My Ironman Journey

Over the last 25 years, I have run about 35 half and full marathons. After completing my first Olympic distance triathlon in Dec. ’23, I was looking for the next challenge! An Ironman70.3 (1.9km swimming, 90km bicycling, 21km running) seemed like a logical evolution…

Swimming in the ocean for 1.9km was still an overwhelming thought! My handicap - I have grown up in a place without a swimmable open water body for 300kms. Besides, I have a culturally ingrained fear of water right from childhood having heard mythological stories of a crocodile grabbing your leg in the water.

My coach, Ingit Anand, provided a rigorous, structured 5.5-month schedule which had run, cycle and swim days, interval training, brick training (bike-run or swim-run), strength training, core exercises, and stretching, along with a selection of gear & nutrition requirements. My wife, Parul, and I had just completed the Everest Base Camp trek in May ’24, so I was in relatively good shape. I started training in June, and never missed a session unless I was on a flight. We cut down social commitments and eating outside to make sure I was able to adhere to the training schedule and diet plan. While traveling, I looked for gyms, pools, bike and run routes in different cities to continue training. I trained for approximately 350 hours including 100 hours of strength training and yoga. That is about 45 times my race day time. I covered 3,500 kms in training, which is about 30 times the 113 km race day distance. Training included 85km of swimming, 45 times my race swim distance. I practiced open ocean swimming in Ocean City, Maryland and San Diego, California during my US trip and for a couple days at the race venue in Busselton, Australia. I felt confident leading up to the race.

However, mother nature had a surprise in store for me on race day, Dec. 1, ’24. There were 5-foot waves, 51 km/hr. winds and I had to swim straight into the ocean against this! I had not trained in anything close to these conditions! The commentators tracking the Pro athletes mentioned ‘This swim course is as rough as it gets for a 70.3, this is as hard as it gets’ (https://proseries.ironman.com/watch/2024-ironman-703-western-australia-asia-pacific-championship-90-minute-recap - Time Stamp 20 min, 50 sec). Every time I tried to breathe; I was being beaten up by the waves. I must have gulped half a liter of salt water! My arms were feeling fatigued, the wetsuit suddenly started to feel so tight around my chest... I was struggling, gasping for air so loudly, a volunteer came up to me to ask if I needed help! In my panic, a thought crossed my mind if I should hold his kayak and remove my buoyancy and warmth providing wetsuit in the middle of the ocean! The mind plays games with you at such times. All the talk about staying calm, breathing slowly, swimming slowly is much easier to implement in a pool as compared to an ocean with 5-foot waves!

This is when the decades of self-motivation during many arduous marathons (both literal and metaphorical) came into play. You just need to keep trying; giving up is not an option. I said to myself, ‘I have trained so hard and so diligently, I should try and continue’. I tried to calm down my breathing, rested for a few seconds on my back (a technique I had learnt from a trainer who accompanied me in San Diego) then put my head down and made very slow strokes. A lot of participants were struggling but many were moving ahead and so one thing was sure, this was not an impossible task! I gradually started to get into a rhythm; though not my peak form, I was making progress. With the waves and the corresponding currents, the sighting of the buoys and swimming in a straight line was difficult. My Garmin showed I swam about 10% longer than race distance. My swim would have appeared zigzag from the sky as the waves kept throwing me 10-15 feet off course! At one point, I was about to cross a buoy from the left, and only when I saw a participant crossing it from the right, I stopped and turned to move past the right, else I would have been disqualified. Trust me, I had reviewed the route so many times prior, but your brain plays mind games with you when in so much duress. I was elated as I saw the swim finish line. I was swimming confidently and at speed. So many of my friends and family were cheering and praying for me back home. With so much positivity going for me, I’m sure all the powers in the universe conspired to help me complete the swim.

I had to climb 10 steps of a foot bridge right after getting out of the water. Going from the swim to standing upright was so difficult that I had to hold on to the rail bars for support. That’s when I heard a lady from the crowd say to me ‘The worst is over’! Those words of encouragement were exactly what I needed. I knew cycling and running were my forte so quickly moved through to transition onto my bike ride of 90km. The wind gusts were so strong that I was thrown off balance a few times when moving at top speed. I was able to regain balance and continued. I was going ahead at a good pace. I was diligently adhering to my route nutrition schedule of gels and energy drinks even if, at times, I was not hungry or thirsty, especially with the wind and cooler weather. Again, you are disciplining your mind to do the right thing at such time. As I transitioned into the run along the Busselton shore, I was feeling amazing. To provide me with a complete weather experience, it started to rain heavily and with the wind chill, it was getting cold at 15 degrees (for someone who has grown up in 45-degree summers)! I was not worried and took this head on. Running was my strong suit and I was in the home stretch.

My entire family - children, parents, cousins and some friends were tracking me throughout the race and saw me cross the finish line live. I completed strong with a broad smile. If someone had asked me to continue another 5km with the run, I would have completed that too! All the training hours, all the countless pool lengths of swimming, the puddles of sweat during intense interval bike trainings, all the runs in 38 degrees heat after a 90km bike ride, all of that culminated in a strong finish. You train hard because you want to finish strong, not straggle along the finish line. I never took a break, and maniacally followed the training regimen with the right nutrition.

I burned 7,000+ calories during the race. Not a bad weight loss program! But I did not lose an ounce, even gained some muscle during training. The highlight of the race was when I learnt there were only 31 participants in my age group of 55-59 years from a total of 1315 participants around the world. Most were in their 20s-30s, only a few in their 40s! It was a great feeling to be amongst the younger generation with a finisher medal and towel around my neck while waving to my children in the US on the livestream! And how could I forget the last 15m to the finish line seeing my rock, my support and life coach, Parul, waving at me. Her eyes welled up with emotion… We exchanged high fives as I crossed her and felt so grateful to have someone so selflessly involved with the same stakes or more in achieving my goals. From watching swim videos to summarize pointers, analyzing my technique and providing critical feedback, helping plan out my 5,000 calorie diets on peak training days, worrying about my safety on all my bike rides on city roads and above all being my sounding board, with whom I could share all my highs, lows, fears and anxieties, sometimes waking her up in the middle of the night to share and discuss! This reminded me of our entrepreneurial journey together building our company, Motif, from 2 people to 4,000+ over 23 years. Life is a marathon and you are not competing against anyone. You can only better your own self and if that remains the guiding light, the pressure is off, and the journey becomes joyful and the reward itself.

I feel so blessed and grateful that I was able to complete the race in 7 hrs. 31 minutes, nearly a full 1 hour before the cut off. At 59 years, I became the oldest to complete an IronMan70.3 in the city of Ahmedabad, with a population of more than 8 million (https://www.ahmedabadmirror.com/age-no-bar-for-ironman-fitness/81880580.html) and possibly a handful others in India!

To more journeys!

Kaushal Mehta