The Red Stone Ultra is run in Hampi, in December, through the boulder country and UNESCO ruins of north Karnataka. It is a heritage ultra that rewards runners who treat race day as a sequence of small, well-prepared decisions. This checklist is built like an onboarding flow: each step exists for a reason, each item earns its place in your kit. Run through it twice in the final week. Then again the night before.
Step 1: Lock the 72-hour window
Race-day success is decided in the three days before the gun. The Hampi heritage zone in December sits in a dry, warm window during the day and gets sharp at dawn. Your job in this stretch is to remove decisions, not add training.
What to do on Friday
Confirm bib collection windows, the cut-off times for your distance, and the aid-station map. Save offline copies on your phone. Print one paper copy. Then walk away from the laptop. Most runners over-research and under-rest at this point. Read the Red Stone Ultra event page once, screenshot the start time and the cut-offs, and close it.
What to do on Saturday
Eat your highest-carb meal at lunch, not dinner. Hampi's local thalis, idli-vada combinations, and dal-rice are excellent here. Hydrate steadily through the afternoon with water plus electrolytes. Lay out kit in the order you'll put it on. Charge watch, headlamp, and phone. Set two alarms, on two different devices.
Step 2: Build your kit, layer by layer
Run through this like a packing checklist in an app: each item has a job, each job has a category. If an item has no job, leave it in Bengaluru.
On-body kit
- Bib, four safety pins, timing chip checked.
- Shorts or tights with at least one zipped pocket for ID.
- Sweat-wicking tee or singlet you've trained in for 30+ km.
- Trail or road shoes worn for at least 100 km, never new on race day.
- Calf sleeves or low socks based on what you trained in.
- Cap and sunglasses, light-coloured.
Carried kit for an ultra
- Hydration vest with two 500 ml soft flasks.
- 4-6 gels or equivalent energy chews for distances above 25 km.
- One small zip pouch with two paracetamol, two electrolyte tabs, a band-aid, and anti-chafe balm.
- Phone with offline route map and emergency contacts pre-pinned.
- A buff or thin handkerchief for sun and sweat.
- ₹500 cash and a UPI-enabled phone.
For specific carry strategy on hot, exposed terrain like Hampi's open plains, study the running in Indian heat and monsoon guide before you pack. It will tell you what to drop, not what to add.
Step 3: Engineer race morning
The 90 minutes before you cross the start line are the highest-leverage minutes in your week. The aim is to arrive at the start calm, fed, and slightly under-dressed.
Wake and fuel
Wake at least 2.5 hours before flag-off. Drink 300-400 ml of water with electrolytes within the first 10 minutes. Eat a familiar breakfast: white bread with jam, a banana, two idlis with a touch of chutney, or oats with honey if that's your standard. Total roughly 80-100 g of carbohydrate. Avoid fibre, avoid dairy if you've never trained on it, avoid anything you haven't tested on a long run.
Move to start
Reach the holding pen 35-40 minutes early. Use the toilet at the venue, not at the hotel. Do a 5-minute jog with three 20-second pickups to wake up your nervous system. Sip 150 ml more water 20 minutes before flag-off. Then stop drinking.
Step 4: Pace the heritage ultra
The Red Stone Ultra runs through Hampi's boulder fields and ruin clusters. December mornings are cool, mid-mornings warm fast, and shade is patchy. The mistake to avoid is the first-10K surge that feels easy because the sun is still soft.
The conservative first third
Run the first third of your distance 15-20 seconds per km slower than your goal average. This is non-negotiable. Use your watch's auto-lap and check pace every kilometre for the first hour. If you are ahead of the band, walk through the next aid station.
The honest middle
The middle stretch is where you assess. Are you sweating salt rings? Top up electrolytes. Are your feet hot? Pour water on shoes at the next aid station. Is your gut accepting gels? Continue. Is it not? Switch to fruit, biscuits, or salted boiled potato that aid stations often stock.
The patient final third
The last third is run on the work you did in weeks 1-12 of your ultramarathon training plan. Run the kilometres you can run. Walk the short hills, the steps near ruin sites, and any patch where your heart rate climbs above your aerobic ceiling. Pass others by being steady, not by being fast.
Step 5: Recover, document, plan the next one
Cross the line, take the medal, and walk for ten minutes before sitting. Drink 500 ml of fluid in the first 30 minutes. Eat real food within 60 minutes. Get the legs above the heart for 15 minutes at the hotel.
Log what worked
Open a note on your phone. Write three bullets: what worked, what failed, what you'll change. Do this within 24 hours, while memory is sharp. This is the single most useful artefact for your next race build.
Build the next plan
If Red Stone Ultra was a step up for you, use the STRIDD plan generator to build the next 16 weeks around a longer goal. If you want to dial in pace bands and heart rate zones before that, run them through the STRIDD calculators. And if you'd rather read first and train later, the Running Lab archive has guides on every Indian ultra distance.
The race-day checklist is not glamorous. It is the difference between finishing strong in Hampi and limping in. Run the protocol. Trust the protocol.
One more thing: the day after
The morning after the race is its own protocol. Sleep in. Eat a real breakfast with carbohydrate, protein, and fluid. Walk for fifteen minutes around the heritage zone. The slow walk through Hampi's ruins is one of the great post-race experiences in Indian running. Bring sunblock, drink steadily, and let the body process what it just did.
Then, on the train or flight home, open your notes app. Read the three bullets you wrote. Decide one specific thing you will do differently in your next training cycle. Just one. Write it as a single sentence. Tape it to your fridge. The runners who improve year over year are the runners who treat each race as a single, clear data point.