largely training on her own. “ Five days of running every week, one day rest, one day for cross training or working out in the gym. I don’t do too much of core and all that. I don’t believe in it. If I exercise too much, it goes into injury for me,’’ she said.

Pervin and Kushru at a Mumbai Road Runners (MRR) awards function (Photo: courtesy Pervin)

Abbas Sheikh is part of Savio’s team. “ Pervin is a very good runner. She is absolutely inspiring. I have paced her on a few runs and I enjoyed running with her,’’ Abbas said. One of the interesting aspects about Pervin’s running is that she is gregarious in this activity too. She likes running in a group. “ She always has a big gang of runners with her,’’ Parul Sheth, runner and author, said. A person who loves to chat, Pervin’s description of running and the affection she has for it included, talking and running. “ It’s fun,’’ she said of running as a group. Contrary and simultaneous to this is another trend in her – once she gets her fill of something, she moves on. When you have known what the half and full marathon are it is time for ` what next?’ Beyond both these distances lay a distance category, typically described by its inhabitants as discovery of personal space and extended dwelling in it – the ultramarathon. It was Amit and Neepa Seth who introduced Pervin to Comrades, the famous ultramarathon – the world’s oldest – run annually in South Africa. “ Once I hear of something, I try to get more details,’’ Pervin said. In March 2006, Doug Baille from South Africa had assumed charge as CEO of HUL. A keen runner, he had run the Comrades before. Pervin spoke to him to get an idea of the race. She also spoke to Savio, who planted an idea: run Comrades, the year you retire. She planned accordingly, registering for the race in the final phase of her tenure at HUL. However at the SCMM full marathon, which preceded Comrades, she had an absolutely tough time. It cast a cloud on her ability to run the ultramarathon in South Africa. Comrades being significant, her family had also planned to fly to South Africa and cheer her. Now everyone suggested she postpone going for the race. Pervin was determined to go. She said she will proceed alone.

Two of her friends – Sandeep Bhandarkar and Parul Sheth – came forward to help. Parul had first met Pervin when she joined Savio’s group. “ Pervin was already an accomplished runner. She encouraged me a lot in my running,’’ Parul said.  Sandeep had created a weekly training programme. Parul’s job was to help execute it. Pervin’s first block of training, specifically for Comrades, was at Lonavla. That 56 km-run went off smoothly. “ From that day I didn’t look back,’’ she said. Savio’s group supported her wholeheartedly. “ I would put up my daily plan on WhatsApp and people would volunteer to run with me,’’ she said. Parul put the preparation in perspective. “ Pervin was determined to do an ultramarathon. She was ready for it. Her training was tough but she meticulously followed it. If she was supposed to log a certain mileage on a given day she would do that or more, never less. Seeing her train, I got to see another side of Pervin,’’ Parul said. As one’s interest in running grows or races become more demanding, eating the right type of food assumes importance. Rupali Mehta, dietitian and runner, planned Pervin’s diet. It also appears to have been training with a characteristic twist; that natural sociability was always around. “ I have to talk and run. You are running because you are happy, no tension, no thinking of anything, you are with friends – that’s how it is for me. I don’t like running alone,’’ Pervin said.

Pervin (front, second from left) and Kashyap Modi at Comrades (Photo: courtesy Pervin)

In South Africa, the 89 km-race went off well for the now retired Pervin Batliwala. The ultramarathon – alternatively an uphill or a downhill depending on which year you run – is always spoken of for its several cut-offs and how they are stringently enforced. Pervin’s run went smoothly through it all. “ There is a saying at Comrades that if the winner is announced when you are half way through the course, then you will make it comfortably to the finish line. That’s exactly what happened for me,’’ she said. She liked the ambiance at Comrades and the way people turned out to cheer. “ Cheering is important. It gives you energy,’’ she said. Her friend to talk to while running Comrades, was Kashyap Modi. Savio’s group and her family tracked her progress on WhatsApp. She finished the race in approximately 11 hours 34 minutes. Then, in classic Pervin style she decided that having run Comrades and known what it is she must now look for something else. We asked if her continued appetite for challenge and podium had anything to do with conditioning by corporate life. Pervin dismissed that for the bulk of her employed years had been as executive assistant to senior officials; it is hard to get addicted to corporate instincts that way. What she does have is – she expects the best from herself.  “ When I run, it is my race, my rhythm, my timing. I never try to catch up with anybody,’’ she said. She attributes her nature and the desire to challenge herself, to her own wiring. After Comrades what? The question hung around.

From the 2016 Khardung La Challenge (Photo: courtesy Pervin)

“ I speak from the heart. I don’t think of what others may say,’’ Pervin said. There is a video of her, tired and happy, seated by the roadside talking her heart out. “ Comrades is nothing!’’ she shouts happily to the interviewer who had asked what she thought of that race, having completed her most recent one. The location is Leh in Ladakh, the high altitude desert just north of the main east-west axis of the Himalaya. Several years ago, Pervin had run a half marathon there, part of Zendurance. In 2012, Rimo Expeditions started organizing the annual Ladakh Marathon. It had four disciplines, one of which was the ultramarathon called Khardung La Challenge. As a race it was tad shorter than Comrades, being 72 km overall. But with Khardung La (17,582 ft) included in the course, there was weather and altitude for challenge. Used to Mumbai, its warm weather and urban comforts, Pervin had her concerns. The Ladakh Marathon had a stall at the SCMM expo. She met the organizers and told them of her interest as well as worries. They said they would take good care of her. She registered for the Khardung La Challenge due in September 2016. New challenge found, she trained for it. The ups and downs of the hillside around Babulnath and Malabar Hill became training ground. To learn more about the race, she spoke to Khushboo Vaish, Nishant Desai, Dr Arun Nayak and Commander Sunil Handa, all of who had run the Khardung La Challenge before. She put herself on a regimen of Diamox and reached Leh 15 days before the race to acclimatize. In that time, she did a three day-trek to the Gandala Pass, drove up Wari La for a further taste of altitude, proceeded to Nubra and returned to Leh via Khardung village and Khardung La.

On race day, the run from Khardung village started at 3 AM. She approached the pass at brisk walking pace, a departure from her regular credo of never walking at any of her races. Thanks to good acclimatization, she had no problem breathing at Khardung La. Downhill was a chore. Pervin finished in 13 hours 15 minutes, placing third overall among women. She was the only one in her age category. There were reasons for that comment on video. At Comrades, Pervin had stayed close to the starting line in a comfortable hotel. The race began at around 5 AM, which is usual for most races. Khardung La Challenge was a different experience compared to Comrades. The 2016 race was well organized, it had adequate support staff and as the organizers – Chewang Motup and Yangdu Gombu – had promised in Mumbai, they took good care of her, Pervin said. Further, till noon, race day features a Khardung La road free of traffic, something runners appreciate. The difference she found was in how you reported for the race, which was a natural outcome of location. The runners headed the day before the race to Khardung village. They stayed in functional accommodation and endured a 3 AM-start. That was new for her. “ I was running on tired legs,’’ Pervin said. All that made the successful finish, sweeter. Comrades seemed a world away. It was time for: what next?

