Seven months after the 2023 Brazil 135 and almost two weeks since the year’s edition of Badwater 135 concluded, one of the most remarkable performances by an ultrarunner hailing from India has stayed little-known.
Sonia Ahuja grew up in Gurgaon near New Delhi. That’s where her journey began. Her parents were teachers. “My father and I walked a lot. We would walk miles and miles to go to various places. I remember walking a lot as a kid,” she said in mid-July 2023 from Los Angeles.
Following her post-graduate course in computer application (MCA), Sonia joined TCS and within months, reached the US. “I was a generally ambitious person,” she said. In due course, she did her MBA from College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. She also got married, started a family and focused on raising her daughter.
Aside from all the walking she had done with her father in India, Sonia had not participated in sports through her years in school and college. Emphasis was on academics. Running entered her life in the period that followed her joining Wells Fargo, and her taking on more and more responsibilities at work. To address stress, she jogged daily.
“I became less anxious and thought more clearly,” she said.
Eventually, running became a habit. It wasn’t long before, somebody suggested that she try a marathon. And so, in 2014, Sonia who lived then in San Diego, ran her first marathon — the San Diego Rock n’ Roll marathon. She got a sub-four-hour timing. In the years that followed, she participated in several events; among them the Los Angeles Marathon and the iconic marathons in Boston and Chicago. She wasn’t a devotee of systematic training, racing and big events. She preferred instead to run for her own enjoyment, set her distances accordingly and generally opted for low profile events where the pressure to chase targets and be around thousands chasing targets, was less.
Sonia Ahuja. Pictures courtesy Sonia Ahuja
What intrigued Sonia wasn’t as much these marathons as how she felt after running them. At the end of a 42 kilometre-run, she felt energetic. There was little exhaustion or sense of collapse.
Soon it became a trend with her — she would participate in a marathon and while others rested the day after or did short recovery runs, she would do a half marathon. In turn, that ability for sustained running provoked her curiosity for distances longer than the marathon. Four years after her marathon debut in San Diego, she did her first 50 miler in Avalon, California, in 2018. “It went off well. I felt great after completing it,” Sonia said. Further exploration of her boundaries in running was checked by work. She had become the COO of a private equity-backed company; the job entailed considerable travel.
In 2020, Covid-19 forced the world into a period of lockdown and restrictions. The onset of the pandemic put on hold Sonia’s travelling. Although running events worldwide went into a hiatus, in a US that believed in the physically active lifestyle, Sonia was able to push her running and pile on mileage.
She was doing weekly mileage of 80-100 miles. Her distances were now moving steadily from marathon to ultramarathon territory.
She found the greater distances “calming”. She also liked running on trails and during this time indulged in a lot of hiking. In 2020, she signed up for her first 100 kilometre-race. It was a small event. Days before the race, she realised that she was feeling very good.
“So I changed the 100k to a 100 miler,” Sonia said. She placed second among women in the race. Once again, what stood out for her was the comparative lack of exhaustion. She continued to do many 50 kilometre-runs.
Around this time, another revelation occurred. She had struck up an annual tradition of hiking up and down Mt Whitney (one way is 11 miles); all in a day’s time. On one occasion, she did this and ran a marathon the next day.
She posted this on social media and among the responses she got was a suggestion that she attempt Badwater 135, the gruelling ultramarathon through California’s punishingly hot Death Valley with a finish at over 8000 feet-elevation at Whitney Portal, the trailhead to Mt Whitney.
“I looked it up on the Internet and it seemed like the Holy Grail of ultrarunning,” Sonia said. As Sonia studied the details including race results, it struck her that no Indian woman had yet completed Badwater in the solo category.
According to Sonia, in September 2022, she contacted Chris Kostman, the race director of the Badwater ultramarathon, and spoke to him of her wish to participate. Given ultramarathons push people to their limits and can therefore be risky, major events usually insist on pre-qualification. Kostman asked Sonia about the races she had been to.
It was soon evident that her resume was weak. He told her that she should have done at least three 100 mile-races before thinking of Badwater.
Given applications for the 2023 Badwater 135 had to be submitted in January, Sonia knew she had little time to wrap up three races and deliver a performance good enough for consideration by Badwater. In October 2022, she emerged overall winner at the Miami 100 ultramarathon with a run that nearly broke the course record.
In December 2022, she completed the Rio Del Lago 100 miler in 22 hours. The final of the trio of qualifiers she picked was in Brazil — the Brazil 135, much respected by ultrarunners for its difficulty. For Sonia there was a first; it was a race that required the runner to have a support team. Sonia describes herself as “minimalist” in approach and “low maintenance.’’ That lightness of being had been her attitude towards races too.
During her races, she refuelled at aid stations. Brazil was going to be different. And yet, it couldn’t break the relaxed approach to racing she liked. Sonia sounded out her best friend about a vacation in Brazil with an ultramarathon on the side. The latter did some homework and understood that Brazil 135 was no run in the park; it gave her an idea of how to assemble a support team. By now members from Sonia’s running club were keen to crew. There was even a backpacker headed to Brazil who joined in. Local knowledge was critical for the race in Brazil and so they recruited a person from there as well. The overall tenor was still one of vacation. It hid a crucial detail.
Brazil 135 was terribly important — a win here ensured the runner an entry to Badwater. As it turned out, Sonia finished the race in 31 hours, 17 minutes and 18 seconds to place first among women and third overall. It was remarkable. Besides the intrinsic difficulty of Brazil 135, she had done three 100 milers as best as she could in the period spanning October 2022 to January 2023. And she completed Brazil 135 without injuries, blisters and stomach issues.
“I now knew I was going to run Badwater,” she said.
Of the six persons who crewed for her in Brazil, four formed her support crew for Badwater (the rest turned up to support). For the event in California, she tweaked her approach and made it more target-oriented. For ease of crewing and monitoring her progress, the team visualised the race as five marathons. Sonia set a best-case scenario of covering the 135 miles in 24-25 hours (she later revised that to attempting a sub-24-hours pace); worst case was 28-29 hours. Plus, some real planning went into hydration and nutrition; the conditions at Badwater are not to be trivialised with (Death Valley is among the hottest places on Earth).
On race day in early July, Sonia covered the first marathon segment in sub-four hours. Some from her crew expressed concern at the pace. The second segment went by in 4:15 hours. By the end of the fourth segment, she was still ahead of her target. Then came a section, where runners were advised a roughly 20-minute ride in the crew car to get past a flooded portion. In her urge to secure a fine finish for India, she iced her legs hoping it would make them fresh for the last stretch. Inexplicably, the last portion proved agonising. Her legs kept giving away and she had to almost crawl to the finish line (it is suspected the icing may have caused the problem). Still, the first woman hailing from India to finish Badwater was placed second in her gender category and fourth overall. At 25 hours and 42 minutes, Sonia’s was the third fastest time to finish among women, in the history of the race.
News of the podium finish created a buzz among runners in India. Badwater is one of the world’s toughest ultramarathons. People associated with India’s national ultrarunning team reached out to Sonia. But her work and life in the US had seen her take US citizenship. Technically, she was a Person of Indian Origin. What the 47-year-old wishes for most, is to see her podium finish inspire female ultrarunners from India to attempt races like Badwater.
The writer is a freelance journalist