IAU 100km World Championships: Meet the Indian contenders

“I had trained well for that race and was quite happy with the way it panned out. I realised that I only needed to work on my racing strategy, which I’ve figured out over the last few months," Kumar, 26, says.

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The Indian team comprises nine male and three female runners and includes Amar Singh Devanda and Saurav Kumar Ranjan, who alongside Kumar, helped India to a silver medal finish at the 2023 IAU 100km Asia & Oceania Championships.

Devanda and Ranjan are in the Indian Air Force (IAF) and have been training together for the last few months in Bengaluru. Earlier this year, they started working with the performance team of the sports nutrition brand Enerjiva, who’ve designed their training and strength and conditioning plans, and also monitor their nutrition and recovery. It showed results for Devanda at the IAU 24-hour Asia & Oceania Championship in April, where he won the individual gold while registering a new national record distance of 272.537km.

“That race was important because I had been looking to breach the 270km mark for a long time. It certainly helps to have a training partner in Ranjan and we’ve constantly been pushing each other, even though we follow our own plan. We’ve even managed to put in a few runs on the race course and figured out our pacing strategy, so that will certainly boost our confidence," Devanda, 28, says.

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His 17-week training cycle leading up to race day started out with a weekly mileage of 100km and hit a peak earlier this month when he logged 220km. It included two sessions of tempo and interval runs, another day of strength training and recovery run, a long run on Saturday that increased from three to six hours over time, and an active recovery session.

After taking time off due to a foot injury, Ranjan started training in June and the next month, clocked 7 hours 40 minutes on a 100km run as part of qualification for the world championships. The training plan ended with a six-hour run at the start of November where he ran 85km, which he believes makes it possible for him to target a sub-seven-hour timing.

“Earlier we would look at how other elite athletes were training and then figure out our plan. The systematic schedule has helped me understand the limits of my body and I know I’m getting better," Ranjan, 31, says.

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As part of his preparation, Binay Sah experienced a few setbacks over the last few months. The year started with a personal best of 2 hours 43 minutes over the marathon distance. But in spite of putting in the work for the 264km Spartathlon race in September, he couldn’t run it after suffering a bacterial infection. Even as he resumed training, the poor air quality in Delhi forced him to take a lot of his running indoors.

Over the last few weeks, he’s been travelling to places outside Delhi for his longer runs. For instance, during a 50km race in Kangra in November, he won gold, but what was more important was the additional 10km that he ran as part of training. Sah, who works as a supply chain manager at Adidas, also utilises the time before his lunch break to include stretching, yoga and strength training sessions, while at work.

“The key to cracking these races is just being consistent and disciplined during training, while also ensuring that one doesn’t burnout," Sah, 43, says.Having run 100km races on a number of occasions, Sah believes that the effort is 60% physical and 40% mental and it’s important to break down the entire distance and approach it in segments.

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Ranjan keeps reflecting on his training and why he decided to sign up for these long ultra races in the first place.“The fatigue is more mental and most times, you tend to lose the race in the head and not physically. Almost everyone has run this distance in the past, so you know the pain that it brings. You have to keep reminding yourself about your goal and that is enough motivation to push on," Ranjan says.

In July, Kumar ran 100km in 7 hours 14 minutes to make the cut for the Indian team. But he also realised that he has been overtraining and from there on, he first dropped his weekly mileage to 80km, before increasing it gradually to hit a peak of 160km in November, and then started tapering down his training.

Kumar wants to get his race off to a faster start, looking to cover the first 50km in 3 hours and 15 minutes to meet his target of about 6 hours 40 minutes. While on the run, he will be looking to consume 120-180 calories every 6km, mostly through gels, and hydrate regularly through water and electrolytes.

As the national record holder since 2022, there’s an unsaid pressure that Kumar has to deal with each time he’s at the start line. It will be no different during this time. “I just soak it all in, indulge in positive self-talk and focus on the job ahead. I believe in my training and never doubt myself on what I can achieve," Kumar says.

Shail Desai is a Mumbai-based freelance writer.

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