How one man's dream of a marathon atop the Himalayas came true

A 222-km non-stop run, starting at 13,500 ft and going up to 18,380 ft above sea level, in temperatures that would oscillate between 40 and minus 6 degrees Celsius. And the air so thin that the oxygen content would be 40 percent less than what it is at sea level. Impossible, swore everyone who listened to Rajat Chauhan plan for La Ultra - The High. Even ultra runners dubbed the run doomed. All of them were proved wrong.

Thirty-five-year-old Chauhan’s love affair with the Himalayas had begun long ago, during the years he spent in school and college there. After his Masters in sports and exercise medicine, Chauhan got hooked to running, and naturally, his feet itched to run on top of the Himalayas. He ran from Manali to Rohtang La with a friend and found it exhilarating. And when another friend threw him the idea for an organised run, he found it irresistible. Thus was born La Ultra.

This endurance run, the toughest in the world, is on its second edition this year. Seven runners from across the globe have been chosen for the event starting August 11. Each of them has a crew of four to five. They are to run 222km in 60 hours. The course crosses Khardung La (18,380ft) down to Leh, and then goes up again to Tanglang La (17,583ft), finishing at Morey Plains. “This is easily the Tour de France of running," quips Chauhan, the race director. His voice brims with theconfidence of a successful pilot run last year. The motley bunch who gathered near Khardung village early on the morning of July 24, 2010, had no amateurs: American Bill Andrews, 58, was a veteran of more than 100 ultra-marathons; fellow American Molly Sheridan, 54, and a
mother of three, had run over 30 ultra-marathons; and Englishman Mark Cockbain, 38, had done the Spartathlon, a 153-mile non-stop run from Athens to Sparta five consecutive times.

If Chauhan had any doubts, he kept them to himself. But the odds didn’t seem to be in his favour. The Delhi-Manali roads had seen flooding some days earlier. An army man, who was helping Chauhan with the run, had a 100ft fall in the Spiti Valley, his colleague was killed when a boulder fell on him. The Indian army adventure wing stationed in the region was convinced that civilians attempting the run were suicidal. And Cockbain had
arrived just five days before the run, too short a time for acclimatisation. Heights of above 5,000ft cause hypoxia, reduction of oxygen supply to tissue. Any ascent beyond 8,000ft can trigger High Altitude Pulmonary Edema.

It’s tough enough  to staying alive at those heights, let alone running. 

High altitude love
Bill Andrews had mild chest pain before the start, and had to go to a hospital for an ECG and other tests. But he was an experienced runner. So when he chose to run, Chauhan didn’t protest. Andrews had made a pact with Sheridan to run together for the first 42km. They had another plan too, a romantic one. They had fallen in love with each other. They had bought rings near the Taj Mahal, and decided to seal their relationship at Khardung La.

Ten kilometres into the run, Sheridan started to throw up. That didn’t stop her though. She kept at it, till she reached Khardung La, exhausted, “looking 10 years older in 10kms!" Andrews was waiting for her. They exchanged rings, and committed to each other for a year. Sheridan was severely dehydrated, and Chauhan had to take her to the ICU immediately. She regained strength there, and wanted to run again. “She had trained for eight months, and knew what she was doing. So I let her. Many of the crew were furious. They were asking me if I wanted to get people killed. But I decided to take a calculated risk," says Chauhan. Sheridan ran another 100km before she stopped. Andrews too had to drop out because of injuries.

Cockbain, meanwhile, had a near brush with an avalanche, near Khardung La. “I noticed a commotion ahead of me — a fresh avalanche had covered the route. I had missed it by a few minutes," he writes in his run report. The Indian army was just coming in with the shovels. Worried that they might make him wait, Cockbain climbed over the pile of snow, and continued on his way to the summit. He was struggling to breathe. “My body felt under such strain, it felt like breathing through a straw," he writes.

“A straw that kept getting thinner."

High altitude can mess up decision-making. At one point, Cockbain told his crew that he wasn’t hungry, when in reality, it was his hypoglycaemia talking. Trusting him, his crew went 5km ahead and waited for him. He was almost dragging himself when he made it to the spot. There were more wrong decisions. Several times, he drifted dangerously to the right, towards the cliff. “Finally, 48 hours and 50 minutes after he started the run, Cockbain became the first and only person to have finished the first edition of The High," says Chauhan. This year again, he looks forward to another incredible adventure.