In Ladakh, after the Khardung La Challenge (Photo: courtesy Pervin)

In January 2016, on the return leg of the big loop that is the SCMM full marathon, somewhere near Churchgate, Pervin had suddenly sensed a truth that crept up unnoticed. With not much distance left to the finish line, she stood a good chance of making it home within the qualifying time assigned for her age category at the Boston Marathon. She gave that last bit of the race all she had and qualified. That’s her next project – the 2017 Boston Marathon. There is room for plenty of slip between the cup and the lip here – she has narrowly qualified and a lot of luck is therefore required to feature in the list the organizers announce. But Pervin hopes for the best. As for other dreams – she wants to attempt the Two Oceans race, try for a sub two hour-finish at the half marathon in Delhi, run one of the two ultramarathons in the Rann of Kutch and someday, attempt an Ironman. As yet, she has done a duathlon, a fun race with her running group. “ Age is what you make of it,’’ she said.

Pervin has no sponsors. She wouldn’t mind such support. But she is also aware that she is too evolved in life to dance to anyone else’s tunes or mouth lines suitable to sustain sponsorship. Such stages in her life are over. “ After I retired I had many offers to work, return to corporate life. But I said no,’’ she said.

This phase – the current one – is her chance to be free.

(The authors, Latha Venkatraman and Shyam G Menon, are independent journalists based in Mumbai.)         

Michelle Kakade (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

It was a Sunday.

The monthly Bandra-NCPA run in Mumbai had just concluded and the runners were beginning to disperse from Marine Drive. First Girish Mallya and then Kutty Krishnan Nambiar informed that they were headed for the Gateway of India, to witness the conclusion of a landmark run. We had originally met this run as a stall at the expo preceding the 2016 Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon (SCMM), nearly four months earlier. Gateway of India wasn’t far from Marine Drive.

The reception for arriving runner was over by the time we reached. From Colaba’s Regal circle onward, we encountered runners who had been part of the receiving team, returning. The immediate precincts of Gateway of India too were relatively empty, it being a Sunday morning and as yet early for the regular inflow of tourists and hangers on.  A runner directed us to a small, compactly built woman standing to the side, away from any attention lurking around. That’s how we met Michelle Kakade.

She was born Michelle Rocque in Bhopal, year 1968. Her grandparents were British. Michelle’s father worked in the merchant navy. They were five children in all – she has an older sister, two younger sisters and a brother. She was the middle child. For seven years, from third standard to the tenth, the siblings studied in Nainital, Uttarakhand. “ From a very young age, we were pretty independent,’’ she said. After completing that stint at boarding school, she returned to Bhopal. She was there in the city, when the infamous gas tragedy struck. Post eleventh grade, she secured admission to a catering course in Mumbai but didn’t find herself comfortable in the big metro. So she moved to nearby Pune, where her sister was pursuing an MBA; Michelle joined St Mira’s College to study humanities. After completing her twelfth, she studied English literature. Through school and college, she was into sports but not in the manner, where one pursues it diligently. Her participation in sports had much to do with sports and games being mandatory in school. “ It wasn’t because I had any special calling in anything,’’ she said. She was good at the throws – like discus. But there was no running. She got married early, at age 20; children and family life followed, equally early. Her husband, Anil Kakade, runs a successful construction business in Pune. A couple of months after that first meeting near the Gateway of India, it was at Poona Club that we sat down for a conversation with Michelle.

The race in the Sahara desert; part of 4 Deserts (Photo: courtesy Michelle Kakade)

Running in the Gobi desert (Photo: courtesy Michelle Kakade)

Post marriage and well into family life and membership at Poona Club, she began frequenting the club’s gym. The club had a ritual every Republic Day (January 26). It hosted a run featuring 26 loops of the adjacent ground. The trainer put her name down for it and as it turned out, she emerged first in the run. “ More important, I liked the experience,’’ she said. Michelle also mentioned something else, something we have since heard some extreme runners articulate and suspect, remains unarticulated in many others. “ I get bored very fast,’’ she said. According to her, she tried a lot of things but very few interests sustained. In running, her interest hasn’t diminished. “ After that first run, I began to get more and more involved,’’ she said. Those were early days for running in Pune, particularly with regard to women in running. The city was home to the Pune International Marathon, one of India’s oldest marathons. When she decided to participate in its half marathon segment and was training for it, there were few women running on Pune’s roads. At the event itself, women runners in the discipline she chose were four or five of which, two or three were foreign runners. Michelle finished her first half marathon in 2 hours 15 minutes. There was no timing chip then and the certificate issued at run’s end was a certificate of completion. When she pointed out that the slots meant to show timing were vacant, she was told to fill it herself. “ As time went by, my timing improved. I now do a half marathon in under two hours,’’ she said. The event whetted her appetite. A few more half marathons done, she set her eyes on the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon (SCMM). One reason for this shift to Mumbai was that in Pune, the full marathon was considered a male preserve with very few women participating. She did three full marathons in Mumbai; according to her, on the average she runs a full marathon in around five hours.

During one of those SCMM editions, in the holding area for runners, she met a lady from Germany who was preparing to run with a backpack. As the two got talking, Michelle learnt that the German runner was in training for the Marathon Des Sables (MDS), which takes place in the Sahara desert. With Germany cold in January, the lady had elected to run in Mumbai. “ I was blown away. This sounded very interesting,’’ Michelle said. On return to Pune, she wasted no time browsing the Internet for more information on MDS. Although the event seemed challenging, what encouraged Michelle and hinted at the possibility of her doing it, was news doing the rounds (eventually it was denied) of a 51 year old-Madonna (the singer) deciding to run the 2010 edition. However, the trigger to participate came from an unfortunate, unexpected incident. At that time, the president of Poona Club was Manoj Malkani, who was a friend and relative. A play was due to be put up at the club and a discussion was on about it. “ He got up to leave and a while later, in the car park of the club; he suffered a sudden heart attack and died. That incident was reason enough to introspect. I asked myself – if something like that was to happen to me, what is the one thing that would define Michelle Kakade? I didn’t have an answer. We tend to procrastinate about a lot of things in life, we just keep delaying,’’ Michelle said. Manoj Malkani passed away in August 2009. In September 2009, Michelle signed up for the April 2010 edition of MDS.

From the the Atacama desert of South America (Photo: courtesy Michelle Kakade)

In Antarctica (Photo: courtesy Michelle Kakade)

The Marathon Des Sables is a multi-day stage race – six stages over seven days. Altogether the distance entailed exceeds 250km and includes one long stage of over 80km. Given its location in the Sahara desert, daytime temperatures can be very high.  Michelle’s training for MDS was very sketchy. In Pune, she approached the Army Sports Institute for help. But she was told that they train only army personnel. “ Sometimes ignorance is bliss. When you don’t know what you are getting into, everything seems rosy,’’ Michelle said. She trained at the Poona Club. Taking a leaf from the German lady she met at SCMM, she stuffed a backpack, put it on and ran with it. “ It was also a case of not knowing oneself. I was unprepared because I was unaware of what I can do,’’ she said. Reporting for the MDS in North West Africa, she discovered that she had got her equipment wrong. “ My equipment; food, backpack – everything was wrong. But you have to make the best of a bad situation. The atmosphere was super charged. The euphoria carries you on,’’ she said. During the race Michelle was bothered a lot by her inappropriate backpack. Then, she was hit by diarrhoea and a bunch of painful blisters on her feet. After the race’s long stage, she passed out. “ There were moments when I thought of giving up,’’ she said. But the people around were supportive. The MDS, like many ultramarathons, carries no prize money. That alters the competitive spirit and the company you find at the race. Further, there was something about an ultramarathon that addressed one of the problems Michelle had spoken of – the tendency to get easily bored. Unlike a typical road race, an ultramarathon – road or trail – is so long and pushing runner to his / her limits that you course through a variety of situations and experiences. “ You don’t know what is in store for you. I can’t keep doing the same thing over and over again. The newness appeals to me,’’ Michelle said. She completed the 2010 MDS.

