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IAU 24-Hour World Championships – Indian Women Lead the Charge, Smash National Record

At the recent IAU 24-Hour World Championships held in Albi, France, Indian women ultrarunners delivered a landmark performance, shattering the national record in the 24-hour ultrarunning format.

Also, for the first time in India’s ultrarunning history, three women crossed the 200-kilometre mark, with two of them surpassing the previous national record of 204 km.

Sunita Subba and Aparna Choudhary both broke the national record to finish first and second respectively among Indian women. Sunita now holds the new national mark of 217.327 km, eclipsing the earlier record of 204.314 km set by Anju Saini at the 2022 IAU 24-Hour Asia & Oceania Championships in Bengaluru.

Aparna Choudhary followed with 210.537 km, while Bindu Juneja secured third place with 202.164 km, completing a remarkable showing by the Indian women’s team.

In the men’s category, Geeno Antony led the Indian contingent, finishing among the top 10 male runners overall with a distance of 265.198 km. The 24-hour race began on October 18 at 10 a.m. and tested endurance and mental fortitude under shifting weather conditions.

In the same event, Sarah Webster of Great Britain and Northern Ireland set a new world record with a distance of 278.622 km, surpassing the previous record of 270.363 km held by Japan’s Miho Nakata.

The Indian team, coached and managed by Santhosh Padmanabhan, underwent an intense training program in the run-up to the event. Despite hopes for a team medal, a few setbacks affected the final mileage tally.

This time around, the training plan, devised by Santhosh, was one of the toughest and extensive that the current team of ultrarunners were asked to execute.

“We wanted to push the bar because we had put in a lot of hard work – the athletes, the support staff and all of us. Therefore, expectations were quite high for both the men’s as well as the women’s team,” Santhosh said.

In training, many runners were able to execute and achieve the goals. Some of them shifted their base temporarily to Bengaluru to be able to motivate each other during training and work as a team.

In terms of actual performance at Albi, the Indian team, especially the women’s broke out of their shackles with three of them crossing the 200 km mark, he said. The performance of both men’s and women’s was much better than previous championships but did not meet the goals set for this specific championship, Santhosh said.

“In the men’s team, though some key runners fell back, Geeno did very well not only at the championships but also in training. I could see him maturing as an ultrarunner, he was more knowledgeable about his own abilities and he was getting all his milestones. It shows that we were on track with our training,” Santhosh said.

One of the main challenges faced by the Indian team at Albi was the extreme temperature change. During the day, although temperatures were at 22 degrees Celsius the night time temperature decline by 12 to 15 degrees affected hydration and nutrition of the runners, he said.

“These drastic weather changes affect appetite. Also, fatigue hits really hard. The learning for us from this experience is that we need to know how to handle fatigue and also train in different geographical locations with varying weather conditions,” Santhosh said.

Sunita Subba

Sunita Subba ran her first race, a half marathon in Darjeeling, in 2016. She did not follow it up with any further running immediately. In 2019, she again ran a half marathon. Soon after the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown brought all outdoor activities to a grinding halt. “At that time, I felt the need to do something. When the lockdown was eased, I signed up for a 10-day virtual run challenge. I could do it only for eight days but I covered a distance of about 330-350 km,” she said. Soon she found herself signing up for ultra races – 12-hour stadium run and the first edition of Ladakh Marathon’s Silk Route Ultra, in which she won the women’s race, 90 km at Kalimpong Ultra, Pune Ultra and a few stadium ultra runs.

In July 2024, Sunita won the women’s race in the 24-hour stadium run held in Bengaluru, covering a distance of 188 km, helping her to qualify for the world championships.

After she was chosen to represent the country at the IAU 24-Hour World Championships in Albi, France, Sunita set about doing her training in Darjeeling, where she resides. “I used to train alone, sometimes running for six hours, sometimes eight hours. I would keep my water and other supplements near the gate of Bhanu Bhawan on Mall Road,” she said. Sunita works in a low paying job and often she is forced to juggle her finances in order to participate in running events. She was worried about arranging finances for the Albi but after she was enlisted as an Enerjiva athlete, much of those tensions were taken off her plate. Enerjiva, a sports nutrition brand, sponsored many of the athletes for the Albi championships.

