Satara: Gruesome yet beautiful, challenging but scenic. This is how most runners at Satara Hill Half Marathon — that has earned the sobriquet, Ultra Half Marathon, due to the punishing elevation — on Sunday described the nearly 21.1-kilometre track on the Sahyadri range.
But, this is no race for casual runners since the track does not give you much time to warm up.
From the police parade ground at 6 a.m., it briefly went through narrow city roads before turning towards the hills. The uphill run started even before we hit the 4-km mark. To think at that moment that the finish line is still 17 km away was mentally exhausting.
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Soon after the uphill stretch began, many realised that they were not prepared for it. So began the brisk walk.
The uphill phase stretched up to 7 km; after that there was a 2-km stretch considered relatively easy by Satara standards. At around 6.5-km mark, there was a natural waterfall for the dehydrated souls.
Incidentally, when this writer was struggling to maintain his pace around the 5-km mark, the race leaders from Ethiopia were returning with long leaps. They were almost through with the hills in less than an hour.
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The sight made the amateur runners scream: ‘ kaaye khaate hey lokk ?’ (what do these people eat?)
If the 7-9 km stretch was easy, the next phase up to the U-turn at 10.5-km mark was cumbersome.
The real downhill stretch started at the 14-km mark and that’s where runners accelerated to make up for lost time.
At Satara, the timings matter. If you cross the finish line before 8 a.m., you are a Hill Champion; those between 8 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. are Hill Conqueror. Those who finish after 8:30 a.m. is a Hill Challenger — the one the writer could manage in his maiden attempt.
Interestingly, the event had its share of quirky elements.
There was a couple dressed in traditional Maratha attire running with a saffron flag (Satara was the erstwhile capital of the Maratha kingdom). Also there was a runner with a Bluetooth speaker.
Then there was Deepuk Kanal who ran the entire stretch backwards with an Indian flag in his hand. He finished the hill run in 3:38 hours. Incidentally, he had completed the Mumbai half marathon in January by running sideways.
The support team was perfect with adequate water stations. There were volunteers with pain relief sprays, glucose biscuits, banana, orange and salt.
To keep the runners hydrated, the organisers had created artificial rain and jet sprays at a couple of points.
This flagship event of Satara brought out the best of the city. A runner forgot his bib in a rickshaw but the driver came all the way to his hotel to give the bib without which he could not have participated.
There was no dearth of school students with their bands to cheer the runners. Among the locals was a person dressed as Shivaji Maharaj along with his confidante Raiba.
Last year, the run entered the Guinness Book for ‘Most people in a mountain run - Single mountain’. But, the sixth edition of the run on Sunday is likely to cross the last year’s 4,000-mark in number of participants.