Bangalore Ultra – Experience the Beast

About little more than 2 weeks ago, we came to know that the Bangalore Ultra edition of 2011 is having a brand new route – few who had done a dry run there said that it was a tough course with lots of twists and ups and downs with no tree cover at all and that if it rains, it could be treacherous because the mud was softer than last year. A2 told me the previous day that the course has less gradient compared to last year. Mid-week before the event date, I checked the weather forecast for Bangalore for the weekends and there was a prediction of a nice and sunny day.


Having done two very tough half marathons in August (at Hyderabad) and Kaveri trail half in September and taken part in the Raj’s 100 kms event in the hot afternoon sun, I was like ready to tackle the toughest marathon event in India. There were few niggles here and there but I guess that is part of a runner’s life.

Last year’s Bangalore Ultra trail was tough in itself but had some little forest cover, but no straight patches of road at all. It was tough on the legs and though I had registered for 37.5 kms I could manage only 25 kms in the end having to throw in the towel due to a double strike of itbs in the left knee plus a back pain. The back pain had in fact surfaced early in the week itself due to running at Juhu beach only a week before the ultra – a monumental folly that. This year also I ran at juhu beach, albeit two weeks before the event and picked up a shin trouble. Well, two weeks was enough time to set things right. But last year’s failure was perennially at the back of my mind and that made me nervous. But one thing I was determined to do and that was to turn around at the end of the second loop.

Well, there I was at 6.00 a.m. at the start of the 37.5 kms event all set and raring to go, it was cold and chilly and there was enough of sunlight to go full blast on a new track and riding my early luck I started at quite a brisk pace keeping only such distance behind the runner ahead of me to see the track for any lurking dangers. I was surprised at the gentle nature of the track because there were quite a few patches that was straight though the soil was loose kicking up some dust. Little after 1.5 kms the route veers off to the left where the road undulates severely before turning left again to the second water station on the route.

Thereafter the route meanders through twists and turns but from 3 to 4 kms it is a straight path until it reaches a gravel path just after 4 kms mark for about 150 metres. Immediately after the gravel path the route turns sharply to the left to a monstrous triple pit which has the hallmark of an ankle breaker and then the water stop is situated. From this point onwards the ultra beast rears its ugly head and it is the most difficult part of the entire route. There are numerous twists and turns at this section for about 2 kms until the 6.25 kms turnaround. There are straight paths interspersed with stones, heavy grass and on a few places monstrous cactus plants that juts out onto the runners’ path threatening to sever the arms of the runner. It is this section of 4 kms to and fro that I consider the most difficult part of the entire ultra. Runners were falling regularly like Windies wickets at the Eden Gardens and there were bruises, cuts, sprains galore. The Ultra was again going to test my will and nerves.

By the time we were returning to the starting point on the first loop the 25 kms and 12.5 kms runners were let loose and veritably they were on a treasure hunt coming in hordes, occupying both sides of the road and threatening to bulldoze everybody else in their path. It was nerve wracking to keep your eyes on the road as well as look up at the runners trying to wrestle and knock you down. I had to holler out to the runners to keep to their side of the road. This went on for about half a kms until there was relative safety.

By the time we had come back to the start point after the first loop the sun was out, so the second loop was going to be difficult, which indeed it proved to be. The demons in the mind started rearing again and tough as it became on the second stretch, negative thoughts started occurring. Doubts whether I can come back for the 3rd loop, whether I should come back, why am I doing this thing, all sorts of negative thoughts started appearing in the brain. I started making a plan – that I would surely cross for the 3rd loop and then start a run-walk-run routine and take it further from there. I remembered that this was a long run practice run for the Mumbai marathon in January and if I miss this one, then surely I am on the backfoot. Plus with the glorious sun at your back, what better practice can you get for the Mumbai marathon. Slowly the demons started disappearing and crushing the negative thoughts from my brain, I turned for the 3rd loop with my left fist pumped up.

By this time, my groins were paining, shins and arms were hurting and by adopting a run-walk-run routine I managed to reach the last cut-off point from where it was only another 6.25 kms to the finish. The distances loomed huge though I was reminding myself that it was only 6 kms to the finish. I was running at all the straight paths and taking it easy at the treacherous ones thereby slowly whittling down the distance. It gave me immense pleasure to see the distances at the billboard mounting from 30.5 to 34.5 etc.

