Whats next

There is a void left after you have finished something specially when there was a lot of enthusiasm leading up to it. Enduro did that to me. But not for long.

The annual 170 Kms Mumbai-Pune cycle race has been postponed to March 23. So that would give us ample time to recuperate from Enduro and start training for this. There will be many of India's top cycle racers participating and our goal would be to just complete the race. The race details are hard to come by. When I spoke to one of the organizers, he asked me to look out for news about this in the media sometime this week.

The no gear DTB cycle that I have would not be of much help. I will need to see if I can borrow a sleeker faster cycle.

We competed well

Enduro3 2008 is over and our team has completed the race albeit not in any of the top three prize winning position. Kanti had cramped early on the race within an hour of cycling. He had to keep stretching right through the two days. I am amazed at his resilience to complete and compete in spite of all this. We definitely needed better trekking practice. This time there was a lot of trekking involved. We got lost a number of times and slowed down on difficult trails. There was mandatory rest time of around 4 hours after the end of Day 1 before we restarted at 2 AM the next day. It did not help our team because we did not carry any blanket/sleeping bag to fight the cold. We were shivering right through that period! Before end of Day 1 there was rope river crossing across the freezing lake water. Kudos to Kanti for standing up and doing it for the team in spite of his soreness. Nitin's energy and motivation kept us going right through the two days. Thanks to him for introducing us to this event and preparing us for it. Without him we would have been in the blue throughout the race.

Today evening is when we get our participation certificates at a ceremony.

2 days to go

Enduro3 is almost there and our practice team is down with injuries. Prateem pulled his groin muscle while climbing up Sinhagad in the wee hours of Sunday morning the week before last. It was diagnosed to be a muscle inflammation that needed 1 month rest to heal by a sports medicine doctor. I felt bad for Prateem as he had been regularly practicing for a month and now he has to pull out of the race. Riyer got sick with flu for a whole week that has not yet healed fully. So he had to pull out too. Some of us are still recovering from illness due to the extreme climate change and hopefully there will not be any more incidents before the race starts. I am trying to be real careful by not eating outside food and taking adequate rest. I still need to work on the cycle for some alterations and servicing. I need to purchase some mandatory items that every participant needs to carry during the race.

Wish us luck!