Randonneuring Mumbai-Valsad-Mumbai 400km AudaxIndia BRM
I wont make it easy on my readers to finish reading this post. Long way to go :D
The Fitness Journey:
My fitness journey started a couple of years ago in 2009 when I started swimming regularly. I thought I should kick it up, when I decided to run my first 21km in 2014. I saw a transformation video of Levent Oz using Freeletics. I was hooked to it and it carved me into the free-athlete I’m today. Along the way I picked up several adventure sports. A nothing good to do friend of mine, Praneeth pushed me into participating in triathlons. I finished an IRONMAN70.3 last year in March. Somehow I just found my calm and peace in this multi-disciplinary sport. I’ll keep writing a few experiences of my fitness journey in the coming posts.
After the Mumbai Marathon of 42.195kms on 21st Jan’18, I was feeling low because of my 5h 22min finish. My slowest marathon finish. Many of the athletes I follow on strava pushed for sub 4h. Accepted, I didn’t train enough and crossing the finish line in and itself was an achievement. But I couldn’t accept this timing. I wanted to come back hard and set a tone for this new year. I set my on eye on the Super Randonneur(SR). A title which you earn after completing a series of 200km, 300km 400km and a 600km at an Audax Parisien approved Brevet. Target locked. There was a 400km ride just a week after marathon, on 27th Jan’18. But I didn’t completely recover from the 42k run and I had literally zero preparation. But I needed it! Badly!!
Previous Long distance riding:
I used to muscle my way through the cycling legs of triathlons and I decided something should change. Late 2017, I bought a Cannondale Caad10 from a friend. Thanks Praneeth and Rudra!! I then signed up with PowaiPedals and went for a few rides to get comfortable with this monster. I love the power delivery on this machine. Good investment in a roadie and a caad!!
Finishing Ironman is on my bucket list and I came to realise it’ll remain a dream unless I improve my cycling splits. One day, PowaiPedals announced a Powai-Igatpuri-Powai endurance ride, 230km, 6500ft Elevation. This event could help me understand the dynamics of a 180k ride for Ironman. I finished it with help from my fellow riders. It was a well organised event by GiantStrakken Powai. Refreshments and support vehicles all the way. That was my first long distance endurance ride. After 80km and 150km, I was counting every km and I was glad it was over. I told myself I will never come back to ride 200+.
But endurance sports are an addiction. The high you get after finishing an event, pushing yourself to the limits you thought were impossible to achieve, the sweet muscle soreness, the forged will power!! You keep dreaming big with time and so I had to go back for more.
The Ride:
Riders assembled at Secret Spice Restaurant in Mulund at 5am. I was late to the event. Every rider was supposed to do a few pre-flagoff checks.
- Hand over a signed waiver document
- Collecting the brevet card to get stamps from check points(Every 100km)
- Bike, helmet, front & rear lights, name and number tags, reflective vest.. what not.
Event Organiser Anil Uchil briefed about the ride and checkpoints. Which I missed! :( I started at about 7am, an hour late. Brevets are time constrained. For any event, you must finish the respective 100km in stipulated times. Irrespective of the route, confusions, personal mistakes, emergencies.
100 Km — 6.5 Hrs | 200 Km — 13.5 Hrs | 300 Km — 20 Hrs | 400 Km — 27 Hrs | 600 Km — 40 Hrs | 1000 Km — 75 Hrs | 1200 Km — 90 Hrs
But these were comfortable pace on a road bike with 15–16 kmph. I kept myself motivated and mentally prepared for the 400km ahead. I was enjoying the nature but mostly worried about the night ride, traffic, accident prone areas, ghats, pollution, slippage and every damn thing that would psychologically restrain me from pedalling forward. I had a bad running nose and my left knee was making weird sounds on uphills. I saw a few familiar faces from PP doing 200 BRM. I then went into a chain of thoughts as to why I’m attempting a 400 first instead of playing safe with the 200. Cursed myself for a while. The sunrise on my right and nice road(NH8) kept me going in an active state.
101km Checkpoint(CP) Charoti:
Charoti after 4hours. My fastest 100k till date :D I didn’t drink much water and had no electrolytes. Bad move!! Quads started cramping a bit. Drank a few glasses of enerzal, ate a banana, stretched a bit and started looking ahead. I came to a cross road where I can go straight and continue to the 200km CP or turn back with a DNF and be satisfied with a personal ride of 200k on strava. Something pushed me towards moving ahead and not turn back :)
My back started to ache from 120km. I knew that this day wasn’t going to be easy. It was 12pm and the sun was being a d**k to me. I debated about taking a break for lunch from 1–3pm and let the heat die down. But the very thought of wasting day light and exerting myself in the night didn’t go well with me. So I rode… Had water and Enerzal every 20mins alternatively. Crossed the Maharashtra border and then Gujarath checkpost. First time I cycled across states. It was scary and pumped up at the same time. By the time I reached the Daman road, things started getting chaotic @150km. Decided to stop for a quick lunch for 45mins but couldn’t find any nice restaurants. Now they’re all written in Gujarati language. Why God Why?!