Normally I do not look at my watch at all during any race but here at 36.5 kms I looked at my watch which showed 5.04 hours. I reckoned last kms to take about 10 mins so I should be home by 5.15 hours which was fair enough considering that I had given myself 5 hours to finish this one. Last few metres people were shouting encouragement – “finish strong”. At the entrance to the finish arena there is a small bump so I waited until I crossed that bump and then slowly picked up pace for a few metres and with fists pumping in the air finished my 37.5 kms Bangalore Ultra in a time of 5.14.56 hours. A big leap of faith for me.

This year’s Bangalore Ultra is a tough demanding course and my title says it all – you have to experience the beast in this course – difficult to compare whether this year was tougher than last year but it brings out the best in you. The intensity of my effort was evident in the immediate aftermath of the event, when I could barely walk to the lunch counter, the bus, the hotel and for the next two days was in excruciating pain and discomfort. I had to travel to Chennai by the Shatabdi train that same afternoon and it was a considerable effort to climb the railway steps at Bangalore railway station and even more difficult to get down to the platform.

So, that ends my 8th event of the year and three back to back tough events.

A River Ran out of Eden

James Vance Marshall’s A River Ran out of Eden is a slim but searingly poignant work, set against the stark and unforgiving wilderness of Alaska. Here, the icy expanses and pitiless topography are not merely backdrop but protagonist, shaping, testing, and ultimately imperilling the fragile human lives that dare to inhabit them.

The novel opens with what appears to be an idyll — the self-sufficient existence of Jim, a trapper and hunter, who ekes out a life of quiet dignity with his wife and their young son, Jimmy. Their humble cabin, perched precariously on the margins of the Alaskan wild, is less a home than a tenuous bulwark of civilisation, a fragile filament of warmth against the immense indifference of nature. Marshall, with his unsentimental yet evocative prose, sketches their routines of hunting and trapping, suffusing them with both simplicity and quiet joy.

But the river — simultaneously the novel’s lifeblood and its lurking menace — shifts from benefactor to executioner. A cataclysmic flood, nature’s sudden and merciless upheaval, obliterates the family’s tenuous stability. The narrative pivots from pastoral cadence to existential urgency, as Jim is thrust into a desperate struggle to salvage not only his own life but, more importantly, that of his child, from the river’s annihilating embrace.

Though concise in length, the novel is deliberate in rhythm. Marshall interleaves contemplative stillness with passages of taut, visceral suspense, compelling the reader to apprehend the Alaskan landscape in its simultaneous sublimity and savagery.

At its essence, A River Ran out of Eden is a meditation on human vulnerability before nature’s colossal indifference. The wilderness emerges as an autonomous force — not romanticised, but rendered with unflinching honesty, both dignified and brutal, majestic yet merciless. Survival, Marshall insists, is never triumphal conquest but precarious endurance.

Running parallel is the theme of manhood and paternal obligation. Jim is not lionised as the heroic conqueror of frontier mythos; he is portrayed instead as a fallible man, stripped of illusions, grappling with circumstances beyond his control. His heroism lies not in bravado but in fidelity — in the primal imperative to shield his son even when hope itself seems extinguished. The novel thereby becomes an elegiac hymn to resilience, sacrifice, and the redemptive power of familial bonds.

The river, too, is freighted with metaphor. At once giver and taker, fertile artery and destructive torrent, it mirrors the paradoxical dualities of existence itself. The title, with its Biblical allusion, invokes Eden’s lost innocence: the river “running out” becomes emblematic of humanity’s inevitable expulsion from harmony into the harsh realm of struggle and mortality.

Marshall’s prose is spare yet luminous, eschewing sentimentality in favour of taut, cinematic precision. One can almost hear the feral roar of the floodwaters, feel the glacial seep of cold in marrow and muscle, and confront the awful silence that follows calamity. His psychological acuity ensures that Jim’s terror, resolve, and fleeting despair are rendered with authenticity rather than melodrama.

In scarcely more than a hundred pages, Marshall distils a narrative that is at once elemental and profound: a tale of survival that transcends its setting to become a parable of the human condition. A River Ran out of Eden lingers in the mind as both a gripping adventure and a sobering reflection on man’s tenuous tenure amidst nature’s implacable dominion.

For those drawn to frontier narratives, survival literature, or works that interrogate humanity’s fragile coexistence with the natural world, Marshall’s novel remains an indelible and rewarding read — brief in span, yet vast in resonance. Goodreads 4/5