A Reflection on My Journey as an Endurance Athlete

In this series of posts, professionals reveal their best antidotes to work stress. Read the posts here, and then write your own (use #OutsideWork in the piece).

“Rajan, I am afraid you may have to give up your athletic pursuits. At best your swimming should be limited to just splashing around with the kids at the beach or pool in Summer,” said the surgeon on the other end of the table while examining the MRI scans. This was in early 2015. Looking at the images, it did not take a genius to figure out the extent of the damage to my right shoulder from an old injury.

The surgeon’s diagnosis also meant a big blow to my ambition as an endurance athlete. I was not ready to hear what he had to say. My initial response was rejection and denial – this cannot be happening. However, as I came to terms with the diagnosis, I was already thinking ‘ok, what can we do about this?’ It was just another challenge I have to face in my pursuit of being the best endurance athlete that I can be.

Now when I think back, I had one of my best Ironman racing seasons in 2015 since I started the sport nearly five years ago. How I chose to respond in the intervening period between now and that day with the surgeon shaped my outcomes.

Embracing endurance sports like Ironman and adventure racing became a great equaliser to other parts of my life - family and career. It gave me a platform to explore life as an adventure. It provided me with a diversity of challenges and opportunity to learn from one area of my life and to transfer that knowledge and skills to another. While endurance sports are physically and mentally demanding, what I realised I am learning much more about myself and soft skills needed to succeed in one’s life and career.

When I reflect on my journey so far, there are some valuable lessons relevant to our careers and lives.

Defined by decisions not conditions

I did not want to place limits on myself as a result of the surgeon’s diagnosis. Instead, I  explored ways to overcome the limitation and found new possibilities in the process.

While I was able to improve my performance when compared to the competition in my age-group year on year, that alone didn’t determine what I regarded as one of the best Ironman racing seasons so far. Instead being contended with the outcomes knowing that I gave my best in each training session and every second of the race with integrity is in itself an enormous accomplishment.

Jellyfish attack, rough seas, heat and humidity, and equipment failures during the races did not prevent me from giving my absolute best at every stroke and step along the way to the finish lines. I defined my race outcomes based on how I chose to respond rather than react to those conditions, which shaped my overall positive experience. The decisions I made helped me to push my physical limits to go over and beyond what I thought was possible.

Living your values

Many people questioned my sanity in putting my body through such a gruelling training regime and making sacrifices. There were times I doubted myself. Am I suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Behavioural Disorder? Am I trying to prove my self-worth through Ironman racing? Does an insatiable competitive spirit drive me? With no athletic talent or gifted genes, what am I attempting to achieve? If others are correct, how come I am comfortable with what I am doing? I asked myself these difficult questions.

What I realised is that Ironman racing gave me an opportunity to live my life values. I am comfortable doing what I do because my activities align with my higher values in life. Some of them are health, vitality, integrity, passion, patience, perseverance, loyalty, diversity, commitment to hard work, a drive to continuously improve, a thirst to learn and grow, and tenacity of purpose. These values guide me in chasing big dreams. Most importantly my aspiration is to be a good role model for my children. You cannot teach kids values but you can show how to live them.

Drawing parallel to Oscar Wilde’s famous quote "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life." Dare I say – in many ways life resembles an endurance race.

Gratitude and appreciation

Race day is a day of gratitude and appreciation. The most poignant moment in the race is just before the start when I thank each and every one who have paved the way for me to be standing at the start line with more than 1,000 inspired souls. It is a humbling experience and a privilege.

The nature of Ironman racing is such, you will, at some stage during the long day, experience your dark side that creates confusion, anxiety, panic, anger, doubts that magnify the effects of fatigue.

The only antidote I found during such moments is gratitude and appreciation. Thanking the supporters for their encouragement, the volunteers for their marvellous work they do or simply the thank the loved ones who inspire you. This simple act re-aligns and brings back the focus to what you are set out to do.

Life is always in balance

Life is always in balance and this is a universal principle. It is we who unconsciously do things to cause the imbalance and then start chasing the elusive work-life balance. I believe life balance is a mindset, not something external to you. It is about how well you manage yourself when doing things that bring the greatest amount of satisfaction and contentment while taking other parts of your life along that journey.

Corporate work-life balance programmes can only support you, for example, to find a good pet boarding when you go on a vacation but it cannot absolve your responsibility in finding your balance in your terms.

If you want work-life balance, do something that connects you to your passion. Life balance will find you and you’ll stop chasing it.

Pursuit of simplicity requires discipline and focus

We live in an age we are overloaded and overwhelmed with information. This introduces an inordinate amount of complexities to our lives and works where we struggle to cope with minds wandering around without focus and discipline. The mind can concentrate only on a handful of tasks at any given time and multi-tasking does not exist. Achieving simplicity is not easy and it requires conscious effort.

The nature of endurance training requires that I have to simplify my life to create the space and time. Simplicity is a key enabler to be consistent with training and it starts with building an acute awareness of how you spend your time. You’d be surprised at how many activities are complete time-wasters with only a handful of them enriching your life.

Even in your career rather than hiding behind all too familiar ‘I am too busy’ veil, take the initiative to explore new opportunities in your workplace by decluttering and simplifying your business-as-usual tasks, creating the headspace to take on a new challenge and see where it can take you.

Magic happens in the present moment

If you want a practical lesson on being present, try a long distance endurance event like Ironman. It teaches you a thing or two about being present. If you are not present at the moment, it will punish you – at times mercilessly! Even for a seasoned Ironman competitor swimming 3.8km’s, cycling 180km’s and running a marathon (i.e. 42.2km’s) can be an intimidating thought. How well you tackle the 226km’s depends on how well you chunk down the race so you remain present in the moment without your mind getting ahead of your physical body.

Most of us spend a vast amount of time thinking about the past and future while missing the magic of the present moment. So what does being present mean? It is your ability to be aware of each passing moments in your life with conscious awareness. It is observing the flow. Being present helps you to build self-awareness.

Grit - Resilience in adversity

A good endurance training programme pushes the athlete to the limits. It is not how well you performed in the first part of a hard work out that matters but how well you did in the latter part. This is what differentiates true champions from want-to-be champions. Real champions accept pain as given and they learn to work with it rather than against it. They are resilient. When you are resilient, you access the inner power and control, and this what determines your mental toughness.

I realised that what matters in one’s life and career is not how you perform when things are going swimmingly well but how you perform consistently and tenaciously when the odds are stacked up against you. This is at the heart of being resilient as well as the core of one’s character. 

You want to test your resilience then take on a new challenge that will stretch you beyond your current limits. Then consciously listen to the mental dialogue and shape that discussion in a way it becomes resourceful.

Fear is a mere thought

The day I realised that fear is just a thought was the day I took the courage to confront my childhood fear of open water swimming - a by-product from watching Steven Spielberg’s epic movie Jaws. It was a realisation that if I have absolute and total control over one thing in my life that will be how I think and act. I can make my thoughts to be anything I want it to be because I am the controller of my thoughts rather than being controlled by my thoughts. Fear is one of the most powerful instigators of your growth only if you could harness its potential and energy to your advantage.