As at SCMM earlier, MDS introduced her to a potential next project. She saw a runner who was wearing gaiters with `Four Deserts’ printed on it. As she found out, it denoted the driest, coldest, windiest and hottest deserts; and there was a race – 4 Deserts Race – embracing all four attributes. According to Wikipedia, the 4 Deserts Race was recognized as the world’s leading endurance footrace by Time magazine in 2009 and 2010. At the time Michelle heard about it, the race entailed running in Chile’s Atacama Desert (driest), China’s Gobi Desert (windiest), the Sahara (hottest) and Antarctica (coldest). There is a three month-gap between each race. At each of these locations you have to run 250km. The run in Antarctica is by invitation; to become eligible for it you have to run in at least two of the other deserts. If you do all four you become part of the 4 Deserts Club. Back from MDS, Michelle was immediately into planning the four deserts trip. To start with, she signed up for the Atacama race. Eventually she did all four. She ran three of the races in 2011; the Antarctica leg which is dependent on the availability of a window, she completed it in November 2012. However, after the Antarctica race she was hit by a case of severe shin splints and plantar fasciitis. Given she was not resting adequately, the condition worsened till she could do nothing and was forced to take a whole year off in 2014. At its end, getting back to running was like a start all over again, albeit a quicker process.

Running the Golden Quadrilateral (Photo: courtesy Michelle Kakade)

It was on January 6, 1999 that former Prime Minister A. B. Vajpayee laid the foundation stone for India’s Golden Quadrilateral project. It was a massive project envisaging a highway network spanning almost 6000km and linking some of India’s biggest cities. It was India’s biggest highway development project and the world’s fifth biggest. In the years since, the Golden Quadrilateral has become a reality. Wikipedia pegs the total available length of highway under the scheme currently, at 5846km. With her ability to tackle distances proved, Michelle had thought of running from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. But while she was toying with the idea, Delhi based-Arun Bhardwaj who is among the best known ultra-runners from India; did it. This made her think about the Golden Quadrilateral instead. If you run it, the distance is also more than the distance from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. “ It would be a huge jump in mileage for me. The planning of the run alone took about a year,’’ Michelle said, adding, “ the biggest challenge here is not the running but repeating the monotony for days.’’

She did a trial run from Pune to Mumbai in July 2015. During this run she did three days of more than 50km each. It was a valuable input to decide what would be the optimum distance to run daily on the Golden Quadrilateral, such that a backlog does not pile up. “ Backlog in this type of extended runs can be a killer,’’ she said. She decided on 35km as optimum daily distance to run. It increased cost but appeared safe and sustainable. She also engaged Raj Vadgama as personal trainer. “ Raj’s previous experience was very vital. From him, we got to know relevant details for running everyday on India’s roads,’’ she said. Michelle had earlier secured a place in the Limca Book of Records for running on a treadmill. For the Golden Quadrilateral run, she decided to approach the Guinness Book of Records. Michelle commenced the run on October 21, 2015, from Mumbai’s Gateway of India. Typically she ran seven days and then rested on the eighth. The longest stretch she did without such rest was 12 days. Her days on the road began usually at 3.30-4 AM. She would run for two to three hours and then take a break for breakfast. In that period, she would have covered a little over 20km. Then she ran the balance of a day’s planned mileage. The maximum mileage she ran on a day was 42.5km. As the run progressed, she was treated to a range of response from the regions she was passing through. According to her, she found support from fellow runners almost every day in Maharashtra. In Karnataka, she found support in Bengaluru and Hubli. There wasn’t much support in Chennai but Kolkata, provided “ very good response.’’ There was little support on the stretch between Kolkata and Chennai. There was little support for her in North India. However as a woman running on the road, Michelle had this to say, “ in the entire six months, I had no instance of anyone infringing on my personal space.’’  Michelle ran the Golden Quadrilateral from October 21, 2015 to May 1, 2016. That day when we met her at Mumbai’s Gateway of India, at the end of the run, she had covered 5968.4km.

From the Golden Quadrilateral run (Photo: courtesy Michelle Kakade)

It was now noon and Poona Club was beginning to gets its lunch time rush of members. Some of them said hello to Michelle. The folks at Guinness Book have ratified her record setting run. Her record is for “ the fastest time to travel the Indian Golden Quadrilateral on foot (female).’’ She had no new projects in running planned. It was one of those in between periods to take stock of what all happened. Michelle concedes she has been fortunate. She was able to pull off overseas runs and big projects because she had resources. From what we understood, the bulk of the cost for running the Golden Quadrilateral was borne by Michelle and her family. Despite her position and connections in life, she too had difficulty finding sponsors. Every now and then, somebody writes to her about running the Golden Quadrilateral or some other pet project, something big and life-changing. Too many dreams lay unfulfilled for want of resources. Her simple, straightforward question is – why burn your fingers attempting projects beyond your pocket? Why run the Golden Quadrilateral and lose what money you have? “ Till you get a sponsor don’t attempt it,’’ she said.

(The authors, Latha Venkatraman and Shyam G Menon, are independent writers based in Mumbai.)

The Indian Navy’s ultramarathon team (Photo: courtesy La Ultra)

In May 2016, a set of events underway since February that year resulted in a message dispatched from headquarters to all the commands of the Indian Navy.

It sought volunteers to represent the navy in an ultramarathon.

For a force used to life at sea and deployed at bases along the seashore, the ultramarathon in question was at elevation; its altitudes ranged from 10,000 ft to 17,500 ft.

The person responsible for this situation was Captain Rajesh Wadhwa. Since 2004, he had been into running, progressing through a clutch of half marathons and full marathons to the ultramarathon. “ I used to think the full marathon is the longest distance around for running. It was an eye opener learning of the still longer distances people run,’’ he said. Capt. Rajesh’s first proper ultramarathon was a run of 80 km near Delhi, part of the 2014 Bhatti Lakes Ultramarathon. “ The dream was to run those races where fewer people queued up,’’ he said. Among the things he liked about the ultramarathon was its demographic profile – it was a mix of ages; not the brute dominance by youth you typically associate with sports. Further, as the distance to run grew with rising need for endurance alongside, the older, experienced runner wasn’t a push over. He / she clearly had something to bring to the table in an ultramarathon.  Having successfully completed the Bhatti Lakes 80 km run (he completed it in 12:33 hours to finish third), Capt. Rajesh did a couple of shorter ultramarathons. But the euphoria was short lived. His attempt at a longer distance – 100 km – at the next edition of Bhatti Lakes ended in Did Not Finish (DNF). Unwell, he had to withdraw from the race at around kilometer-60.

