Why marathons are no longer enough for endurance runners

The Solang Skyultra calls itself the “race that eats your ego”. It’s a 100km run over two days in the mountainous terrain of Solang Valley in Manali. The run has an elevation gain of 7,350m. The temperature varies between 0-25 Celsius degrees while runners navigate glaciers and mountain streams.

“It’s most challenging. It’s also beautiful,” says Arun Nayak, a Mumbai-based orthodontist.

Nayak found his “upper limit” in Solang because the race is essentially a combination of five three-day treks into one 32-hour run. In his first attempt, he hit a bit of bad weather; in his second, at 82km (and 26 hours), he had to stop. At the end, he had 18km (and 6 hours) left, but no strength to do it.

It’s a miss that rankles, which Nayak is determined to set soon. This is a trait common to ultra-runners who refuse to be defeated by distances, thwarted by time or stopped by the elements in an attempt to see how far they can push their bodies.

Nayak, who has done a 100km in Kutch besides several other ultras and has an India Book of Records entry for maximum number of floors climbed (2,963 in a little over 21.5 hours, completed during the covid-19 lockdown), belongs to a burgeoning bunch of distance runners who have progressed from running mere marathons (42km) and are now looking for other challenges, which are distances above 50km and going up to 300km (which is like running seven marathons). The progression shows in numbers—of participants, of events, interest and enthusiasm.

The added benefit of ultras is that some are trail runs, like Solang, which are held not in cities (road runs) but amid nature. The challenges include running in the dark, through weather extremes, battling self-doubt and hallucinations, all of it while making personal sacrifices.

A few years ago, regular runners of the Khardung-la Challenge (KC), considered one of the toughest races because of the high altitude, badgered race organiser Chewang Motup Goba to do more. The chairperson of High Altitude Sports Foundation of Ladakh, founder and organiser of the Ladakh Marathon besides KC, added a Silk Route Ultra (SRU), which grew the number of total participants from 11 in 2012 to close to its upper limit of 300 in 2024.

While the KC is 72km—with about 60km of the race run at above 14,000ft—the SRU is an additional 50km long, starting at Nubra Valley at 10,000ft at 7pm a day before the start of the KC. SRU participants run through the entire night and then join KC runners by 3am. Both races have a finish rate of about 50%—a testament of their difficulty.

In the first edition of KC, Chewang had no entries—he had to coax his ice-hockey team to participate. In 2025, 311 runners registered, 281 started, including 34 women. This year, both races (to be held in September) were sold out in a day. The organisers had to open a wait list, which got sold the same evening. “Many who have run the SRU a few times want a bigger challenge,” says Chewang in response to whether he would add even tougher races. “Longer distance is tough, but tougher is running in thin air. Fuel to the body is oxygen, which thins at altitude.”

GO LONG, GO FAR

When Vishwas Sindhu started The Hell Race, which hosts a series of endurance events including Solang Skyultra, in 2015, the name came easily to him. “When you do one of these runs, at some point you think ‘what am I doing or what the hell is this’,” he says. “When one is entering a Hell Race, the person should feel a transformation, should feel like they pushed their boundaries.”

Hell Race conducts several events, including Red Stone Ultra (in the National Capital Region), White Sand Ultra (Rann of Kutch), Goa Ultra, The Border (Jaisalmer) which is one of the flattest 100-mile (road) races in India. Solang gets about 250-300 runners, says Sindhu, because trail running is less common in India compared to road running, due to access.

There is a widening community of runners with better knowledge of training, shoes, nutrition, hydration and access to coaches. There’s maturity and inclusiveness in the field. “In the earlier days, we would have one runner with 1,000 miles under his belt and he would be treated as God,” says Sindhu. “Now, there are so many runners and they are willing to share knowledge.”

A majority of ultra-runners are amateurs, people with day jobs. A smaller percentage are coaches and professionals. Of the 1,200 entries for The Border last edition, 250 were women—a 20-25% ratio and growing—compared to the first edition that had one female among 22 runners in 2018.

The first edition of Tuffman’s 24-hour stadium run in Chandigarh in 2019 had 26 runners for the 24-hour run, 12 for 100km. By 2021, the number had increased to 47 for the 24-hour run and 48 for 100km. Though the numbers dropped in 2025, after Tuffman lost its Athletics Federation of India (AFI) accreditation, the eighth edition of the 24-hour stadium run will be held this weekend in Delhi. “This running culture is growing and we are not the only contributors,” says Jai S. Mangla, whose father Sanjay founded Tuffman.

Some race directors, including Sindhu—there are about 50 well-known ultras in India, with 20 trail and 30 on road—got together in Bengaluru last year to formulate a plan for a governing body. Though ultra-running comes under the aegis of the AFI, the directors felt that trail running requires additional attention.

NO PAIN, NO GAIN

Kalam Singh Bisht was at a race in Oman in 2025 when he encountered a section of the mountain so difficult that it had to be climbed with a harness. It felt about 200m high with an incline of almost 90 degrees.

It’s surprises like these that keep Bisht, who won the Great Mawla Ghaati Ultra Trail (100 miles in 34 hours) in 2025, interested in the sport. Born and raised near the mountains of Uttarakhand, Bisht’s longest is 248km in 34 hours in the Backyard Ultra World Satellite Championships in Australia. He favours trail running to the road because “you get to be in nature,” he says. “There’s no pollution, repetitive roads or traffic. On trails, you see something new, greenery, forest, wild life, river crossing, mountains, small trails, no trails…”

The Deccan Ultra, held in the Sahyadri range of mountains near Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, is another adventurous but brutal race with a strict qualifying standard. Around 200 runners enter every year with roughly half finishing. About 30% of participants are women.

Sandeep Kumar, whose Grand Indian Trails conducts the Deccan Ultra among others, says the run is brutal because the territory in Kalsubai wildlife sanctuary in Maharashtra is rare. The weather keeps changing. Steep downhills with pebbles can cause a runner to slip. The trail goes through deep jungle with the added variable of encountering wildlife. There are climbs, streams, barren lands, areas with some bushes but no trees. Midday temperature could reach 45 degrees Celsius, and drop to 8-10 degrees at night.

“But adventure is about the surprises,” Kumar says. “Reflexes and cognitive ability are involved. You get to see the sunrise and the sunset. You can feel mesmerised, happy and sad.”

Most long-distance runners are looking for bigger challenges, says Nayak, while some could be driven by the fear of missing out or scratching something off a bucket list.

Shashank Pundir, a marathon coach who once ran 100km each for three successive days in Gurugram, calls running “pure bliss”. “Ultras are to enjoy nature, to be with yourself, to introspect. When I started running ultras, I could listen to my body, footsteps, I felt so connected with myself.”

Nayak feels differently though. “I don’t get any creative ideas like other people,” he says laughing. “Some stray thoughts may come to mind but no mind-blowing ideas. I am mostly thinking where the next stage is.”

Some runners crave the adrenaline, the goosebumps. Others for calmness, inner connections. “People want to escape the rat race,” says Kumar. “I feel like this is my identity and it’s not comparable. Even through the risk, there is adventure in the moment.

“It’s a comprehensive feeling of completeness.”

Arun Janardhan (@iArunJ) is a Mumbai-based journalist who covers sports, business leaders and lifestyle.