The Great Himalayan Running Festival was truly a journey of a lifetime – running 14 km every day for 5 days, through some of the highest mountain passes in the world along 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.

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.

I still remember those words which were used again and again “It’s a technical course” and I kept on wondering why the hell they are using this again and again or is there some catch and then in between comes the master stroke watch out for snakes, stinging nettle, even wild bears. Whenever we Hell Race buddies Tarun Walecha, Karan, Nischint catch-up we still laugh remembering those movements, what were the looks on our faces when the briefing was happening.