In February 2016, he found himself in Mussoorie, running Garhwal Runs, a 76km uphill of a race from Mussoorie to Dhanolti. The event was also a qualifier for the 111 km-category of La Ultra, the ultramarathon in Ladakh with three race categories –111 km, 222 km and 333 km. The overall cut off time for the Garhwal Runs-76 km was 12 hours. But if you did it in 10 hours, you qualified for the 111 km-segment of La Ultra. “ I started the race with no expectations. When I got tired, I walked fast. I kept moving. After several hours, I realized I was running second. That was when I asked: oh my God, what’s happening? A little later I caught up with the leader. He was walking. Seeing me, he picked up pace. I gave the guy a good chase. He was a youngster, as old as my son. Then at some point, I turned the last corner and there was the finish line. I crossed it bang on the tenth hour. That was fantastic!’’ Capt. Rajesh said. He was not only podium finisher; he was eligible to run the 111 km-category in La Ultra. On return to office in New Delhi, he applied for permission to participate in the ultramarathon in Ladakh, representing the Indian Navy. Intrigued by ultramarathon, the navy’s adventure cell recommended a team. Until then, the navy’s officers and employees had participated in ultramarathons in their personal capacity. Procedure required that the event organizers extend an invitation to the Indian Navy, so that the invitation to an organization – as opposed to an individual – would create sufficient grounds to float a team. The organizers of La Ultra invited the Indian Navy to participate in the event’s 111km race. Invitation secured, the navy dispatched its message of May 2016, seeking volunteers.

Runner in the house; Cdr. Sunil Handa’s collection of mementos from the races he participated in (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

Running is a common human activity and in the forces, it is a tradition from training days. But there is a huge difference between those training runs, the later runs to stay fit and an ultramarathon. Not many realize this. In response to the navy’s call for volunteers, some 20-25 persons stepped forward. More interesting and rather revealing of how little understood the ultramarathon is – there were applicants enthusiastic to run La Ultra’s 222 km and 333 km races as well. The navy realized it had a job on its hands. The number of volunteers had to be trimmed to about 6-8 persons and the selection process required to mimic some of the challenges of an ultramarathon so that the volunteers stayed aware of what they were getting into.

In Mumbai, Commander Sunil Handa – he and Capt. Rajesh had run together before in Vizag – had earned a reputation in the city’s running circles as an ultramarathon runner. He is also a mountaineer. In 2015, he had run the Khardung La Challenge – an ultramarathon of little over 70 km, held every September in Ladakh. Focusing on the challenge offered by the pass, the route spans Khardung village, up and over Khardung La, on to Leh. While preparing for the ultramarathon, Cdr. Sunil ran the 2015 Mumbai Ultra, an annual 12 hour-endurance run held on a stretch from Shivaji Park to Worli sea face, in the city. Impressed by this and seeking to run with him thereafter, was Petty Officer Hari Om from the Indian Navy. He was also a mountaineer. The following September, both Cdr. Sunil and Hari Om completed the Khardung La Challenge, Hari Om finishing just outside the cut off time. Familiar with mountains and mountaineering, the two had followed an acclimatization schedule ahead of the run, which included an ascent of the 20,182 ft-Stok Kangri, albeit a cheeky and not to be recommended fast ascent of the peak. Rajesh knew that he could count on these two runners from Mumbai to be part of the proposed team.

Cdr. Sunil Handa; August 12 morning, just past South Pullu (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

Problem was with selecting the others. Getting all the volunteers to assemble in one place for selection was difficult as they had their official responsibilities to attend to. It was decided to take the selection to them; have the trials where the volunteers are. With those overseeing sports at the various commands struggling to comprehend what they should look for in a potential candidate for this little known discipline called the ultramarathon, Cdr. Sunil was tasked with the selection in areas under the Mumbai based-Western Naval Command. For the rest of the commands, Capt. Rajesh decided to do the selection himself. As he was based in Delhi, he counted on technology and his knowledge of the running routes at the various commands, to oversee the process. On the average, Cdr. Sunil said, the volunteers ran 70-80 km during the selection trials. Where possible, they ran on routes Capt. Rajesh suggested (for instance, he knew the routes in Vizag very well, including how to combine inclines and flats for a route offering a miniature experience of what an ultramarathon entails). The runners used WhatsApp to update him real time. “ Since I wasn’t there in person, there was a lot of trust involved,’’ Cdr. Sunil said. It was a selection process that saw navy runners tackle long distances amid official duties, family responsibilities including children’s exams and even the monsoon (the trial run in Kochi had to be postponed owing to heavy rain).  Late July, a team of six runners met up in Delhi and proceeded to Leh. Captain Rajesh Wadhwa, Commander Sunil Handa, Commander Navneet Nagi, Lieutenant Commander Kanishka Chandel, Lieutenant Amit Kumar and Petty Officer Hari Om, – they became the first official team from the Indian Navy headed for an ultramarathon.

Hari Om, on the home stretch from South Pullu (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

Taking a leaf from the previous trip of Sunil and Hari Om to Ladakh for the Khardung La Challenge, the team decided to do the Markha Valley trek with a climb of Kang Yatse II for acclimatization. The navy’s adventure cell arranged required gear. After the mandatory rest period in Leh, the team commenced its trek. One of the highlights of this hike to get used to altitude was doing yoga at elevation. However, the day they set out for the summit of Kang Yatse II, Capt. Rajesh had to make a choice. Except for Cdr. Sunil and Hari Om, none of the others were mountaineers. On the other hand, they were all runners and they had all come to Ladakh to run an ultramarathon. It raised a simple question: does the team climb Kang Yatse II all the way to the top or does it focus on the need to acclimatize and save its energies for the ultramarathon? On the mountain, when they were as high as Khardung La (the highest point on the La Ultra course), Capt. Rajesh posed the question to his team: what is the best option? Eventually Hari Om went on to summit the peak while everyone else proceeded back to camp. That reminder about running made sense, for the next day, in the vast, relatively flat terrain of Markha Valley, the team members spent their time doing yoga and running. Armed with these preparations and a team song they had composed during the hike, they returned to Leh for a few days of proper rest. On August 9, there was a meet up of all those participating in the 2016 edition of La Ultra.  Capt. Rajesh introduced the navy’s ultramarathon team with characteristic humour.  Referring to the team and its mix of varied age and experience, he said, “ I am the team’s daddy, Sunil, the uncle and Amit, the kid.’’ The next day everyone proceeded to Diskit, where the start line of the ultramarathon was. Amid the short walks around Diskit to get used to the environment, Capt. Rajesh remembers getting several messages from friends and supporters, wishing the team luck. He also had an infected blister on his hand – got from using an ice axe on Kang Yatse – lanced, drained and dressed by the race medics.

