Get Up & Aim Higher

Warning: This is a long read about my first Ironman 70.3 journey. Prepare for an endurance test!

Christmas 2023 brought me an unexpected gift—a catalyst for a new lifestyle. I was struggling with a severe episode of piles and had organized a “Playing Santa” ride to bring joy to underprivileged kids. We gathered donations from the cycling community, bought sports equipment for the kids, and spent Christmas Eve playing and getting to know them. During this event, I reconnected with my friend Deepankar, a practicing naturopath. Deep down, I knew my health needed a fundamental shift in food habits, and meeting Deepankar put me on that path.

Deepankar became a patient mentor, listening carefully and carving out a new dietary path for me. The goal he set for my eating habits seemed almost impossible, but he encouraged me to take small, manageable steps. Though I was a vegetarian and primarily ate home-cooked meals, this was a significant change. The first two weeks were rough as my body adjusted, but after a few weeks, I began to see notable improvements in my gut health.

Deepankar emphasized the importance of maintaining my physical activities to prevent muscle loss and suggested I read Finding Ultra by Rich Roll. I connected deeply with the book, and, almost on autopilot, I signed up for the Goa Ironman 70.3 after finishing it.

I quickly realized I had no idea what it took to train for swimming. I sought guidance from Coach Ayush Yadav, head coach at Gachibowli Stadium. He encouraged me to swim daily, far exceeding my initial plan of three days a week. As a slow learner, the first day I barely managed 50 meters without a break. But after a month, I found a rhythm, eventually swimming 200 meters nonstop one day and 600 meters the next. I was on cloud nine.

Coach observed the next day that I was stiff on one side, likely from breathing unilaterally, which could lead to future issues. He asked me to practice bilateral breathing, which felt like starting from scratch again. He encouraged me and motivated me to go through this tough period. It took me another month to regain my rhythm, after which I was swimming longer distances without stopping.

I was making steady progress in swimming under the guidance of Coach Ayush. He not only improved my technique step by step, but was always encouraging and pushing me. He is a world class coach and works with a group of kids who have won State & National level medals. Seeing him push the kids and watching those kids toil almost 10 sessions a week with 3-4 hr morning sessions was very inspiring. The Gachibowli swimming pool has a great environment for training and Coach Ayush is the architect behind this.

Coach indicated from the very beginning that since I am learning as an adult use of various tools was essential to improve my technique. He made me use fins, snorkels, arm pads, pull buoys, fulcrum at various times. I was made to do various drills and would also regularly do sprints under his guidance to improve my speed. He would monitor my speeds every week. I would do mock triathlons starting with a 1900m swim at the pool on Saturdays. Improving steadily and gaining confidence that I can cover the swim distance well within cut off. I did have to get used to open water and sea. There is no way I could have reached this point without his guidance and push.

Around August a group of us aspiring triathletes went to a lake for our first open-water experience. Without a toe float or strong treading skills, I relied on a nearby kayak as my backup. About halfway across the lake, I panicked. My friend Rajeev, an experienced swimmer, came to my aid while keeping a safe distance, knowing I might accidentally pull him down in my panic. Thankfully, the kayak reached us, and we made it safely back.

The next week, we returned with a toe float. Harsha swam beside me, building my confidence as I managed 350-400 meters without issue. Although I still hadn’t mastered treading, my fear of water had lessened.

Training continued as planned, and by early October, Dr. Vignan’s triathlon camp helped me conquer my fear of the sea. However, the weeks leading up to the triathlon were exhausting and stressful due to a store remodeling project, and everyone on my team fell sick, except for me. Despite the fatigue, I pushed through, often reminding myself of my friend & former colleague Chitti’s favorite saying, “Mard ko dard nahi hota” (Real men don’t feel pain). That was not at all true, but you need hope and some lies in tough times. That lie made me survive a few more days.

There has hardly been anything in my life that I was so determined of doing as the preparation for this triathlon. I did not want to leave any stone unturned and did everything in my reach. A couple of months before the race, a new challenge emerged: a strange pain in my left knee. I sought help from Dr. Naveen, a skilled physio, who diagnosed me with extension lag but reassured me it was fixable with several sessions. I followed his advice diligently, determined not to let anything stop me from competing.

