Nandi Hills Run - 20K

So after a lot of email conversations in RFL group's mailing list we finally decided to go in for the Nandi hills run on Saturday and were expected to meet at 5.20AM at GKVK. That means I had to get by 4AM and so I set the alarm for 3.45AM as I had to depart from Koramangla. My roomie Biswa pulled out as he hasn't been running for two weeks now so I decided to go solo. After snooozing the alarm twice I was up by 4AM and left home by 4.30AM. I haven't been riding my motor bike so early for quite a while and reached GKVK by 5.10AM and since I did not see anyone near the gate I decided to go to the Ganesh temple inside. Just then I bumped into Jagdeesh and we decided to wait near the gate. Rajat and co were there right on dot at 5.20AM and doc wanted to leave immediately. But soon we were joined by many and I decided to leave my bike at GKVK and caught up with Meghna and her Hubby's Honda Civic (Many Thanks to them). We then proceeded towards Nandi hills and just as we were about to reach the base Rajat's car started to produce some strange noise and we realised it had to do with the tyres. Then a jack was fixed and with so many expert views flowing it turned out to be a very small pebble that was producing that strange noise.

After an eventful start we finally took off by 6.40AM and the weather was perfect. After some quick stretching and my fancy blue colored Gatorade bottle in my hands we were all up and running. I personally had a good conversation with Jagdeesh who also happens to be from the same company I work for. Soon we were joined by Rajat's cousin and we were threesome running the grueling uphill and started off at a very slow pace. There was so much to talk and as we moved 1000 meters (ft?) above sea level we could see clouds all around and occasionally bikes and car passing by. It was 7.5K uphill and we finally manged to reach the top in around 1 hour 20 minutes. Very poor by my standards but it was okay. Downhill was like a treat and we wanted to be doubly careful as it would hurt more down the hill. I was just clicking my camera randomly here and there to catch the moments. I could see lot of bikers (cyclists) also taking up the hill with Madhu also cycling with them. Soon I joined Meghna and her hubby and then I jammed into their pace to finish the first loop and the feeling to complete to 21K was lingering and we were for sure going for another 5K overall. Rajat's cousin and I decided to go now and the sun was now shining real hard. Jagdeesh also joined us in for a while but I'm actually astounded with his grit and he has been running for over an year just to do the Badrinath trek. In fact Jagdeesh and I will probably be doing a GKVK run soon and some treks ahead in May-June. May be I'll go to Skandagiri (Kalvar Betta) with him sometime very soon in May as well.

I've met so many new faces and its hard to remember their names and some faces whom I've seen in their blogs (Manoj Bhatt for example). Finally after more than 3 long hours I called it a day and thanks to some Rajat's energy bars in his car trunk I was more than charged up now for the rest of the day. Soon we were dropped back to GKVK and then Jagdeesh dropped me near to my bike and by end by noon I was back home. Watched a movie "Into the wild" for over an hour and a half and couldn't take it anymore and decided to hit the sack just around 3PM and now up fresh and ready for the cycle trip tomorrow.

So another weekend run and a new route. Until then, keep running boys !

PS: You can peek into some peeks at my Picasa page.