Interesting piece about silklister Sumanth Cidambi. Congrats Sumanth,
and have an extra beer to celebrate. :)
Udhay
http://www.livemint.com/2011/05/05201740/Desert-runner.html
Desert runner
The first Indian to complete a seven-day, 250km-long desert trail in the
Chilean Atacama, one of the toughest endurance races in the world,
shares his experience
Rudraneil Sengupta
In March last year, Sumanth Cidambi, CFO with a Hyderabad-based company,
received an email from a friend that simply said “game for a run?” It
also had a link to the website of possibly the world’s most challenging
running event, the 4Deserts—a series of four 250km self-supported desert
ultramarathons, each run over seven days, that include the Atacama in
Chile, the Sahara in Egypt, the Gobi in China, and Antarctica.
Cidambi, who picked up running in 2005 after being diagnosed with
diabetes, quickly found an aptitude and passion for the sport that went
far beyond just health concerns. From struggling to finish even a
kilometre in 2005, he was jostling with other competitors at the
starting line of the Mumbai half-marathon in 2006. A full marathon in
2007 was a natural progression. Racing through almost the entire country
of Chile on the driest, most brutal desert on the planet though was an
exponential leap.
“I spent a couple of months thinking about it and researching the race,”
says Cidambi, “and then in August 2010 I signed up for it as a 40th
birthday gift to myself.”
High and dry: (clockwise from top) Cidambi at the Atacama ultra with
volcanic peaks in the background; negotiating a rocky climb and at the
finishing line at San Pedro. Photographs courtesy: RacingThePlanet
High and dry: (clockwise from top) Cidambi at the Atacama ultra with
volcanic peaks in the background; negotiating a rocky climb and at the
finishing line at San Pedro. Photographs courtesy: RacingThePlanet
Cidambi, who already had a daily 10km running schedule, began scaling up
his training for the extreme race immediately. For the next six months,
Cidambi turned the guest bedroom in his house into a supply and
equipment depot, woke every morning at 3.30, ran for 2 hours, did
strength training and stretching exercises for another hour, before
returning home and leaving for work by 8.30. For his wife Nandita and
their year-old son Atri, this crazy schedule meant tailoring all their
activities around it.
Nandita began a blog called The Runner’s Wife to write about her
experience. “…all those missed moments of togetherness doing simple
stuff like having a cup of tea together in the morning or staying late
watching a movie on the telly, it is almost like I have loaned my
husband to someone else in this whole period.” Nandita wrote on her blog
during this period. Nandita, a doctor specializing in nutrition, played
a crucial role in Cidambi’s training; managing his strict and
complicated daily caloric requirements, and sourcing the specialized
running shoes, equipment and supplements through friends and family
returning to India from foreign countries.
By the end of six months of training, which included running the 2011
Mumbai Marathon, Cidambi was comfortably running 25km a day, and 35km on
Saturdays.
The race
On 2 March 2011, Cidambi flew from Bangalore to Santiago de Chile,
before finally arriving at San Pedro de Atacama, a small sun-bleached
town on the northern edge of the great Atacama desert. Cidambi spent two
days walking around and acclimatizing at San Pedro, which is surrounded
by volcanic mountains, lagoons and archaeological sites dating back as
far as 800 BC.
On 5 March, Cidambi left San Pedro with the other 109 competitors,
including 42-year-old housewife Michelle Kakade from Pune, an
ultramarathoner and mother of two, for Camp 1, tucked in between high
canyon walls. They were the first Indians to compete in the Atacama
ultramarathon.
“Despite some last-minute-butterflies-in-the-stomach syndrome, I was
quite calm and meditative,” Cidambi says.
He went to sleep early under a sky ablaze with fist-sized stars.
The next morning at 8, the race began. The stunning landscape of sand
dunes, rocky climbs, bare mountains, canyons and volcanoes gave Cidambi
the motivation he needed.
“Running is a solitary sport— you have to push yourself, fighting
blisters, nausea, heat and dryness,” says Cidambi. “Ever so often I
stopped and breathed in deeply, and found inspiration from the
incredible views.”
The temperature soared to above 40 degrees Celsius in the daytime, and
dropped to around 5 at night. Pink flags marked the race route, through
breathless climbs and pounding descents.
Stage 2 began with an 8km run through a deep river canyon, and Cidambi
emerged soaking wet after multiple river crossings. Next was an old
mountain road and an ancient footbridge believed to be of Inca vintage.