@170km, I found a nice dhaba, ordered dal kichdi but he bought a masala kichdi. Why would I it eat in such heat? They replaced it with dal and jeera rice. I stretched for a bit, washed dirt and smoke off my face and sat down to feast. I feasted all right!! Informed friends and family about the current status and started for the next 30km. I wanted to rush faster so I can reach 300km CP where I can have a comfortable sleep. But the heat, long ride and sore bums took its toll. I couldn’t sit longer than 5min at a stretch. I needed some rest and stretching but I neglected my body’s demands.
201km CP Valsad:
I was counting every minute to 200km CP. Sugar & Spice Restaurant . Nice of them to have billboards every km. I motivated a fellow rider to just push for the next 8km. Our volunteers were sitting in a cab parked on the side of the Highway waiting for us. I would’ve missed it if it weren’t for others. Got the Brevet card stamped, refilled water, enerzal, 1 banana and turned back at 4:30pm(ride time 9h:30min). 200 done. 200 more to go. Fellow riders stopped at the checkpoint for a short break. But they were experienced in night rides. I just want to crawl into a bed and avoid a night ride at any cost. 2 more hours of sunlight.
I was feeling good till 220km and then the backache was unbearable. There was only one thought going through my mind. Reach 300km CP and then ‘khuda dekhe’!! I was stopping every 20mins. My pace dropped down to 15kmph. I packed a few energy bars for the ride and I was digging through them and cautiously drinking the fluids. Maybe I should’ve kept drinking more. I felt really unease and the traffic was pissing me off on top of everything. I saw a rider on an mtb at his 160km probably. I thought he would barely make it to the 200km CP in time. I have to worry about my own physical state. It was around 7pm and I was at 240km.
Riders were passing me with much higher energy levels. I debated about stopping this ride and taking a bus back home. I was worried about the traffic striking me down. Some drunk guy or uncontrollable vehicle or some rude bus driver? I just didn’t feel this ride was worth pursuing with fear, pain and uncertainty. I cursed the organisers and Indian format of Brevets where you can’t feel secure. Audax India doesn’t collect more funds or sponsorship to provide safety vehicles to riders. But is it worth offering such an event to the community? Are we the daring kind to ride and finish or the foolish kind to accept this life threatening risk? Personal Safety vehicles are allowed en route if they don’t help you other than at the checkpoints. A few riders had their friends and family tail them from a distance. I’ll consider doing this for my next 600km if I ever do it. But somehow I just wanted to make it to the 300km CP and worry later.
The comeback:
Heavy traffic near the Daman route and flyovers during peak traffic scared me. What else could I do other than count every km and every 4 minutes? It was getting hopeless. Rests were getting more frequent. I just wanted to give up now. @160km I saw 2 riders ride past me and another rider trying to catch up with them. They were doing a 25–30 pace. I knew I can’t keep up with them but my current strategy was getting me nowhere. So I started pumping a bit.. It was a terrain with minor ups and down. New strategy. Ride hard on the up hills and just stretch downhill by standing on the pedals. More strain on the knee. But I can take it.. For half the distance. This new strategy was working.. I made sure I kept those riders in sight. At least their blinking taillights.
I was pedalling hard on the uphills. Suddenly I wasn’t worried about the distance. It was a catching up game with my 3m low light, barely visible front LEDs. I crossed the Gujarat border and suddenly things look achievable. But this is not where I should stop. My strategy was to reach 300km by 10pm and sleep till 2–3am. And have 6 hours for the last 100km. With the current strategy, it looks achievable. At 280km, my back and quads were punishing me. More stretching… Running low on electrolytes and water. Just 60–70mins more. I switched off my watch and just kept pedalling. The only way to end this madness was to keep rolling. I stopped by a dhaba at 290km, 10km from the target and sat down. I didn’t want to go any further. Not even the 10kms. Mentally and physically I was exhausted. Maybe I was just mentally stressed from counting the kms and made the last 20–30kms unachievable. But I got back on the saddle and finally reached the 300km CP, Hotel Athithi, Charoti
300km CP Charoti:
Baby, this is what you came for!! I achieved my target. I just wanted to crash on anything concrete with some warmth. I was informed the organisers booked us a few rooms to rest for a couple of hours. Other riders took a shower and changed into something comfortable. I wasn’t in a state to do anything else other than sleep tight. I set up an alarm for 1am, put the phone on charge, ate a small protein bar and curled myself into a foetus position to compensate for the cold. I was feeling cold as I couldn’t get a blanket but 3 hours of sleep felt amazing. I wanted to sleep for 2 more hours as the thought of going back into the cold and riding sent shivers down my spine. But somehow I lifted my cycle, got some hot water refill and tried sitting on the saddle. I couldn’t. I decided to get a skin replacement on my buttocks if things turned south. So I dared and started riding. My hands were almost freezing.. I was coughing to flush the cold air out of my lungs. Somehow I just pedalled hard and kept going harder.
