ah se ahaaa... My Triathlon journey : IronMan 70.3

I have been into running since 2017 and running a half marathon came to me as a surprise.

From running 100meters and feeling breathless to running my first half marathon took 3 months. I've never looked back and have completed more than 50~ half marathons in the last 15 years.

In 2020, while doing my daily run, my friend and coach Arjun Virdi told me that I should do IronMan 70.3 which happens in GOA. It didn't take any time and I decided I will attempt this in 2020. So I registered for this event in 2020 and unfortunately the pandemic struck.

I was good at running and had been cycling every once in a while, but I never knew swimming. So my next target was to learn how to swim for the triathlon event.

While wanting to learn freestyle swimming which was the most preferred swimming style for open sea swim, I had no way to kickstart this as until March 2022 all the pools were shut due to covid waves hitting us every 6 months and due to covid protocols.

Finally in April I heard pools were opening and I started researching which is the right place for me to learn swimming.

Finally in mid July I joined the gymkhana pool for training. I realised the training isn't helping me so moved to Dharavi Sports Complex in August for my swim training. They got me ready in 2 months, I was able to swim 200mts without stopping. In October went to Goa for 2 days to experience open sea swimming and after a lot of setbacks, was about to do 1.9kms open sea swim in 73 mins. All in all, ready for an open sea swim in just 3 months!!

The journey wasn't easy, from putting more time for workouts, managing work, managing family and friends, nothing was easy. But I kept re-prioritising things as they came and my only goal was to complete the IronMan 70.3 and focus was crystal clear!

In June, my colleague Santosh Pawar introduced me to Nishant Bhardwaj who runs TRIFANTRY - Train. Endure. Conquer who helped me with the triathlon training.

Finally came the race week (November) we were working on race logistics and my friend Suketu Shah and Sarita Shah were very excited for my first race and were kind enough to offer their beast (Ford Endeavour). This was also my first long distance drive, from Mumbai to Goa and back. Absolutely lovely driving experience with zero fatigue.

Pre-race checklist was planned and executed well and ensured we had everything we had for the race.

There is a lot that goes into a triathlon event from training, nutrition, hydration, diet etc and the amount of discipline and time it demands.

Finally on 13th November, we got ready for the race, some amount of anxiety and not knowing how I'll do in the race, but being my first race, I wanted to enjoy the experience and also complete it before the cutoff time of 8 hours and 30 mins.

Race started an hour late, first swimming leg, experienced anxiety for the first 5 mins, but I knew I had practiced it well and with all confidence starting pushing myself, completed this in 54 mins. Moved to the transition area and quickly got my bike ready, took 4 hours to complete my cycling leg and then started the run. My first 10 mins of running was a struggle as my legs were stiff, temperatures were soaring and almost drained out of my body fluids and nutrients. Somehow pushed myself and was able to complete my running in 3 hours.

My first attempt at IronMan 70.3 and there could have been so many things that could have gone wrong, but finally with all the blessings, I finished it without any injury.

I did have some chip related issues and Neil D'silvha helped to resolve those issues as well. Thanks YOSKA team.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ9kBYU8TUQ

https://youtu.be/eZ9kBYU8TUQ?feature=shared

All gratitude to my friends, family and coaches who helped me achieve this feat!

Finally my better half Hetal Dedhia was always there by my side, never would have done this without her!