Sunita Subba

Sunita was then asked to shift to Bengaluru by the team coach and manager Santhosh Padmanabhan. Her training went off quite well under his guidance. “When much of my long runs were done in Bengaluru, I sought leave to go back home to Darjeeling towards end of September and continue my training there. I also wanted to be home for the Dusshera festival. But weather was playing havoc back there, with heavy rains and landslides. I ended up with fever,” she said.

By the time she was to leave for Albi, she had recovered but was exhausted and tired from the ailment. “I managed well for the first few hours. But my water consumption was quite low. I was having energy drink and some bit of rice and dal. I did get some muscle tightness on my left leg but overall, I was injury free,” she said. By the end of the 24-hour period, she had surpassed the national record by a huge margin, setting the new record at 217.327 km compared to the previous record of 204.314 km set by Anju Saini during the IAU 24 Hour Asia & Oceania Championships held in Bengaluru in 2022.

Her son Swayam Tamang and her sister Sabita are very supportive of her running activities.

Aparna Choudhary has been associated with ultrarunning for a long time, commencing her journey in this niche sport way back in 2010. Running itself is fairly a nascent sport in India and ultrarunning even more so.

But Aparna is not new to sport. She was a national level hockey player and then took to recreational running during her graduation and post-graduation days. A stint in the US exposed her to lot more running events.

In 2010, she signed up for her first ultramarathon, a 100 km race at Bangalore Ultra. Over the years, she has participated in a number of ultrarunning events of varying distances and quite often ended up on the podium.

Aparna Choudhary

Her training for the IAU Championships could have been better, she said. In between her training she took a break to go to Peru for a holiday. She was back on July 17 but she barely had a fortnight for the Goa Ultra in which Aparna had signed up for the 120 km. “I took it as a training run,” she said. Aparna finished first among women finishers in this race. But after the race she had to wait for a couple of weeks to resume her training for the championships as she fell ill.

“I was consistent with my training but did nothing extraordinary. I did a few long runs, one of them 75-km long. All my training runs were done in the evenings or nights,” she said. “I also did not let my mind be in the clouds about my training or my ability to perform on race day,’ she said.

On race day, the initial few hours went along well despite the sun being up. But after about 6-7 hours, she had an upset stomach. “By the 15th hour or so, I was throwing up and that was affecting my hydration,” she said. But she was able to keep at it without taking long breaks.

Runners were required to run a loop of 1.5 km which included road as well as track during the entire 24 hours.

“All my plans were out of reach for me. Nevertheless, I just decided to keep running. During the last hour, I stepped up my pace and I could feel it in my raised heart rate. I wanted to get past 210 km and also be able to get up and walk at the end of the race,” she said.

Aparna Choudhary

Aparna finished the race with a distance of 210.537 km, improving her personal record by a huge margin from her previous best of 192 km. But she was a tad disappointed about missing out on the automatic qualification mark of 212.5 km at Sparthathlon, a 246 km ultra distance foot race held in Greece every year.

Nevertheless, Albi was a satisfying race as many factors played out well, she said.

This time around Bindu Juneja had to do a completely different training program in the run-up to the world championships.

“There were a lot of very long runs. Normally, I would do about 40-50 km long runs. When I saw the workout charted by Santhosh, I was very worried about recovery. I work as a teacher in a school and I cannot miss work. This time around there were runs planned for 10 hours, 100 km runs and once I had to run for about 10 hours,” she said.

These long runs were interspersed with interval training and strength workouts. “I had told Santhosh that if I could do 80 percent of the workout, I could consider myself an ultrarunner,” she said.

Bindu Juneja

She was able to do 98 percent of the workout planned. “My weekly mileage touched 148 km, 158 km, the highest being 171 km. These ultra long training runs, initially daunting, started to get easier,” Bindu said.

Bindu started running in 2015 and in 2018 signed up for her first ultra running event, a 50 km race at the Bangalore Ultra, in which she was the winner among women. Subsequently, she has done many ultra races, including several hour-based stadium runs and Comrades Marathon in South Africa.

“As some of us were sponsored athletes of Enerjiva for the Albi Championships, we had access to free strengthening sessions. Even though I was not able to attend all of these, I was able to follow these workouts through videos sent to me,” Bindu said.

During the race, the first 10 hours went by quite smoothly. “But after that my gut gave up and I had to take washroom breaks. I stop consuming gels as well as solid food. For a few hours I ran without consuming any food,” she said.

