- If you are a Bangalorean, you’ve visited Nandi Hills on multiple occasions yet discovered different ways to embark on the same hilltop.
- For the love of hills, mountains, & trail running especially, we just need every other Sunday as an excuse to visit the Nandi hills for training the uphills or the next race.
- A very good old friend, mentor Ashwini Bhat who has represented our country on various occasions organised a Nandi stairs and I immediately registered.
- The morning started early with pickup from various location in the city in the wee hours of the morning.
- Alas, we reached the starting point to warm up & all prepped to scale the hill via the stairs route with an elevation gain of ~500 mts overall.
- We were advised to take it easy as it’s not a race, no time limit, be with the group, enjoy nature, and take one step at a time.
- We were told not to be overwhelmed by looking up at the flight of staircase now and then, instead keeping our minds engaged by counting say 10–or 20 stairs before the body exhausts.
- The hand movements such as forward & backward or even tying it backward helped.
- We paused at certain intervals to catch our breath and were distracted by the views and clicking pictures.
- As the group of runners passed by me, speeding up — I had to calm myself down that it is okay to slow down, listen to the body, breathing, heart rate on my watch, and observe the views. We get too competitive at times. As the elevation gain increased, the breathing got heavier. We are slower than someone any any given point of time. Slow, yet steady was the updated strategy.
- We learnt how to tackle — Proprioception meaning — the awareness of the body in space. It is the use of joint position sense and joint motion sense to respond to stresses placed upon the body by alteration of posture and movement.
- We learnt how to overcome the weakness and mental bottlenecks during the runs.
- We sipped water, ate the bananas, shared a couple of trail run experiences with fellow teammates, & shared a laughter or two.
- After close to 45–55 mins we reached the top, end of the staircases, panting for the breathe yet excited to see the general crowd, the yoga Nandishwar temple, and lots of monkeys, re-fuelled ourselves. Some of us did a couple of loops on the top as we craved to run on a flat surface.
- The flight off stairs downhills led to the smile on our faces. The breakfast announcement made us slide through.
- We had to be cautioned as downhills are tricky though with the mental mapping of where we place our foot, the probability of A or B can lead to a twist in the ankle which we want to avoid.
- While we were getting down the people climbing up were checking on how long to reach the top — we motivated them by conveying x-minutes and the top view is absolutely stunning on the top keeping up their spirits.
- Ashwini shared a lot of her experience in re-fueling, hunger or tiredness, her other adventure runs, & so on which was motivating us throughout.
- In no time we reached the start point to stretch & share our experiences & how mindblowing it was. We were shaking as the roads were steep plus continuous downhill led to this among all of us. It gradually subsided though.
- We headed towards the Nandi Upchar for breakfast and Ashwini patiently answered all our questions in the breakfast venue. We were dropped to our pickup locations and connected with more runners with similar ambitions as ours. It was lovely to know the next races & tips and tricks for our niggles. Runners community have the most awesome and kind people from all walks of their lives, age groups, and gender-agnostic.
- Nandi being very special, each visit remains etched in the memories. Here I am already thinking of my next stair workout routine at Nandi 🙂
Prathima's Miles & Milestones 
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