Race Director Dr Rajat Chauhan (right) looks on as Capt. Rajesh Wadhwa (left) reaches South Pullu in the nick of time (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

The race began on the night of August 11. According to Cdr. Sunil, although he and Hari Om had run up and over Khardung La before, the La Ultra version of the experience with start in Diskit, made the run more challenging. It increased the distance and overall height gain to Khardung La and with the race commencing at night, he was forced to cope with something he hadn’t tackled before in a run or trained for – sleep deprivation. “ Between North Pullu and Khardung La, around two kilometers from the top, I was really in need of sleep,’’ he said of that passage through elevation and cold. Pass done and descent to Leh commenced, his condition improved. Meanwhile, in the distance between Diskit and North Pullu, two runners from the navy team had failed to meet stage cut-offs. They were eliminated from the race. Capt. Rajesh – Hari Om with him – was having a tough time. The initial portion of the race had gone off well for him.  Past kilometer-30, the two even did some yoga. But somewhere on the approach to North Pullu, Capt. Rajesh had sensed the pace slackening. There was a sense of daunting task, growing. At the same time, the 52 year-old knew that the onus of the team’s performance rested on him for he was skipper. He pushed on as best as he could. He reached North Pullu tired and out of breath. The race medics hovered around him. They checked on the runner. Before Khardung La, two to three bends below the pass on the North Pullu side – at the spot where Polish runner Dariusz (Darek) Strychalski was taken off the race – the Race Director spoke to Capt. Rajesh. There was concern that he was pushing his limits a bit too far. The naval officer told Hari Om to carry on. Then he explained how as a military man he cannot give up, how much he owed to those who had wished him well for this run. A little later, he resumed his trudge to the pass.

In retrospect, that was a turning point.

Cdr. Sunil, Hari Om and Capt. Rajesh (Photo: courtesy La Ultra)

As a new day dawned and Ladakh’s sun revealed the surrounding topography, the runners diminished to minor detail on big mountain. Some hours later at South Pullu on the other side of Khardung La, Race Director, Dr Rajat Chauhan took his position to count down the stage cut off for that section. Enforcing stage cut off is a heartless job; it is door shut and no looking back. Making it home with minutes to spare was Capt. Rajesh. Before South Pullu, with about 15 minutes left for stage cut-off, he had given that portion of the race all he had. “ That third cut-off – that was the toughest stage for me,’’ Capt. Rajesh would say later. Right then it meant, the navy had successfully preserved its surviving quartet. Ahead on the race’s final stretch, proceeding to a comfortable finish were Lt. Amit, Cdr. Sunil and Hari Om. Nick Dillon and Tim Berrow, the race’s medical team, were impressed. “ Capt. Rajesh Wadhwa was a concern. He was exhausted. He was just very, very tired. But he wasn’t medically unfit to continue. I gave him one chance to continue. He took that chance and made the most of it,’’ Nick said.

Earlier, when Capt. Rajesh halted before Khardung La to chat with the Race Director, a small but significant step occurred. He told Hari Om to go ahead. While young ultramarathon runner, Kieren D’ Souza smashed the course record to finish 111km in 15:30 hours, Hari Om, tapping into some new found energy, finished a creditable third giving the Indian Navy a place on the podium. Altogether, four members of the Indian Navy team – Hari Om (19:04 hours), Cdr. Sunil (19:20), Lt. Amit (19:30) and Capt. Rajesh (19:33) – completed the 111km-race, the navy’s first official participation as a team in an ultramarathon.

Now that they have a team in place, the navy plans to run more ultramarathons. For starters, they have their eyes on attempting one of the two ultramarathons in the Rann of Kutch. “ This is the beginning of a journey,’’ Capt. Rajesh said.

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai. The photos credited to La Ultra were provided by the navy team.)

Breeze Sharma (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

Three months and Badwater later, we are back at the café in Kanjurmarg, Mumbai.

Breeze Sharma looked tired but he seemed happy and relaxed in his black T-shirt with `Badwater’ written on it. Ten days earlier in July, he had made it past the finish line of the iconic ultramarathon in California’s Death Valley, the second Indian after Arun Bhardwaj, to do so. Breeze summed up the Badwater Ultramarathon in two words: mind game.

He reached the US on July 1, for the 2016 edition of the race scheduled to start 17 days later.  For that period, he rested, doing just a 12 km-walk, one day in between. With bib collection due on July 17 at Furnace Creek, he reached there on the 16th. “ The temperature at Furnace Creek was around 120 degrees Fahrenheit,’’ he said. According to him, as an Indian he didn’t find the heat – the way it impacted as a new experience in new land – a killer. Hailing from Rajasthan, home to India’s Thar Desert and having lived the early part of his life there, Breeze suspects that early conditioning may have helped him.  Further, compared to Mumbai where he came to work, live and run, Death Valley’s heat was devoid of humidity. “ It was dry heat. When the wind blew, it too was hot,’’ he said. That initial estimation was however tad misplaced for as Breeze discovered; the trying part was not the heat per se but its unrelenting persistence (even at night the temperature hovered at 100 degrees Fahrenheit) and a whole ultramarathon to run, amid that. Each outing at Badwater, no matter how well you got things covered, harbors an element of uncertainty.

Breeze with other runners (Photo: courtesy Vijayalakshmi Nadar)

For Breeze, the race ambiance at Furnace Creek was a revelation. One of the best things he liked about Badwater was how the gathered ultra-runners treated runners of all levels of experience, equally. “ It was humbling for me to stand alongside some of the best ultramarathon runners around, runners who had years of experience. Some were veterans of Badwater who had run and completed the event several times,’’ he said. He also remembered the Race Director going out of his way to announce Breeze’s presence, a first timer at Badwater all the way from Mumbai, India. “ That felt nice,’’ Breeze said. The run got underway at 8 PM, July 18. His support crew anchored by US based-Vijayalakshmi Nadar moved with him. Breeze debuted at Badwater with a classic error of the running sort – he covered the first 21 km in 2 hours,18 minutes; a pace that would qualify to be a decent half marathon in Mumbai, except this wasn’t a half marathon but a 135 mile-long ultramarathon in Death Valley, one of the hottest deserts on the planet. For that distance, indeed almost up to 30 km, he was ahead of the pack. He realized his mistake, corrected and settled to a sensible, sustainable pace.

In the support vehicle (Photo: courtesy Vijayalakshmi Nadar)

Vijayalakshmi provided an overview of crewing. “ As the race got underway, the runners ran ahead and after a few miles, we follow, to pull a little ahead of the runner, to ice him (put ice under his cap, and tie some around his shoulder) and spray him. Hand over food items, including fruits and nutrition bars and let him pass. We pulled ahead every two miles or so through the race. My challenge was also to ensure that he didn’t stop for more than a couple of minutes each time. The first night of running was a breeze, the next day it started getting tougher,’’ she wrote in. Death Valley is an amazing place. “ The region and the route attract you,’’ Breeze said citing the austere beauty of the dry, hot desert despite the punishment it inflicts. At night, the sky was a clear canopy above runner’s head, dotted with millions of stars. We checked again – he repeated it, the way he said it at first: the desert attracts you; not the other way around. The mutual fascination played out fine for the first 100 km. At about 65-70 miles, he admitted he started feeling the heat; the dry arid environment austere in its beauty initially, also appeared bleak and devoid of anything different to motivate. An element of harshness set in. “ I would say that even the first 100 miles was alright, I must have covered that in about 29 hours of running. The question was what lay after that,’’ Breeze said. Beyond 100 miles, was an unknown quantum for him. In his journey to Badwater, he had run three 100 milers to qualify and knew what running that distance felt like. But he had no idea what 135 miles held in store. For runner getting progressively tired and hitting his limits, the additional 35 miles can be a veritable gulf to bridge.