Coach Ayush also recommended steam baths and cold plunges as part of my pre-race regimen. The cold plunges were brutal, leaving me shivering and muttering unkind words at Wim Hof, the “Ice Man.” But I endured, driven by my commitment to race day.

Arriving in Goa a week early allowed me time to acclimate to the humid weather and reduce work stress. Staying at an Airbnb where I could cook my meals ensured I didn’t risk food poisoning before the event. However, just days before the race, my right calf cramped badly during a swim in the sea. Remembering a conversation with my friend Karthik about managing cramps by floating, I instinctively floated on my back until the cramp subsided.

I was glad that a bad problem had been averted. Well, the next morning I got another greeting from my right calf which was hard as a rock and painful to walk or move. I went ahead with my ride as planned, but knew that something wasnt right. I contacted a Goan friend for recommendation on a masseur. He gave me a fantastic lead. This was a traditional Ayurveda resort where they understood my needs and did the regular full body massage followed by the massage on the affected calf with medicines in a cloth sack called “potli”. During my massage I started talking with my masseur and realized that I was dehydrated with all the walking around in the humid conditions. Now that I understood the root cause – I threw the kitchen sink at it. From that point I drank about 4L water / electrolytes and peed a zillion times a day. The massage helped and the rehydration helped it even more. Then I used my calf compression sleeve which helped it even further.

During my physio sessions I was give a “T” shaped block for releasing some knots in muscles. My physio Anil who was in Dr Naveen’s team had taught me to use the block in place of a roller. Since I had not taken my roller to Goa I used the T shaped physio block to release the knots in the right calf. As you can imagine I was again telling Chitti that he was a liar as I chose the pain now over the ones in the race. I was very stressed at this point. I was also pouring alternating cold and hot water on the calf frequently to improve blood circulation. As I was doing this and looked at my face on the mirror, I felt pity. But I had to get out of this state of mind. I replaced that pitiable face with that of one of my favourite middle and long distance runners Haile Gebreslase. In the lead up to the 2000 Sydney Olympics he was dealing with an achilles tendon injury. A very difficult one for runners. He travelled with the team more as a motivation for the others from Ethiopia, but when the race started he switched on and finally won the sprint over Paul Tergat by a margin of 0.09 seconds, the closest finish of the 12 track events at the Sydney Olympics that were raced over one lap or less. He limped to the podium later to collect his gold. Video of that epic final.

I just told myself that I am not going to be afraid of pain. No pain could stop me from doing the race for which I had spent countless hours in the last 9 months. As I developed this approach the pain subsided and was absent on the race day morning. Dare I say it felt like I missed a good friend.

I couldnt sleep much the night before the race. But I have heard many champions say that it is common and had ensured I slept very well the nights before that. So the lack of sleep on race night wasnt really an issue. I did get many dark thoughts in the night. Top among them was doing a bad job of sighting and swimming much more that I needed to. I told myself that if I sighted more I wont stray from course – I almost heard Mel Gibson preaching his sons “Aim small, miss small” in one of my favourite movies Patriot when he gets his young sons become marksman to protect their family.

Race day arrived. I had some jitters, but everything was in place. The sea swim went smoothly, and I managed to avoid the chaos of other swimmers by taking an outer lane. Near the end, my right calf threatened to cramp again, but I slowed down and adjusted, exiting the swim without incident.

Had a reasonable T1 and started the bike leg. Was overtaking people like crazy. I definitely went a bit overboard on the first lap. I started running out of gas and wasnt able to match my power targets from the second hour on the bike. My nutrition was as per plan and I still stuck to it. May be I should have upped my nutrition instead of just lowering my target numbers. Fair to say that I have not ridden a bike so slowly as the last two hours of the bike leg in recent memory. While I saw riders of all sizes overtaking me on climbs I was embarrassed to think I had done everesting 4 yrs ago to the day. I ignored those thoughts & stayed positive and did what I could. My good friend and excellent running coach Gautam Pothineni had wished me luck & told me that in a long race like this there are bound to be things that mess up, he advised me to stay strong and get over them. I reminded myself of this and tried to find solutions. Nothing worked though.

