The 122-km Silk Route Ultra has everything that pushes you to your limit, especially when you are running in the challenging conditions of Ladakh. Only a select few runners from across the world make it to the start line, and if that isn’t enough to tell you about the gruesome nature of the race, each runner has to run for around 10 hours in pitch darkness, in sub-zero temperatures, across the raw, rugged mountains of the trans-Himalayan range. The race starts from Kyagar Village, around 117 km from Leh.
The SRU is currently the Ladakh Marathon’s most extreme ultra race.
Since joining the Army, I have won many podiums… “Last year I won this race, Silk Route Ultra, and after that I did a lot of runs. There’ll be competition. And other people who… the Ladakh runners, they’re also practising well. “I don’t think about that – not at all. I don’t think about the medical aspect at all. You just have to give your best. “Running, I used to do since school time, sir. But as a professional… as a good runner, whatever… I learned everything after coming to the Army, sir. “If we control the pressure, then it will be very good in the game. If you go into the game taking pressure, then that game can get spoiled,” he added. “From here in the starting, my pace remains normal. Then after that, when incline comes… I slow down my pace a bit, and in between I run, jog, run, jog… like an interval. “A marathon runner and an ultra-distance runner both have a lot of differences, and the training for both is very different. In ultra-distance running, your endurance should be very good, and even more so, your mindset. It’s all mindset. If your mind is that strong, and you have to prepare for the worst. We shouldn’t think about an easy situation. You have to think of the worst. So it’s all mindset, I think. You have to prepare your mindset for long-distance running. Marathons have a big role of strength; their training is different, you have to work a lot on speed. So I think that’s the difference between the two. I think it hasn’t even been a month. This will be my third SRU, and in Ladakh, I always need an excuse to come. So I was looking for this, and let’s see, hope for the best, how it goes,” she added.
So I take that same pace up to around 30 kilometres, sir. And recently, I did the Kanyakumari-to-Karakoram 5,000 km. Because this year, look, last year’s Silk Route winner is here, and before that, another Silk Route winner is here too, “There’s a little pressure. So that gives me quite a lot of benefit,” he said. Because you are already running, and shifting doesn’t take much time, actually,. Because i’m in a recovery zone, and it’s been advised that I do not go for long running. Because it is very close to my heart, i’m recovering, but I told them, let me go, I’ll go easy, let me finish this run.
Everyone… seeing all of them, they’re also practising well, so the competition will be good and tough,” Nawang told Hindustan Times. No issues with the medical, no taking risks, and you shouldn’t even stress about it – just focus on that,” he said. After coming to the Army, I learned a lot,” Twesang told Hindustan Times Digital. Just what you need to work on is mindset,” she said.
“Of course, strategy, you work with strategy. Same way I also set a target for myself that if I have to finish in 18 hours or 19 hours, then according to that, how many hours before the cut-off we need to reach. Because when you set a target that we have to finish our run in this many hours, you keep a target at every stage that we need to reach by this time.
So I think that strategy is always there for every athlete,” she said.