My body was quite warm in 5minutes and buttocks were back on the saddle with some resistance but somehow the heat flowing through my body let me sit on the saddle and be there for a while.. After a few uphills, I was riding with joy. I didn’t want to move my ass off the seat-post because I was afraid I can’t sit back on it. Uphills and downhills I just kept pushing myself for about 15mins.. Then I was just enjoying the ride. No more worries about the CP stages.. traffic.. I let myself go and kept pedalling. Because at this stage, I knew I would definitely finish with 7.5 hours in hand and only a 100kms to go. At one point of time.. I felt as if I was flying compared to the nightmare I went through from 230–300kms. But as they say,
Good times don’t last so enjoy your time!
~325kms done. Nothing would stop me now. Alas! my small front-light died. I didn’t charge it during the rest period and it was powered on for 7 hours now. I’m not a tea coffee kind of person but I stopped by a tea stall and had a glass of tea to keep myself warm while it was charging. I didn’t want to waste much time but at the same time didn’t want to ride without knowing if I’m riding into potholes/snakes. So after a 30min charge, I started riding again. This time knowing well not to look at the distance. This is where I learnt the biggest lesson of my fitness journey.
It’s our MIND which we need to train more than the BODY. As soon as I stopped counting every km, my mind was stress free. My brain wasn’t going through the suffering mode. I was riding for fun.. Not worried about how much more to go and how much I’ve endured till now. I did some of my fastest paces at 350km and climbed the ghats without rest for 2 hours. I seriously recommend this to any of your future endurance/ultra endurance rides.
I decided to take a short break every 90minutes or so but never to look at the distance. I started feeling body pains at about 360km mark. I didn’t want to stop for a break this close to the target. I had almost 4 hours for 40km. No brainer. I stopped for a small break when my lights went off again. I used a small emergency tail light for the time being and was charging the head-lights while riding near damn slow. I reached thane toll and then waited till my lights were charged for 20mins.. I rarely used my front-lights from then on as the highway from here was lit with streetlights. I had no excuses so I pushed through Virar and Vasai.
Just around the corner:
After the descent from Vasai ghat, a truck capsized and I was stuck in traffic. I had a lot of time but I was afraid of any unfortunate emergency situations. Took me about 20mins of walking to move through the traffic. 30kms to go and I took some rest. Loaded with protein bars and Enerzal. Stretched a bit and started riding again. But was stuck at traffic near Ghodbunder ghat. Stuck again for 20–30mins. Lifted the cycle on this ghat as no one left any walking space. As a walked down the ghat, at the foothill, another truck was capsized. Shit can go wrong sometimes. Lucky for us, the traffic police shut down the route. We passed the crash and there were no other vehicles en route. Reached Thane. Just 10kms from here.
I was motivating my fellow rider as he too was suffering from a backache. We kept pushing each other till 5kms to go. I was worried I’ll have a puncture and ruin the ride. Don’t know why I was thinking about it. Maybe it’s because I just wanted to finish at any cost. 1km to go. Now there’s no stopping. I’ll ride a flat from here worst case. Reached Secrete Spice @Mulund. It was an unmanned Checkpoint. So had to get a slip from an ATM as proof of time. After taking a couple of pics, sending them to the organiser, I sat down and started sinking in the achievement. I couldn’t feel most of my body parts. But I survived. A mammoth of a 400 was tamed in 24h 42mins!
Sleep.. just sleep.. and then get even more sleep doing nothing else. Lucky it was a Sunday!!
Final Thoughts:
I don’t think I would risk my life in India especially for an event unless I have a support vehicle. But Super Randonneur(SR) is now only a 600km away. I can happily suffer through a 300km and 200km for it though :D :P
Next scheduled ride is a 600km Mumbai-Lonavala-Pune-Mahabaleshwar-Satar-Pune-Lonavala-Mumbai. The crown jewel of the hardest routes Mumbai Brevets can throw at you :|
PS: Hope I didn’t bore y’all with such a long personal reflection. I’ll come back with more :D
PPS: I went on to finish my 600km ride a month later for an SR title. 3 months later attempted and finished an IRONMAN Triathlon in Italy.
