Jun 197 min read

Running in the Land of the Thunder Dragon

This article was originally posted by Saumya on her blog Saumya's MindfulRunning.

forest landscape with runner appearing in the distance

Bhutan

Every hundred feet the world changes

- Roberto Bolano, Chilean novelist and short story writer

Bhutan, the land of the Thunder Dragon, is a Himalayan Kingdom of natural beauty and landscapes located between India and China. A Buddhist country with a unique culture, Bhutan is a country of tranquillity in a competitive world.

It is known for its concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH) rather than GDP, an idea that was first introduced in the 1970's by the fourth King of Bhutan, to measure of the country's progress and development. Bhutan's emphasis on happiness is real and it has led to policies and practices that prioritise the well-being of its people, such as free healthcare and education, sustainable tourism and the conservation of its environment and culture.

That focus on the environment is particularly important and has helped the country to be covered by trees. As it is a mountainous country it produces all its electricity through hydro-electric power and further offsets emissions by exporting renewable energy.

Here are some other interesting facts about the country:

Bhutan was the last country in the world to introduce TV in 1998
The national animal is the Takin, a cross between a cow and a goat
There are no traffic lights
The sale of all tobacco products is banned as are plastic bags
No one is seen begging
No theft
All stray animals are well looked after
No animals are killed for consumption
You can personalise a postage stamp by having your face on it

Pre Race Acclimatization - Hiking in Punakha & Paro

Mountains are silent masters and make silent students.

– Goethe, German polymath & writer

Before race day, we hiked on two alternate days for 5 hours and 4 hours respectively. The first hike was 5 hours in Punakha covering a distance of 14 kms with a maximum elevation of 1703 m (5588 feet) which involved steep climbs through broken narrow trail paths. We trekked to Soela Gompa via Khamsum Yuelley Namgyel Chorten. The views of the Punakha valley were beautiful. Somehow I missed carrying water and everyone had rationed water with them. In spite of that, Stephanie, Yusra and Ann offered to help. The feeling of faint and nausea doubled and tripled and the sun wasn’t helping. In the end, I successfully completed the trek just in time for some refreshing beer and lunch by the river overlooking the Punakha Dzong and feeding some strays.

The second hike was to the Tiger’s Nest aka Takhtsang Monastery which was shorter but very steep climbs again. The views were breathtaking and the Tiger’s Nest was as calming as it can be. Distance covered 12 kms, maximum elevation 2960 meters (9700 feet), time taken was 4 hours and enroute hydration support which included some nice tasting electrolytes offered by Brannon.

Post the hikes, I learnt that just because I run doesn’t mean I can hike well. Different muscles are engaged for different activities. Walking, hiking and running are all so different. It was a humbling experience to understand that your fitness levels can vary in different activities.

The Marathon..

You can keep going and your legs might hurt for a week, or you can quit and your mind will hurt for a lifetime.

- Mark Allen, six time Ironman World champion

I took my Misogi Challenge^ and signed up to run the Thunder Dragon Marathon in Paro, Bhutan on May 26, 2024 covering the distance of 42.2 kms organised by Steven Seaton & Mike Gratton from the incredible 2:09^^ events. We were accompanied by their very helpful local tour guide Dakpa Dorjee from Blue Poppy Tours.

^ Misogi Challenge is about doing something tough, once a year that it shapes how you live for the rest of the year.

^^ 2:09 named after Mike’s winning time in the London Marathon in 1983.

group of runners assembled at a race start line

The race was a marriage of incredible experience and immense effort. My feelings during the race was “everything hurts, but I love it”. There were only 20 international runners running the full marathon out of which only 7 were women; all from different ethnic backgrounds. I was one of them.

It was a very hard trail course which involved an elevation of 2479 meters (8133 feet) through narrow farm trails and rocks with average temperature ranging 32 – 37 degrees C.

The evening before while the race directors Mike and Steven gave a race brief, many runners were tilting towards changing their categories to a half marathon (which was also very hard) but they were told that they had the option of deciding on race day on which way they would like to go. The route was such that at 8 kms, the half marathoners turn right and the full marathoners continue straight. It was too early to decide then but that’s what made most of us continue on our journey ahead. While the route panned out as such, it was a good strategy to make the full marathoners not give up.

