Now that you’ve decided to give the Bir-Billing Half Marathon a shot, what better way to round off your visit to the hills than to explore the area around the Bir valley. Long known as the paraglider’s paradise, the area has many lesser known thrills and experiences that are waiting to be discovered. Here, we give you a list of things that we hope you’ll enjoy doing while you’re pushing your marathon distances and times.

Running 5 back to back half marathon at an average altitude of over 4000m will be a daunting task and one will need serious training. Here’s a 15 week plan to train yourself for this ultimate Himalayan Challenge.

My name is Guillaume Arthus, I’m 26 years old and I live and work in Paris. For me, running has become a form of discovery and exploration. I have been training very hard for the 480 km ultra, as this is the highlight of this season for me. I primarily run very long distances, on trails and mountain ranges, and I’ve been training throughout on reduced oxygen capacity, as I hope this will help me better at the altitude on the Manali-Leh highway.

My name is David Cole, I’m 49 years of age, from Australia and working and living in Thailand with my wife and son. I started running just 10 years ago – the catalyst was living in Shanghai where I had little opportunity to exercise having a door to door subway commute between home and my office, so I joined an 8km fun run and it started from there. I found myself quickly running marathons, and then getting in on the trail running boom throughout Asia. I need to be always doing something active; being in the outdoors.