As I neared the T2 I told myself my bike legs didnt show up, but was confident the run legs would. I knew it is ridiculous, well but not more ridiculous than the 24kmph I managed for the last few km of the ride. T2 loosened me up as I made a fool of myself by almost exiting the transition area with my helmet on. I know I follow rules, but goddamn it, I dont need the helmet for the run. Went back and kept it on the bike. I am glad I did it though as I must have had ice poured on me 20 odd times in the run and the helmet would have come in the way ;-).

The run legs were there, a bit muted, but were there for me. I was still 1.5 mins slower pace than my threshold, but I was happy I crossed the line without having to walk. I crossed the finish line almost an hour behind my target time, but I was overjoyed to have completed the Ironman. Nine months ago, I couldn’t swim 100 meters, and just two days before, I was struggling to walk without pain. I am lucky and grateful for all the people who helped me. In addition to all the people mentioned above, my family, colleagues, training buddies, the amazing race organisers – Yoska / volunteers, WeSnap India for help with equipment (Basso Diamante bike, Zone 3 tri suits, etc) and AirBnB host Ben were also very key to my success. Well can I use that word “success” – I dont know, but I had become a punching bag this last year and got punched by life many times. Unlike a punching bag I did get knocked down many a times, but I got up. I was determined to never stay down. That learning is probably a “success”, a bigger one than a podium or a faster finish.

Kobe Bryant went a season in his high school without scoring a single point. His dad told him that he will still love him and be proud of him irrespective of whether he scored zero points or sixty. Kobe says that it is the most important thing you can say to a child, because from there it gives all the confidence to fail. But Kobe adds “to hell with that, I am scoring 60”. Similarly, getting up was probably a success, but deep inside I know that is not enough. 

Watch Kobe Bryant’s video here: Kobe Bryant Motivation

Preparation for a Triathlon is resource intensive. It requires a lot of time and money as well. The time is not only for training but also for quality rest & recovery. The below table is an approximate amount of effort I have put in from January this year. It doesn’t include the time for massages, steam bath, cold plunges etc.

Activities (number)	471
Distance	6935 km
Time	506 hrs

Activity	Number	Distance (km)	Hours
Swim	172	204	138
Bike	128	5503	212
Run	147	1228	126
Strength (didnt record in Strava – so very approximate)	24	NA	30

Sunday	Long ride followed short run
Monday	Swim + Strength
Tuesday	Long run + Swim
Wednesday	Swim + Bike + Run (eve)
Thursday	Strength + Swim
Friday	Bike + Swim
Saturday	Mock Tri or Brick

Please note that the above time is not a recommendation. The first rule for any training to be effective is that it is customised. This is even more relevant to Triathlon which is in itself a sport that contains three different disciplines and very few will be equally proficient in all 3. I think the most number of hours training was 18 in a week which I managed probably twice only. I did not have a defined rest day and had gone a couple of weeks without rest day as well. I did listen to my body and took rest when I needed. One would be right to wonder if I did any work in this period. I had the liberty of starting work late many days, but I definitely worked close to 8hrs six days a week. I also completed a course on Health & Wellness Coaching, completed my assignments and cleared my exam & got certified in this period. So it is possible, however I was lucky to have a supporting family & great set of colleagues. It is impossible without their support.

The below table is a recollection of the expenses I had. I have tried my best to include as much as possible. But it is likely that I have missed a few. I also know that some of them could have been avoided.

If I turn back and see whether I would have changed anything, there are not too many things, but I am listing below a few.

• Not get so riled up with stress the last few weeks – yes I cant change the trigger, but there will always be some trigger and I can control my response and be calm
• Should have done a smaller Olympic Triathlon event before Ironman
• Practiced nutrition more during the bricks and mock triathlons

PS: While I didnt have a great race as an athlete, it was probably my best as a coach – my long term athlete Gaurav won his age group in the same race.