Vikram Chadaga

This festival is unique to Bull temple, Bangalore.
Some information about the festival which I found out from the internet is:

The legend has it that the surrounding area of the temple, known as Sunkenahalli was cultivated for groundnut. A bull started grazing in the well-grown groundnut crop, at this, a farmer got furious and hit the bull with a club. Immediately the bull sat down becoming motionless and was transformed into a stone. Poor farmers were left stun and felt guilty. For their repentance they decided to build a temple for the bull, to their surprise the bull was growing in height. The worried farmer then prayed to Lord Shiva who advised them to redeem a trident buried a few feet away from the bull and place the trident on the forehead of the stone statue to stop it from growing. Farmers followed the Lord’s advice and the bull stopped growing. Still one can see the trident place on bull’s forehead.
Since then farmers offer their first crop of groundnut to the bull. The farmer’s hold a Groundnut fair known as Kadalekayi Parishe, near the temple premises every year, to show their thankfulness. It is one of the worth visiting places in Bangalore.

I studied in B.M.S. College of Engineering which is right across the Bull temple, and I had never been to this festival.

When I reached the place, I could see lots of stalls around. Huge piles of groundnuts and people selling them.

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November 16th 2008 was the Bangalore Ultra marathon 2008. I had signed up for the 25k which was to be held at 7:30 AM. We reached the venue (Our native village resort, Hesaraghatta) at 6:00AM. I was very excited to see so many runners and as usual I got a little too excited. The 50K / 100K run was supposed to start at 6:30AM. So I went ahead and signed up for the 50K race.

In the practice runs the maximum distance I had run was around 15Kms. I wasn’t sure what I was doing, but was determined to do at-least 3 loops of the 12.5 KMS.

The first 25K was easy and I was able to finish it in 2:18:26. The problem started when I continued further. I could suddenly feel that I’m going slower. I was monitoring my pace per KM. It was amazing to see how my body was not ready for the long distance. I had lots of energy in my mind to go faster, but just couldn’t go any faster. At around 32KMS I had a very bad cramp on my calf muscle. This was my first cramp while running. I could feel the calf muscle harden like a stone. I did some stretches and continued the run. In the end I stopped at 37.5 KMS. I didn’t want to run any further.

I enjoyed the whole run, I’m glad I tried the longer distance. The confidence of doing another full marathon is back. I was not sure if I would do another full marathon after doing the Bangalore full marathon in 2006.

Here is my timing chart of the run. Needless to say the graph after 25K just goes down.

KM     PACE / KM     Total Time
1       05:05     0:05:05
2       05:12     0:10:17
3       05:00     0:15:17
4       05:24     0:20:41
5       05:26     0:26:07
6       05:03     0:31:10
6.5    03:06     0:34:16
7.5    05:06     0:39:22
8.5    05:46     0:45:08
9.5     05:50     0:50:58
10.5     05:33     0:56:31
11.5     05:20     1:01:51
12.5     05:00     1:06:51
13.5     05:28     1:12:19
14.5     05:33     1:17:52
15.5     05:14     1:23:06
16.5     05:26     1:28:32
17.5     05:59     1:34:31
18.5     04:27     1:38:58
19     03:14     1:42:12
20     06:17     1:48:29
21     06:18     1:54:47
22     05:33     2:00:20
23     06:02     2:06:22
24     06:02     2:12:24
25     06:02     2:18:26
26     06:33     2:24:59
27     06:36     2:31:35
28     06:38     2:38:13
29     06:45     2:44:58
30     07:16     2:52:14
31     06:49     2:59:03
31.5     05:24     3:04:27
32.5     08:12     3:12:39
33.5     09:15     3:21:54
34.5     06:41     3:28:35
35.5     08:13     3:36:48
36.5     07:19     3:44:07
37.5     07:01     3:51:08

The funniest part is the day after the marathon. Everything in this video is true to me (including the last scene)