The Indian team performed very well with Vikash Malik and Abhinav Jha finishing together in 8 hours and 27 minutes. This is the second fastest time ran by Indian nationals for that distance.

Team member Anjali Saraogi, Sandeep Kumar, Lallu Lal Meena, and Binay Sah finished strong. The Indian team finished at position 19 out of 38 countries.

Vikash Malik has stood tall in the Indian Ultra Running community with impressive performance for 50 kilometers or longer distances. Back in 2017, he set 100-mile Indian national record by running 160 kilometers in whooping 18 hours and 22 minutes. This time still stands the second fastest time run by an Indian for that distance.

Vikash ran his first 50k in 2013. He took 5 hours and 19 minutes. Very recently, he participated in the US national 50k championship and finished overall third with an impressive time of 3 hours and 27 minutes. He was also the fastest the state of Wisconsin and therefore was awarded with title of “Wisconsin State 50k Champion.

The event “Madcity Ultras” took place in Madison, WI USA on April 13, 2019. On the chilly and windy day, Vikash was able to run a very fast 50k with marathon split of 2 hours and 53 minutes. Ultra Running of India recently posted about this in their Facebook post.

In the month of February this year, he also won the John Dick memorial 50K race in the frigid cold weather. At -10C and trails full of feet deep snow, he was able to run the race in 4 hours and 52 minutes.

Very recently, I was reading his story that begins with a desire of weight lose. He started running to lose some weight in 2012 but it turned into his passion.

He kept improving his endurance performance since then. From being an overweight person to make it to the national team is quite a feat. He attributes his success to his consistent hard work and food habits.

Let us now talk more about his background, training, diet and future races.

Background

Vikash hails from Shamli district of UP in India. After completing his Masters in physics from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee, he went to Switzerland for a Ph.D. program in nanotechnology.

He moved to the US in 2011 for a postdoctoral position and joined his wife at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee.

Vikash told me that during the first postdoc years, he gained some weight which felt really uncomfortable. “I started having back pain and things did not feel alright to me, says the runner”. He took the challenge to do something about his weight problem and slowly started running.

In his own words,

Training

When asked about the training program, Vikash says the following.

Diet

Here is Malik’s take on the ultra runner’s diet.

Future Races

I asked him about his 2019 ultra running calendar and here is what he says,

0 votes