Kaveri Trail Marathon - A tough trail running

It's running...why does it needs to be so complicated??? I remember thinking that way before I was into running mania :-). Well with all the Jack daniel's running fundas its getting complicated a bit, how about making it some more complex? doing it in a rough trial? yes, that is the Kaveri Trail Marathon (KTM), a picturesque but tough trail marathon conducted in Srirangapatnam.When I first saw the news letter from runners for life regarding KTM, it read with the caption "it's tough, are you", that created interest to learn more about it. yeah it was running at kaveri trails...wow that was exciting and I registered for it. Soon the guys from infa runners group also started registering..yeah finally we were three..myself, puru and pattu confirmed for the run, but puru had to dropout last minute. Hope to see more infaites joining KTM next year...

On saturday evening 10pm Myself, pattabhi alias pattu and his cousin (Dinesh who works for mindtree) left for srirangapatna in pattu's car, well the plan was to stay at pattu's uncle's place in mandya and then leave for srirangapatna the next day early morning since we had registered for 10k and it was supposed to start by 9am, and all went on as per the plan. Sunday morning by 7am we left mandya and reached fortview resort @ srirangapatna where the runners were supposed to assemble and bussed to start point at ranganatittu. We saw the busses were getting full so we enquired if we can drive ourselves to the start point and they said yes we could do that. but by then we're not told that 10k startpoint was 15km apart from ranganatittu, we reached the start point of 20k and waited there for 20 min doing some warmup activities.,there was about 10 min to the race start we're told by a volunteer that we were at wrong startpoint and need to travel 15km to race start, there were other 10-15 folks with us who were also for 10k...what the heck it's not our fault? but not having much choice we all got on to our car's and started a rally :-) yes thats correct rally to run (a value added adventure, do we go in search of adventures or it just happens? :)..I could see a tata safari zipping thru the rough roads..,following it was pattu's santro and then other folks behind us...yes we did it in 8 minutes and reached the race start before 2 min exact :-)...soon the race started before we could relax...yes that's how it has to be right?

As we started the run, the scenic beauty of kaveri canal started taking on us, I was admiring the nature god's beauty...it was amazing. But not too far as the terrain along the route was getting difficult and with the temperature rising it was really getting tough, we kept the normal pace and decided we will go slow but not do pitstops. After around 2-3 km the density of the runners came down and we could see only handfull of runners along the route, there were no crowd around to cheer the runners but the farmers along the route were smiling at us, I could imagine what they though in mind - " are these guys crazy to come all the way to run here? " :-). There were people running for challenge, running for excitement and as usual some of them doing ramp show :-). It was definately not an easy run, the trail with lots of roots, ups and downs, creek jumping (not rock climbing though) and most importantly the temperature. We had little difficulty finding the distance mark and water bottles were not availiable so frequently , I don't want to get into details on that now.,hopefully will have better in ultra marathon.

At the end of 10km I realised there is no finish line and not one volunteer sited around, and my GPS tracker ticking 10km+, finally after running further .5km we could see finish line with big gang of vounteer and visitors crowd there to welcome and cheer us. Yes it is 10.5Km in total, we completed the run with not so exciting timing of 70-80 min, but considering the climate and trail its fine:-).

Soon after the run we just plunged in to the kaveri canal and played with waters for few mintutes before we had lunch and drove back to bangalore at a 2 hr relaxed pitstop at mysore road cafe coffee day. With pattu driving, dinesh dozed off and myself busy with notepad on my cell phone writing this blog :)

Overall, I was happy with our performance and the learned lessons to improve upon next time!!.

Cheers
Manjunath

Factfile:

In the historic town of Srirangapatnam, on the banks of the river Kaveri, an ever-growing group of runners meets every year to run their hearts out. The Kaveri Trail Marathon (KTM) is a picturesque but tough trail marathon conducted in Srirangapatnam. It’s an event that is slowly and steadily gaining popularity among long distance runners in South India. With a canal from the river Kaveri flowing right next to the trail throughout the route, it is one of the most amazing trail routes to run in Karnataka. But the humidity and the heat of the area also make it a very tough route to run.
Venue: Srirangapatnam, near Mysore
Distances: 10k/ 21k/ 42k

Organised by: http://www.kaveritrailmarathon.com/

Nearest places to visit: Raganatittu bird santury, balamuri falls & mysore KRS dam.