Weather during the 24-hour period fluctuated between being warm in the day time and very cold in the evenings and night. “This time I was determined to cross the 200 km mark. The second half of the race could have been better if nutrition had worked. I think I consumed too many gels early in the race. I should have interspersed gels with some natural food. Also, I had my periods,” she said.

Bindu Juneja and Sunita Subba

Bindu often has a problem of her toe nails coming off. But this time she was able to continue running with the pain. “It was quite a well-organized event. There was a lot of support with many people cheering on the sidelines throughout,” she said.

She covered a distance of 202.164 km, improving her personal record by a huge margin of 17.2 km.

Bindu now plans to take a break for two months from serious running but will continue her daily routine runs and focus on strength training.

Geeno Antony is not new to sports. Both his parents, speech and hearing impaired, were into sports. Geeno was introduced to sports early on. (To read more on this follow this link https://shyamgopan.com/2022/10/15/the-satisfaction-is-beyond-measure/)

Geeno has been running for quite a while now and his transition to ultrarunning was instinctive. He has been part of the team of ultrarunners representing India in many international ultrarunning events.

Amar Singh Devanda and Geeno Antony

“I have never done a training as intense and grueling as the one we did in preparation for the Albi championships,” Geeno said. He also shifted to Bengaluru for the 12-week training schedule including tapering with many day and night running sessions. “We had to do one 12-hour and 14-hour each, two 8-hour, three or four 6-hour and finally Bengaluru Marathon,” he said.

At Albi, Geeno started the race as per plan and in the first 12 hours he covered a distance of 142 km. During the second half of the race many runners started to fall back in their pace due to myriad reasons. “I was mentally down after Amar (Amar Singh Devanda) and Saurav (Saurav Ranjan) started falling back. For the first 12 hours we ran together. Running together was quite motivating. In the second half my pace suffered, therefore. But in the last hour I managed to cover 11 km,” said Geeno. He finished the race with a mileage of 265.198 km, also ending among top 10 men.

“At the end of the race, I was quite fine. I had no cramps or excessive tiredness. I was able to walk and even run,” he said. Geeno believes the training designed by Santhosh helped him to finish strong. In hindsight, he feels he could have pushed more.

Geeno Antony

He has already commenced running and will resume training for the IAU 100 km Asia & Oceania Championships to be held in Thailand on November 23. “I am now in Trivandrum and will do some training here as Thailand will be very humid,” he said.

Sugourav Goswami, a Canara Bank employee, posted at Haldwani, was able to secure leave for 80 days to move to Bengaluru for training.

“It was one of the hardest, grueling, tiring and elaborate training plan that I have ever done so far,” he said.

Sugourav got into running as recent as 2020 right during the COVID-19 lockdown on the terrace of his residential building in Champawat, Uttarakhand. “I had a health scare. My key health parameters were alarmingly out of range and I had to resort to some cardio activity. I started running on the rooftop of my house. It was a small area. I would run for about two to three hours daily,” he said.

Sugourav Goswami with Santhosh Padmanabhan

Once the lockdown eased, he took to running more seriously and started signing up for running events. Soon he was also running ultra races.

“My first 24-hour run was the Bengaluru Stadium Run in March 2025, where I clocked a distance of 226 km,” he said.

At Albi, he was told by the team manager that he was to pace some of the key runners and also track their movements. “I enjoyed the race thoroughly. Ultras are tough. You can only get through them if you enjoy the race,” he said.

He ran moderately well for 21 hours. The last three hours were very tough. He finished second among Indian men covering a distance of 245.158 km.

His recovery following the race has been very good.

In hindsight, most runners this blog spoke to after the championships said they could have pushed for more mileage. Nevertheless, every ultrarunning event offers a new experience and many new challenges. The learning curve is never ending, they say.

(The author, Latha Venkatraman, is an independent journalist based in Mumbai)

Photos provided by runners

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Silk Route Ultra – Crossing the finish line

Corina Van Dam, or Cocky, as she is popularly known in Mumbai, is a football coach and an endurance athlete involved in ultra and long-distance running, long distance swimming and triathlons. In September 2025, Cocky crossed the finish line of the 122 kilometre-long Silk Route Ultra in Ladakh, securing a third position among women finishers. This was her second attempt. In 2024, she had to DNF (did not finish). In a first-person account, Cocky writes about her experience at the event.