Running the Badwater ultramarathon (Photo: courtesy Vijayalakshmi Nadar)

Breeze had reached out to Vijayalakshmi for support crew because she was one good friend he had in the US. Vijayalakshmi is a runner but she was new to running very long distances and crewing for it. In the support vehicle, she was having her own Badwater experience, learning first-hand what crewing entailed. Past the 100 mile-mark she figured Breeze was entering uncharted territory. “Though Breeze has run 100 miles effortlessly in an Indian situation, he has never pushed himself beyond that and he had no game-plan on how he would do the rest, except the confidence that he will do it. After he finished his 100 miles, I caught him slurring on one of the breaks because of lack of sleep and I decided that if I let him run alone now, on the isolated race course, it would be tough for him. We were still in the endless stretch of dry but very beautiful desert, lit only with stars and the moon, and only occasional runners and their crew vehicles passed us. I thought I will walk / run with him only for a couple of miles, but that stretched to the next 30 miles. I sang old Hindi hits, to cheer us up….I had to constantly remind him and me that we have a task to finish and we can rest later. We kept walking / running till day break when we reached Lone Pine, the last official break, before the final stretch, up the mountain, ‘’ Vijayalakshmi said.

The Badwater course is a mix of desert and mountain environment. It is fully on road, starting at 279 feet below sea level in the Badwater Basin of California’s Death Valley and ending at an elevation of 8360 feet at Whitney Portal, the trail head to Mt Whitney. According to Breeze, the ascents on the hill section are not stiff but they can be long and winding. As you keep running, any incline can be testing. At around 8 AM on the third day – after a night of running followed by a full day and another night of running – Breeze hit the slopes leading to Whitney Portal.

Breeze Sharma, Badwater (Photo: courtesy Vijayalakshmi Nadar)

“ There we met Pete Kostelnick, eventual winner of the race who also set the course record. He pepped up Breeze a bit and he headed for his final stretch, up 13 miles ascending Mt Whitney Portal. With the sun beating down, when you have already put 122 miles behind you, and physically and mentally you are literally hanging by a thread, even walking those endless curves can be tough. While the crew including me waited ahead at the finish line, it was a relief to see Breeze come up with the national flag, which I had handed over to him, a couple of miles earlier,’’ Vijayalakshmi said. “ The last 13 miles was very slow for me, it took me five hours to cover that,’’ Breeze said, adding he owed much to his support crew. At noon on the third day, he completed his Badwater Ultramarathon in 40 hours 47 minutes.  He had kept five pairs of shoes for the race. He used three; the hot road of Death Valley singed their soles. “ It was all in all a humbling experience for Breeze and me. While Breeze realised all that goes into preparing and running an international race like this, for me it was bags of learning about human behaviour in a stress filled race. It was only the next day, when we were driving through the entire stretch of the race venue, on our way from Lone Pine to Las Vegas that I stopped to marvel that Breeze ran all this distance on foot, and what a stupendous task that was…and I paused to pat my back for a job well done,’’ Vijayalakshmi said.

Panoramic view of runner and the course of the Badwater Ultramarathon (Photo: courtesy Vijayalakshmi Nadar)

A few realizations have dawned post-Badwater. Breeze firmly believes that he over-trained. “ I was running too much in Mumbai, preparing for Badwater. It should have been less. I should have rested adequately. In turn that would have kept more energy at my disposal,’’ he said. Further, in his relatively quick progression through a clutch of ultramarathons in India to Badwater in the US, he had failed to perfect a fluids intake system. “ I drink water as required. But everything I drink while running would only qualify as hydration, it cannot be counted as energy-providing,’’ Breeze said. The thing he hadn’t got used to and which he feels he should, in retrospect, are energy drinks. “ I don’t think there is really much difference between running 100 miles and running 135 miles. I was quite alright. What I missed at Badwater is the potential boost in energy I could have got from the occasional energy drink,’’ Breeze said. When you run an ultramarathon, it isn’t just enough that you have all this in your supplies for the road; you should have tried and perfected the practice before, for race day is not for experiments. Trying energy drinks earlier, finding which one works for you, at what point and in what quantity – all this, perfected earlier, would have helped. Food habits also interfere when race locations change. “ Breeze is a very conservative runner and hardly eats during races. He’s not used to nutritional supplements as well and though I had done my research on what the runners use for fuel on the way, he declined my suggestions. All he ate was cucumbers, cherries, oranges and grapes. The only real food we managed to get, a veggie wrap, was not to his liking at all, because it lacked chillies, which he cannot do without,’’ Vijayalakshmi noted in her email.

Completing the race (Photo: courtesy Vijayalakshmi Nadar)

Breeze would like to return to Badwater. Notwithstanding the desert’s changing face or its face as perceived by changing runner, Death Valley’s attraction remains. He also hopes that with Arun Bhardwaj and now him completing the race, more Indians will attempt Badwater. The race has inspired some ideas in Breeze. He would like to run the world’s top ten ultramarathons. Badwater is run as a single stage race. There are multi stage ultramarathons. Breeze has his eyes on attempting the Marathon Des Sables (MDS) in the Sahara. But before that, next year, he has a pending assignment to address. On April 25, 2015, Breeze had been among those caught in a deadly earthquake-triggered avalanche at Everest Base Camp, where he was on what eventually became an aborted attempt to climb Mt Everest. 2017 is his last chance to return to Nepal and try the peak again. “ This year, I elected to attempt Badwater. Next year, hopefully, Everest,’’ he said.

(The authors, Latha Venkatraman and Shyam G Menon, are independent journalists based in Mumbai. For more on ultramarathon runner Arun Bhardwaj please click on this link: https://shyamgopan.wordpress.com/2015/06/21/the-connoisseur-of-distances/ You can also find this story which is titled ` The Connoisseur of Distances,’  under recent posts or in the blog archives.)    

Illustration: Shyam G Menon

The café near Kaloor in Kochi had just opened for the day.

But there was no hesitation over whether to serve a customer arrived early or not.

I chose a table, ordered a cup of tea and waited for the subject of this article.

On Wikipedia, the page for Infosys says that the company had 194,044 employees as of March 2016. “ Back then I was employee number 342, based in Bangalore,’’ Ramesh Kanjilimadhom said of his first job. Brief introduction aside, we had wasted no time in starting a conversation. Those were the pre-IPO days of Infosys; it was yet to become the household name synonymous with information technology that it would be in the years following IPO with shares listed and traded. Ramesh worked with Infosys over 1992-1993, then he joined Wipro GE Medical Imaging Systems. He left that in 1995 and shifted to the US, where he became part of a small company called Beechwood Data Systems in New Jersey. Until then, life had been relatively predictable, straightforward. He was born 1969 in Varandarappilly, a town near Thrissur in Kerala, to parents who were teachers; his father taught Malayalam at a college, his mother taught Malayalam at a school. “ I never thought of myself as an athlete. I played cricket in school – that was it. My grandfather was a temple priest, my father was into literature – it was a highly literary household that I grew up in. There was no inclination towards athletics. I felt I wasn’t cut out for it,’’ Ramesh said. His schooling spanned three towns: Varandarappilly, Irinjalakkuda and Kothamangalam, leading up to a degree in engineering (Computer Science) from the Government Engineering College in Thrissur. Employee number 342 at Infosys was soon after that.

