Pune Chapter — Loop 4

Loop 4 claimed six. Bib 23 (anil jain) and Bib 812 (Namdeo) went out on the timeout. Bib 805 (Maya Pandey) and Bib 401 (Tushar Budhlani) called it at the corral, and Bib 813 (Amit Kumar) turned back soon after starting the loop. Bib 803 (Taru Mateti) was not in the corral when the start bell rang for the loop: she had been well inside the cutoff for the loop before, and even the loop that didn’t count she ran well inside the hour. And five BY4 runners finished their four loops: Bib 403 (Dr. Neeraj Kolge), Bib 404 (Sourabh Jain), Bib 406 (Vilas Shinde), Bib 407 (Ravinder Singh) and Bib 409 (Sheeja). 26 still on course. Tightest return: Bib 18 (Shyamal Mondal), 42 seconds to spare.

Taru Mateti is one of the few Indian women to have finished The High 5s, five marathons in five days on the Manali–Leh Highway, part of The Great Himalayan Running Festival by The Hell Race. She has run the India Backyard Ultra in Gurugram too. On her way out: “Thank you for bringing me to the Backyard and this part of Pune. This format isn’t for a slow runner like me, there’s too much math — but the ultra pull keeps bringing me back.”

A good share of this ULTRA field is here training for October’s Backyard Ultra World Championship satellite — worth remembering the bell doesn’t know what anyone’s training for, only who answered it. Manoj Sundaram, Mumbai’s own champion, has gone quiet out there; the field keeps saying the same thing about this course regardless: they love it, heat notwithstanding.