This was my second time at the Ladakh Marathon’s Silk Route Ultra and this time I finished…..!

In 2024, I DNF’ed (DNF = did not finish) when my body started leaning to the right during my descent to Leh. After South Pullu (19 kilometers before the finish) I decided to drop out after I realized that I was not able to observe my body was tilting. You can read more about that experience in the article that I wrote for Outrigger last year. With the experience and knowledge that I gained from many runners and coaches, I tried to prepare myself better this time around.

Initially, I was not even planning to participate in the 2025 edition of the Silk Route Ultra (SRU). I had qualified for the Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Marbella, Spain in November 2025 and I wanted to focus on that. But I just love ultra running and felt butterflies when the registration for SRU opened. So, after enjoying the Hell Race White Sand Ultra 100 km, I immediately signed up for SRU especially since I met the criteria for qualification. With Mr Motup (the organizer of the event) ‘threatening’ us every year that he will make qualification more difficult, I thought I should take my chance this year. It also helped that I was about to turn 60 and thought that soon I would be too slow to run a 100km within 14 hours.

From June onwards, I started to increase my running mileage, with a six-hour night run, a 50 km monsoon run and the 12-hour Mumbai Ultra as main training events while I also continued swimming and a bit of cycling. My plan was to spend a few days more on acclimatizing than in 2024 and therefore planned to take a bus to Manali and from there to Leh. However, the weeks before, rains lashed across Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand. Villages disappeared under mud; people lost their lives. Traveling by road became an uncertain and risky endeavor. Especially with the hard rule that participants have to be physically present during the bib collection in Leh to ensure the acclimatization before an ultra-run at high altitude. I made the decision early enough to secure a place on a plane and reached Ladakh in time. Others were not that lucky as flights got canceled. Runners got stuck and many missed the opportunity to participate despite the one-day relief granted by the organization for those with verified reasons for delay.

I had just arrived in Ladakh when I got the message that Shyam G. Menon had died. I had met him only a few times, but he has always been very interested in my stories. With Outrigger, he has given me a platform to share my first Ironman Goa experience, my race in the Ironman 70.3 world championships in 2023 and last year’s DNF in the Silk Route Ultra in my own words. I consider Latha a friend and could only imagine the pain that she felt. I’m writing this with gratitude to Shyam and hope that it will be what he expected it to be. May he rest in peace.

The days in Leh are always pleasant with a select group of ultra runners in the first week who do their morning runs, work a couple of hours and meet in the afternoon for coffee and banter. In the second week, there was an influx of running groups with many traveling for the first time to the Land of High Passes. I enjoyed the morning runs with friends and Ladakhi chai and flat bread with butter afterwards, and my afternoon walks, apricot pie, thukpa…! Two trips to Khardung La helped me to prepare for the race. The weather was not great on my first few days in Leh. It rained and it was cold. It snowed at K-top. I was mentally not prepared for ascending more than 50 kilometers in bad weather. My first assignment was to visualize walking a night in the snow and think about how I would face it. Being born and having grown up in the Netherlands its unpredictable weather probably helped me in the process and perhaps I’m better equipped than many other participants to deal with the cold. When I walked up the pass twice, I felt lightheaded and a sense of carelessness. This made me realize that when I cared about my tilting last year, this was actually a sign that I was psychologically aware. I was also confident that I would recognize this ‘state of carelessness’ during the race.

Finally, the day came and we traveled to Kyagar, the start line of the race. You would sign up for the race, just for this….! Mr Motup gives instructions, warns us and flags the busses off. Running friends came to see us for the journey and the race, akin to a school trip. I almost felt like crying. The journey was – of course – breathtaking – even when you have traveled it a few times. Some of the bends and inclines I remembered from previous years. Now I could see the mountains, the valley, the river. We settled into our hotel – comfortable rooms with a peaceful garden. Sufiya and I shared a room, again. We know each other’s habits and follow our own routines. That helped because increasingly we were becoming nervous! The cultural evening deflected our thoughts and kept us busy in between snacks and meals.

There was only one moment that I thought:’ I’m never going to do this again’ and that was when we were waiting for the mandatory blood pressure check. In 2024, it was a traumatic experience as I had to get tested three times, drink glasses of lukewarm water and eat raw garlic. This time I succeeded after two times and taking some wonder medicine on doctor’s advice that I refused last year.