Ramesh at the 2009 Marine Corps Marathon (Photo: Courtesy Ramesh Kanjilimadhom)

In the late 1990s, Ramesh’s elder brother was diagnosed with diabetes. Around the same time, his mother too was diagnosed with diabetes. When Ramesh went for his annual medical check-up, his doctor recommended that he do something to avert what appeared to be a genetic disposition in the family. Ramesh started running in Fairfax, Virginia; his daily mileage was 7-8km. He built it up to 12km once a week. “ It was hard finding the motivation to do this,’’ Ramesh said. Luckily for him, Salvatore Messina, his boss at Beechwood was a marathoner. He encouraged Ramesh to try longer distances. `Sal’ was passionate about the Marine Corps Marathon (MCM), held every year on the last Sunday of October, in Washington DC. The event begun by the US armed forces in 1976, is currently deemed the sixth biggest marathon in the US and 12th biggest in the world. Egged on by Sal, Ramesh enlisted for the 2006 MCM. He signed up six months ahead. For preparation he ran a local 20km race and also a 21km race. “ At MCM there is something called ` Beat the Bridge,’ which is basically a bridge 32km into the race that must be crossed in 4-5 hours. I was aiming for a four hour-marathon. On the bridge I hit the proverbial wall and cramped up,’’ he said. Nevertheless, he completed the first full marathon of his life in 3 hours 47 minutes. Sal was sufficiently impressed by it to tell Ramesh that perhaps he should try the Boston Marathon. Ramesh didn’t take the suggestion seriously right then; instead he pursued the idea of a marathon in 3:30 and registered for the Carlsbad Marathon near San Diego in California. This was tougher than MCM. It was a hilly course. He finished in 3:46. “ That second marathon taught me what a marathon entails,’’ he said. Persisting with the goal of 3:30, he then ran the Fredrick Marathon in Maryland. He trained for it. In 2007, he completed the run in 3:33. Now he began thinking of Boston.

Following that 3:33 at the Fredrick Marathon, Ramesh decided to do a Boston Qualifier (BQ). Those days, the qualifying time for his age group was 3:20. The BQ he chose was a race called Steamtown Marathon, held in Scranton, Pennsylvania. In retrospect, Ramesh thinks it isn’t the ideal BQ, for it is downhill most of the way with the last 3-4km being uphill. “ I would think that ideally a BQ should be flat,’’ he said. The day of the 2007 Steamtown Marathon turned out to be hot. Same day, after the Chicago Marathon commenced, it was cancelled citing the heat. “ I finished Steamtown in 3:28. But I still felt that I can do a 3:20,’’ he said. By this time, further changes had happened at work. Ramesh left Beechwood Data Systems in 2002; Beechwood would eventually be acquired by Capgemini. In 2004, he started a small company in league with his former boss at Beechwood. The company is called Seygen and Ramesh is one of its directors. Seygen develops software for telecom companies. Three weeks after Steamtown, he ran his second MCM and then shifted back to India with Seygen. In India, the company has offices in Kochi and Mumbai. Ramesh keeps traveling to the US regularly, where Seygen has the other half of its operations.

Ramesh at the 2009 Boston Marathon (Photo: courtesy Ramesh Kanjilimadhom)

In 2008, not long after returning to India, Ramesh ran his first Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon (SCMM). He completed the full marathon in 3:36. Same year, he ran the St George Marathon in Utah. “ It is a downhill course and Utah is beautiful. However it was extremely cold and windy, I also reached the venue later than expected thanks to some air travel problems,’’ Ramesh said. He finished the race in 3:28. After the run he was ill, shivering from the cold. He still remembers – the treat for runners after the race in that chilly weather, was an ice cream! Following the Utah event, he ran his third MCM. Three months later, while still searching for a BQ, he found himself with his children at Disney World. There, he ran the Disney World Marathon. It was a flat course, running from one Disney Park to another. Ramesh didn’t like that commercial aspect but he completed the race in 3:09. “ It was the first race I ran without any walking,’’ he said. That year the qualifying time for his age group in Boston was 3:15. Ramesh’s timing from the Disney World Marathon was well within it.

In April 2009, he ran his first Boston Marathon. “ It was a wonderful experience. Boston is great because of its spectators. You don’t see even ten metres without spectators. The cheering is awesome. Then there is the Wellesley College portion of the course, which is called the ` Scream Tunnel.’ It is a girls’ college and on race day they offer the runners free hugs and kisses. It is fun. Wellesley College is roughly around the 20km-mark. Between 26km and 32km there is a series of hills called Newton Hills, culminating in Heartbreak Hill. After Heartbreak Hill is Boston College. The Boston Marathon is like a big festival for the residents of the course,’’ Ramesh said recalling a race he evidently loves. He completed his first Boston Marathon in approximately 3:37. The experience seems to have taken a load off his chest, for he says, he settled down thereafter to enjoying his running. “ I began running for the fun of it,’’ he said. Asked if he consciously managed the number of races he ran a year, he said, “ I don’t hold back on races.’’ Ramesh has run 3-4 marathons in a month. When I met him in April 2016, he had already logged 52 marathons and three ultra-marathons.

Ramesh went on to run the Boston Marathon in 2010, 2013 and 2015. In 2015, he completed the course in 3:19. That was the year Thomas Bobby Philip from Bengaluru ran barefoot in Boston. “ It was cold! I don’t know how he managed to do that,’’ Ramesh said, appreciating the effort. After his first Boston Marathon of 2009, Ramesh increased his mileage. In December 2009, he ran 550km; he said he recovers well after every long run. Roughly eight months after his first Boston Marathon, Ramesh began experimenting with barefoot running. In January 2010, Ramesh ran the Dubai Marathon wearing minimalist footwear. He completed it in 3:05. Since the 2010 Dubai Marathon, the majority of his running has been barefoot. “ I am not an evangelist for barefoot running. How it works, varies from person to person. But you won’t know till you try it. I believe everyone should try it at least once,’’ Ramesh said.

Ramesh at the 2014 Bengaluru Marathon (Photo: courtesy Ramesh Kanjilimadhom)

The 2012 SCMM was special. Finishing it in 3:14, it was the first time Ramesh qualified for the Boston Marathon in India. Two weeks after that edition of the SCMM, he completed the Dubai Marathon in 3:08. That run in Dubai earned him entry to the New York Marathon of November 2012. In Kochi, Ramesh stays in Kakkanad. Friday, August 10 dawned with heavy rain. At 5.30 AM, the hour Ramesh leaves for his daily ten mile-run, it was relatively dark save for the street lights on the road. “ I try to finish my weekday runs in time to wish the kids before they get on the school bus,’’ Ramesh said. According to a report in The New Indian Express, that day Ramesh was running by in front of the Youth Hostel near NGO Quarters, when a car suddenly appeared from a side road and hit him on his left side. He landed on his face. The car didn’t stop. It accelerated and sped away. Ramesh tried to hold his leg, stand up and go to the nearest junction to get help. He could not.  “ The accident broke the tibia and fibula of my left leg. My lower leg was dangling at an angle,’’ he said. As often happens in India, likely fearing the legal hassles that follow getting involved in the aftermath of an accident, no passing vehicle stopped to help Ramesh. Luckily, Rocky Roger, a BPO professional who had just finished his shift and was headed home, saw Ramesh. He stopped his car, picked up the injured runner and reached him to the hospital. X-rays revealed the multiple fractures.