Towards the later part of the route, it became more of a hike than a run. Just to keep perspective with a city race, the cut off for a full marathon in a city will mostly be 6 hours and the international runner who was a young male clocked 4 hours 44 mins as the winner! You can gauge the difficulty by this statistic. Overall it was a very well organised race with hydration every 5 kms and local marshals support all along standing and squatting with barely any runners in sight every 30 mins to 1 hour and keeping their motivation levels high to support us. For most of the race there was no one in sight either ahead or behind me. I was all by myself trying to keep one foot ahead of the other and moving forward. Just about then, at the 18th km, I got my period unannounced. I didn’t know which aspect of the race I should stress about; the distance, the terrain, the sun, being alone or this newly added issue. Luckily I had mobile data at the moment and I called my spouse Ajay to my rescue. He was waiting at the 31st km along with a few others and he could help me only when I reached there. I had 13 mountainous kms left to reach the 31km mark. I had no choice. I just kept moving.

woman running on a mountain forest trail

Along the way, crossing multiple villages, observing their simplicity, getting offered water, litchis and apples by old women and young children all pepped me up and was such a joy to see.

At 25 kms, after running trails with harsh sun and no one in sight, I came across a co-runner from Singapore.

Chinese and an Indian

He was giving up at 25K sitting and chomping a watermelon.

Me: Get up. Let’s go

He: Are you serious? You are continuing?

Me: (as dead as I was but I couldn’t show that to him) Yes, of course. We cannot give up like this. There is no “giving up” in our dictionary. We will walk and talk and finish the course, but we will not give up.

*We started to walk..

He: Ok, but my shoulders are burning (He was wearing a singlet and the sun was right on top of us)

Me: See the mountains around, it’s snowing and so cold

He: (thinking I was hallucinating) gave a little giggle and then continued with a story “One Indian and one Chinese were walking under the sun and then they died”

*Me wanting to get more positive energy at this time and had no mind space for any negativity…

Me: Do you want me to sing songs for you?

He: No

Me: If it makes you feel any better, I got my period at the18th km totally unannounced and here I am walking under the sun covering a crazy distance on a harsh terrain slowly yet steadily.

*He feeling pity for me which in turn I am hoping gave him some positive fuel

We tried all ways to distract ourselves and kept walking and running where the road took us finding absolutely no one in sight till the 39th km. That’s when 2 women, Stephanie & Jessica came walking out of nowhere! So now for the next 3 kms, we had company. Shortly after, our breaks reduced, the feeling of competition took over and just when 1 km was left, we saw our guide Dakpa. He made us sprint to the finish line. From somewhere we got immense energy, and we ran. We never knew we had that extra fuel inside us.

Both he and I finished the marathon on a high followed by an immense feeling of accomplishment. Mark and Rebecca, who had become my friends just 24 hours ago, waited an extra hour after their race just to see me finish!

woman runner in blue being congratulated by older male runner as another female runner and woman crew member look on

While my intention was to encourage my co-runner from Singapore to complete the race, that in turn helped me complete mine too. We both helped each other in ways more than one. Little do we realize that while encouraging others, we get encouraged too.

Note: there were men in their late 70’s who finished much before and one woman in her 70’s who finished shortly after me. All very inspiring indeed.

Learnings:

Emphasis on people’s well-being leads to a happy nation
Go green, plant trees, drive sustainability; there is a direct correlation to happiness
The nature of the country made people of all ages walk irrespective of the terrain
Try different things. If you run, try a hike. If you hike, try a run, if you walk, try either
Never fear or underestimate yourself. You can’t imagine what you can achieve
Expect the unexpected and learn how to navigate through that. Ask yourself; worst case, what will happen and if you can live with the worst case, you can sail through the situation
Draw inspiration from people around you
Having a supportive family acts as a catalyst in achieving your goals
Age is not limiting
Community goes a long way
Helping others translates to helping yourself
There is always reserve energy. Just when you think you have an empty tank, it’s never empty

I returned home with a big sense of achievement, made good friends from around the world; Robin, Catherine, Ben, Andrew, Martin, Erik, Stephanie, Brannon, Rebecca, Kris, Mark, Ann and grew my community further.

Hoping I can sustain my passion of running and inspire others through my blogs.

Thank you for reading.