The first part of the race goes through rolling hills and follows the river. It was pleasant, my legs were fresh, villagers cheered us on as if we were already close to finishing. Children gave us high fives and ran with us. There was some pressure to complete the first 27 kilometer in four hours but with last year’s experience, I knew I could do it. From Khalsar, the run becomes a walk. And to be honest, I love this part. I enjoyed walking alone in the night, the route lit by the moon and under a sky full of stars. I recognized the road, the route and knew that when I saw the lights of Khardung Village it would take a long time to get there….! Although I was walking mostly alone, I met ‘everyone’ at the SRU breakfast where we could fuel and get our warm jackets for the ascent to Khardung La. I left the village before the participants of Khardung La Challenge started their race. It was enjoyable to see the lights behind me meandering through the mountains. North Pullu (at17 kilometers) looked further this time but K-top (another 15 km) seemed closer. On my way to the top, I noticed another runner and I thought ‘he walks like a robot’. That was my sign to look closer at myself. I was still straight up.

I never spend much time at the top and didn’t even see the garlic soup stall…! I had tried to eat and drink at every 7km aid station and also use my own gels, Enerzal and snacks in between. But at some point, I was no longer thirsty and hungry. And how many dates and bananas can you eat? I was able to run a bit towards South Pullu where I was enthusiastically welcomed and told I was strong running in third position. Shortly after that I noticed that I now really started tilting again. Based on last year’s experience, I knew that this was because of low oxygen level, and probably dehydration due to which there are changes in the spinal cord fluid which cause the ‘leaning’. I don’t know if the leanings happen on the stronger or the weaker side of the body. I knew I had enough time in hand to complete the race walking. I didn’t care about finishing third or last. I thought: ‘This time I’m going to collect that finisher’s medal and jacket’. Confident, with optimism and songs in my head, I took off. Soon I could see Shanti Stupa, knowing that it was still far away but that it would come closer with every step I took. I made repeated calculations as the kilometer signs on the road were not in synch with the details that Garmin was giving me. The sun was relentless and where was this Mendak Mor, our last cut off point, a question in my mind. On the road behind me I saw many other runners. I was not the last. I reached Mendak Mor with an hour in hand.

Once you reach Leh, there is this extra loop through the city. I knew I was tilting, a lot. People told me to take it easy. I thought (and probably told them) ‘this is a race, isn’t it?’ and moved on. Someone gave me Coca Cola. I didn’t know him, I opened my mouth and he just poured it in. The garden walls along the road were very helpful to rest a bit. The hotel staff was sitting in front of Reeyork House, my home in Leh. They cheered me on and I tried to lean to the other side pretending that nothing was ‘wrong’ (when I reached the hotel later, they gave me coffee, made me noodles, so it was clear that my theatre act had failed…). When I reached Leh Market, I thought one moment: ‘I don’t want to finish like this’. I knew what it looked like. I told myself to ‘(wo)man up’ and finish ‘the bloody thing’. I don’t think I will be ever cheered on like this again. People shouted my name, applauded, smiled. I saw friends, a placard with my name, I high fived with those who had been standing there for hours. They were so happy and proud.

After the finish, I went straight to a stretcher for a powernap. Apparently, I had finished third. I couldn’t care less. Friends were peeping through the window of the recovery tent. I just waved at them, closed my eyes and only stood up for the award ceremony. The gifts were amazing: finishers shawl, medal and token and then a winners’ shawl, bronze medal and a trophy and prize money….! My main concern was, how to get this to the hotel with those four race bags. The Stride With Girish Bindra group – the loudest in Leh – helped me.

People ask me if I’m ‘okay’, even now, weeks later. I realize that some of them were happy, others proud, worried, inspired, intimidated, felt sorry for me, thought that it must have been painful (it was not). After a few hours of sleep my spine was straight again. The next morning at 7.00 am, I led the warming up for the Athlos shake out run and directly after, I went to the airport to catch my flight back to Mumbai.

A week later I swam Dusk to Dawn, Mumbai Sea Swimmers’ endurance swimming event, in which I completed 23,1 kilometer in its 12-hour race.

(Photographs courtesy – Corina Van Dam)