At the 2015 Chennai Trail Marathon (Photo: courtesy Ramesh Kanjilimadhom)

The orthopedic surgeon at the hospital, decided to insert a steel rod to hold the fractured bones in place. Seema, Ramesh’s wife who had by then arrived, reminded the doctor of the patient’s love for running. The steel rod was traded for a titanium one. It was surgery, insertion of titanium rod and end of New York Marathon plan for time being. Interestingly, due to a hurricane, the New York Marathon of that year was cancelled. “ I got back the money I had paid as entry fee,’’ Ramesh said. He was on crutches till early November. Mid-November 2012, he resumed running. For the 2013 SCMM, his preparation wouldn’t have exceeded 30km in all. He finished the full marathon in 4:07. I asked Ramesh about the surgery months before that SCMM, and his road to recovery. “The surgery was done only after my wife Seema arrived at the hospital and she alerted the doctor that I was a runner. So he used titanium rod which is lighter instead of the steel that they normally work with. I had the rod, plate and screws for about one and a half years. I ran fine with them. They were eventually removed in March 2014. My passage back to running was rather uneventful.  I followed the instructions of the doctor and the physio to the tee. The good thing was the doctor was quite supportive of my running and he wanted me to get back to it quickly; so that helped. I started walking without crutches in a couple of months after the surgery and started running by late November. SCMM 2013 was hard because I had run no more than five to six times in the months preceding it, but it was a big confidence booster. I didn’t have any pain due to the surgery during or after the race, so didn’t have to look back,’’ Ramesh said.

In 2013, Ramesh’s friends Prasanna Kumar (aka A.P. Kumar; based in Kochi) and Manoj Kuriakose (based in Dubai) suggested that they start a running club. While this thought process was on, Ramesh got a call one day from Houston based-Mathew Mapram. He was calling from Kottayam. Mathew was a runner, around 68-69 years old then; he wanted to know what he could do to make running a lifestyle in Kerala. “ That was a spark for the runners around to meet up. We decided to start a running group. Manoj came up with the name: Soles of Cochin. The group started in July 2013 and its growth has been amazing, not just in terms of numbers but also in terms of passion for the sport. We don’t leave out any race anywhere. We just go and run everywhere. We make a lot of noise. We have now become a synonym for being crazy runners,’’ Ramesh said. In Kochi, the group trains four days a week. They have a tempo run on Tuesday; a hill run on Thursday, a long run on Saturday and a beginners’ run plus recovery phase on Sunday. “ We have supported long runs but nothing like Mumbai Road Runners’ monthly Bandra-NCPA run in Mumbai. We want to get to that level though,’’ Ramesh said. However Soles of Cochin has three full-fledged events that it organizes. In January, it holds the Puttumanoor Race (21km, 10km, 5km), in May it holds the Spice Farms Race (21km, 10km, 5km) and in November, it conducts the Spice Coast Marathon (42km, 21km, 5km). In between, it also organizes trail runs in Munnar, Vagamon and Lower Periyar. Two weeks before I met Ramesh, Soles of Cochin had organized the Night Owls Ultra, a 12 hour-run at night on Willingdon Island (home to Kochi’s port). “ We want to do it more often. Maybe do it in monsoon; March was hot,’’ he said laughing.

Ramesh Kanjilimadhom (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

At the 2015 Mumbai Ultra (a supported non-competitive 12 hour-endurance run held annually in Mumbai) I met Naushad Asanar and Vijayan Pillai, both Kochi based-runners and members of Soles of Cochin. According to Naushad, Ramesh, who is much respected in Kochi’s running scene, prefers to keep a low profile. He sports a simplicity acquired from years of running. “ He is not crazy about gear. At the events we organize, he plays his role but stays in the backdrop. Others may pitch to invite celebrities for a running event to create some buzz. Ramesh is rarely part of such trends, for him running is what matters,’’ Naushad said, adding, that simplified, functional view of running has influenced the group. “ We see Ramesh as a guide. He has done a lot of running, yet he is humble. Although someone who shuns the limelight, he is a very open person and newcomers to the sport learn much talking to him. If you go for a run with him, his love for the sport rubs off on you,’’ Vijayan said.

Ramesh completed the 2015 SCMM in 3:04. In 2016 he ran the Boston Marathon again, this time barefoot and completing it in 3:11:54, his best timing yet at the event. Six days later, he ran the Big Sur Marathon in California, “ one of the most scenic marathons in the world,’’ although Ramesh who ran it barefoot does not deem it ideal for barefoot running given road conditions. But it was an event he ran earlier in 2016 that set him thinking. He finished the 2016 Dubai Marathon in 3:02. It got him interested in the possibility of running a sub three-hour marathon. He knows that although a mere three minutes separates 3:02 from sub-three, getting there will be challenging. “ I can plan to push myself for a sub-three perhaps by January 2017,’’ he said. For now the Houston Marathon appears a good event to try this. In the meantime, he is trying to build up his strength and endurance.

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai.)     

Miho Nonaka after the last boulder problem at the 2016 IFSC World Cup in bouldering held in Navi Mumbai (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

Kokoro Fujii after the last boulder problem at the 2016 IFSC World Cup in bouldering held in Navi Mumbai (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

The Japanese secured four of the six podium positions on offer at the 2016 IFSC World Cup in bouldering, in Navi Mumbai on Sunday.  The men’s category was won by Kokoro Fujii of Japan, with second and third positions going to Tomoa Narasaki (Japan) and Alexey Rubtsov (Russia) respectively.  In the women’s segment Miho Nonaka of Japan finished in first place followed by Monika Retschy (Germany) and Akiyo Noguchi (Japan) in that order. Earlier, six athletes each from the men’s and women’s categories made it to the finals. Besides those mentioned in the podium finishes, others in the list of finalists were Rustam Gelmanov (Russia), Jongwon Chon (Korea), Jeremy Bonder (France), Melissa Le Neve (France), Sol Sa (Korea) and Katharina Saulwein (Austria). The semis saw some upsets. Among those who didn’t make it to the finals were Jan Hojer (Germany), Sean McColl (Canada) and Shauna Coxsey (Great Britain).  Being Sunday, there was a sizable audience at the venue and they cheered the climbers through the competition.

Following the Navi Mumbai World Cup, the top five athletes in terms of their ranking in the currently underway-2016 bouldering season were Kokoro Fujii (Japan / 255 points), Alexey Rubtsov (Russia / 242), Tomoa Narasaki (Japan / 218), Rustam Gelmanov (Russia / 216) and Jan Hojer (Germany / 168). The top five among women were Shauna Coxsey (Great Britain / 337), Melissa Le Neve (France / 258), Miho Nonaka (Japan / 254), Akiyo Noguchi (Japan / 212) and Monika Retschy (Germany / 172). As regards national team standings, Japan led the field with 793 points followed by France (712), Great Britain (612), Russia (424) and Austria (288). Interestingly in combined rankings (across sport climbing’s various disciplines) for the ongoing 2016 World Cup season, the leader in the men’s category by a wide margin was Sean McColl (Canada / 144).

Here are a few photos from day two of the recently held World Cup in Navi Mumbai:

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai. All the photos used in this article were taken by him. He would like to thank Pravin Shinde for permitting the use of his camera for the days of the World Cup.)