“The next 9.6km saw us climb up and up and up,” says Cidambi. “Great
scenery, but I wasn’t in a frame of mind to appreciate. The incline was
really steep, at times almost 45-60 degrees.”
At the end of the stretch was a ridge-line with a volcanic mountain
range dominating the horizon, with wispy smoke rising from their peaks.
Cidambi then tumbled down a 1,000ft sand dune at an incline of about 60
degrees.
“I earned my first blister that day.”
For the last 26km of the day’s run, Cibambi, running all alone, spotted
just one tree. One of the hardest stages of the race was the Salt Flats,
the fourth day of the race—a 43km stretch with 20km of rough, crusty salt.
“I don’t even remember how I managed to complete this stretch,” says
Cidambi. “But by the end of it my legs were hurting very badly after
pounding through the sharp, jagged salt plain.”
But Day 5, a 73.6km run appropriately called “The long march”, was even
worse. By then Cidambi’s blistered and sore feet were ready to give up,
he had gone without eating for two days (the untested freeze-dried food
he was carrying did not agree with him), surviving on soup, carb powder,
water and antacids.
“The dry desert heat was brutal,” Cidambi says, “and there was no shade
anywhere. I was hobbling for the most part given my bad legs from the
previous day’s run and at one point almost felt like giving up.”
Six kilometres of Stage 5 passed along a fenced-off minefield, a result
of a border dispute between Chile and Argentina, with glow sticks
marking out a safe route.
“The key at all times was to stay positive,” says Cidambi. “I never gave
in to despair out of loneliness or exhaustion, and always held on to
good thoughts.”
On the morning of 12 March, after seven days in the Atacama, Cidambi ran
towards the finish line at the San Pedro town square waving the Indian flag.
He became the first Indian to complete the Atacama Crossing in the
eight-year-old history of the race. Eighty-seven other competitors,
including Kakade, finished the race. “The feeling of elation and pride I
felt is indescribable. ‘Being first’ was merely an optional extra,”
Cidambi says. “At the race, we had several first-timers, sharing mutual
hopes and fears. We helped each other and were helped by those who were
running in such events for the second or third time. It was like being
part of a large family.”
Cidambi then went straight to the food counter and ate 10 large slices
of pizza, washed down with three cans of coke. His first “real” meal in
a week.
Carry on luggage
Cidambi lugged an 11kg backpack through the self-sustained race
•30-litre Mountain Marathon backpack, Marmot sleeping bag
•Petzl Tikka 2 Headlamp (35-40m range), compass, knife/multi-tool,
whistle, sunglasses
• Thermolite survival bivvy (a thin, warming 200g blanket)
•Sunscreen, lip screen, blister kit, medicines, toilet wipes
•Red flashing LED safety light
• Mountain Hardwear jacket, CW-X shorts/tights/underwear (meant to
support key running muscles and featuring quick sweat-drying technology)
• Inov-8 rocklite shoes (a multi-terrain shoe that can handle wet rock,
loose rock, sand and shale)
• Cap, fleece hat and iPod
•Freeze-dried food such as veg ‘tikka’ and rice for seven days, Hammer
Nutrition range supplements such as Sustained Energy (slow-releasing
carbohydrates) and electrolyte capsules
• Water bottles (2.75 litre)
Cidambi spent roughly Rs 4 lakh on the race, including the $3,300
(around Rs 1.46 lakh) registration fee, and Rs 1 lakh for return airfare
(Bangalore-Paris-Santiago) and gear.
[email protected]
Dry run
The Atacama Crossing is the first ultramarathon in the 4Deserts series.
The others are:
Gobi March
26 June-2 July
Start and finish: Urumqi, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region
Temperatures will reach a maximum of 45 degrees Celsius. The ancient
city of Gaochang, a key point on the Silk Road dating back to 1 BC,
falls en route.
Registration:$3,300 (around Rs 1.46 lakh)
Sahara Race
2-8 October
Start and finish: Pyramids of Giza, Cairo
Competitors will cross the Valley of the Whales, the remnants of an
ancient sea that contains fossils believed to be whales with legs that
died 40 million years ago. Temperatures reach a maximum of 50 degrees
Celsius.
Registration: $3,300
The Last Desert (Antarctica)
The final part of the series has not been scheduled yet for 2011, but
usually happens in November. Competitors pass near vast penguin
rookeries, fur seals and spectacular ice shelves and glaciers. Entry is
by invitation only, extended to those who have completed at least two of
the other races.
Information courtesy www.4Deserts.com
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((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))
