For most people, the term “buck fifty” is used in reference to $1.50, but for five Cummins information technology employees it means something a little different.
Shripad Deshpande, Ganesh Badve, Rajib Panda, Jugander Kumar and Venkatachalam Duraisamy teamed together to run a 150-mile relay marathon called the Buck Fifty on April 13 to 14 in Chillocothe, Ohio.
The Buck Fifty is meant for a 10-person team, but the Cummins group decided to keep it at five. These athletes schedule multiple marathon runs throughout the year and try to do something different each year.
Most of the runs they choose to participate also help raise money for a cause. The Buck Fifty’s $650 registration fee went toward sponsoring each high school student in the area who wanted to participate in the Drug Free Clubs of America Program.
“That’s what’s really great,” Deshpande said. “We are contributing to a good cause.”
The group started the race at 2 p.m. April 13 and finished the following night after 28 hours, 31 minutes and 6 seconds of running. They were just one of two teams out of about 80 that had five runners instead of 10.
Not many marathons take as much planning as the Buck Fifty. The group didn’t do much training together and much of their training for the race was just participating in other marathons. They did meet frequently to try to map out their running duties as much as possible.
The planing for the logistics of the race was just as important as the physical preparation. There were different check points throughout the race where teams could exchange runners, and this group of Columbus natives opted to drive their own car.
The five of them had to map out who was going to be driving the car for each exchange and at what point the exchanges were going to take place. They planned as much as they could, but there were still unexpected obstacles that took place, like when the group couldn’t find Duraisamy running the mountains to make the exchange. They were using GPS to track each runner’s location, but the GPS was no longer working in the mountains.
“Even after sharing the location (on the iphone), we were not able to reach,” Duraisamy said. “We were finally able to find (each other) because they had road numbers.”
Badve said the best experience for all of them was running during the night. There was no break in action, and each runner only slept for about two hours at the most during the 28-and-a-half-hour time span.
Running at night consisted of just the runner, one light and a couple of reflecting signs a mile or two apart directing runners where to go. If the athlete missed one of those signs, they would have to call somebody to get back on track.
Deshpande had a near scare when he was on his night run with no communication. He started one of his legs running at 3:45 a.m., mostly uphill.
“If something would have gone wrong, I would have been waiting there until morning,” Deshpande said. “I didn’t have a communication device with me that I can call anybody, but it all worked out well. I managed though (until) daylight and came down to my next check point, but that was an experience for all of us, the night running.”
Another unplanned surprise for the group was the temperature. Badve ran the first leg of the race, and he shouldered the burden of running in extreme heat that affected his time. They had planned for him to finish in around 45 minutes, but the weather delayed him for another 20 minutes. It also drained much more energy out of him during the first leg than expected.
“We don’t live there, so we cannot predict the weather there,” Panda said. “But I think we were ready. We were prepared that no matter what, we were going to finish.”
Many of the runners who are from the Chillocothe area — about 45 minutes south of Columbus, Ohio — got to practice the route and knew the layout beforehand. The Cummins runners didn’t get that luxury, so when one Duraisamy’s legs was all uphill, it came as a surprise.
Duraisamy has only been running for about two years and had preferred to run on a flat surface. It’s hard to plan something like that for a course they never seen before. Duraisamy said he had a good experience doing things he’s never done before like running uphill, running at night and running in the rain.
The group is planning on running the Buck Fifty again, but also is planning on running a race in Denver next year, along with a few others.
“It was a really great experience,” Duraisamy said. “It’s a different type of frame of mind in different types of situations. We ran in the day and the night, and running 150 miles is not easy … It was a completely different experience for me, especially, and it is good motivation.”
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What: Buck Fifty Race
When: April 13-14
Where: Chillocothe, Ohio
Members: Ganesh Badve, Shripad Deshpande, Venkatachalam Duraisamy, Jugander Kumar, Rajib Panda
Time: 28 hours, 31 minutes, 6 seconds
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