Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge wins the 2019 London Marathon (This photo was downloaded from the Facebook page of London Marathon)

In a clinical demolition of competition, Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge ran the second fastest marathon in history to claim top honors at the 2019 London Marathon.

He covered the distance in two hours, two minutes and 37 seconds, a new course record.

The current world record – 2:01:39 – also held by Kipchoge, was set at the 2018 Berlin Marathon.  Among the World Marathon Majors (of which the London Marathon is one), Berlin is reputed to have the fastest course.

Kenya’s Brigid Kosgei won in the women’s category in London with a timing of 2:18:20. She was followed by fellow Kenyan Vivien Cheruiyot (2:20:14) and Roza Dereje (2:20:51) of Ethiopia. Finishing second among men in London on Sunday (April 28, 2019) was Ethiopia’s Mosinet Geremew (2:02:55). The third place went to Mule Wasihun (2:03:16), also of Ethiopia.

In the event’s wheelchair race, Daniel Romanchuk of US finished first among men while Manuela Schar of Switzerland took top honors among women.

Sunday’s triumph was Kipchoge’s fourth win at the London Marathon, making him the first person to do so. He previously won the race in 2015, 2016 and 2018. Adding to his formidable reputation was that when he set the world record in Berlin, he shaved off 78 seconds from the previous record. Further as per information on the website of International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) he was heading to London with a race record of 11 marathons won from the 12 he took part in, including the 2016 Olympic title. On the eve of 2019 London Marathon, a big question was – can competition check Kipchoge’s march? Even as eventual winner on Sunday was Kipchoge, a trio of Ethiopian runners kept him company in the lead pack; the three Ethiopians performed creditably keeping the group intact for almost three quarters of the race. As Kipchoge’s relentless pace began to bite, they dropped back one by one, leaving it to Geremew to chase the Kenyan athlete often described as the greatest marathon runner yet, to the finish line. The Ethiopian finished 18 seconds behind Kipchoge.

The winners from the women’s category; from left – Roza Dereje, Brigid Kosgei and Vivien Cheruiyot (This photo was downloaded from the Facebook page of London Marathon)

Mo Farah, whose presence (he along with Kosgei were winners at the 2018 edition of the Chicago Marathon) was billed as competition to Kipchoge ahead of the race, had to settle for fifth position. Only the second athlete in the history of the modern Olympics to win both the 5000m and 10,000m at successive Olympic Games, Farah with one World Marathon Major victory to his name has been having a tough transition to the marathon. Although the event’s publicity machinery drummed up a Kipchoge versus Farah race, the British runner came into the race with at least seven other participants having personal best (PB) superior to his. He finished in 2:05:39, to place fifth. The run up to the 2019 London Marathon was marred by a spat between Haile Gebrselassie, one of the all-time greats of marathon, and Farah. As reported in The Guardian’s live coverage of Sunday’s race, following his fifth place-finish Farah told the media that the controversial spat hadn’t been cause for distraction. “ I felt great at the start, felt great halfway, but when the pacemakers dropped out at 20 miles, they got a gap on me and that gap was hard to close … from 20 miles the wheels came off and I was just hanging in there, to be honest,” The Guardian quoted him as saying.

India’s Nitendra Singh Rawat, who ran in the elite section of the men’s marathon, covered the distance in 2:15:59 to place 27th overall. It was certainly fast by Indian standards but not among Rawat’s own fastest runs. In 2016, Rawat had set a course record of 2:15:48 at the Mumbai Marathon. In January 2019, at the same Mumbai event, he had romped home in 2:15:52. According to reports in the national media, Rawat is the first Indian athlete to run in the elite category of the London Marathon.

Reports ahead of race day said that over 40,000 people were scheduled to participate in the 2019 London Marathon.

(The authors Latha Venkatraman and Shyam G Menon are independent journalists based in Mumbai.)     

This photo was downloaded from the Facebook page of Boston Marathon and is being used here for representation purpose. No copyright infringement intended.

Boston Marathon is the world’s oldest annual marathon. It is part of the World Marathon Majors. Entry to this elite list of marathons is mostly through qualification on the strength of timing.

At the 123rd edition of the Boston Marathon, 26,632 runners completed the race. As per the race website, this amounted to a finish rate of 97.4 percent.

Weather is one of the major factors impacting performance of participants here. This time around, initial forecasts did not augur well. However the scenario changed closer to race date.

The weather could not have been more perfect, some of the runners from India that this blog spoke to, said.

Over 50 runners from India participated in the 2019 edition of the marathon. “ It was a strong performance by runners from India,’’ Bengaluru-based runner and coach, Ashok Nath said. He was running his tenth Boston Marathon.

Excerpts from conversations we had with runners:

Anjali Saraogi (Photo: courtesy Anjali)

Anjali Saraogi

In India, Kolkata-based amateur marathon runner, Anjali Saraogi, often ends up on the podium in her age category in the races she participates in.

2019, at Boston, she was the fastest woman among Indian runners who participated in the iconic marathon held on April 15, 2019.

She finished the race in three hours, fourteen minutes and thirty-three seconds, achieving a personal best across marathon races she has run so far.

Anjali was on the verge of not running the race because the weather in Boston worried her. “ When I landed here a week ahead of race day, it was freezing cold with temperature around 1 degree Celsius,’’ she said. She went out for a training run but felt very cold. Her finger joints hurt. “ My feet and hands felt like stone. It was as though I was barefoot. My pacing went awry. I lost track of hydration,’’ she said.

She had her eye on the weather forecast, which kept changing but mostly appeared bleak.

Disappointed, Anjali decided that she would not run the marathon. But on Saturday, the weather showed signs of improvement.

On race day, when she left home there was torrential downpour. “ Visibility was low. I had loads of clothing on me,’’ she said. By the time she got to Hopkinton, the start point of the marathon, the downpour had reduced to mild drizzle.

“ Boston Marathon features fast runners because of the stringent qualification norms for entry. You have to run at the pace of the runners or you could be tossed around,’’ she said. Anjali was very troubled and stressed thinking about it. But after 32k, the roads open up. Also, the sun was out.

During the second half of the race, she cramped because of inadequate hydration. It stemmed from days ahead of the marathon lost to cold weather.

“ Boston is a hard race. There is not one moment of rest. It is continuously up and down. But the volunteers are so cheerful and helpful, they take the race to a different level,’’ Anjali said.

Her meticulous training helped her a great deal. Equally helpful was the marathon experience. “ The fast runners of Boston Marathon helped me achieve a personal best,’’ she said.

Anjali called Boston Marathon a glorious race. However, she is doubtful if she will repeat it given the logistics, travel expenses and most important of all – the unpredictable weather of New England.

Anubhav Karmakar (This photo was downloaded from Anubhav’s Facebook page)

Anubhav Karmakar

When you browse the results of Indian runners at 2019 Boston Marathon on the race website, the name that tops the list is that of Anubhav Karmakar.

Anubhav crossed the finish line at Boston Marathon in 2:45:45.

His target was to finish within the range of 2:43-2:46 and he achieved it. Once a corporate employee, Anubhav is now a coach for endurance races and has set up his own outfit, Athloft, offering training for running, cycling, triathlon and duathlon.

At the 2019 edition of Tata Mumbai Marathon (TMM), Anubhav had finished third in his age category of 30-34 years with timing of 2:52:30.

Anubhav’s first foray into fitness was joining a gym but he found it unsustainable. He started running in 2013. Cycling engaged his mind more. He got into bicycle racing and slowly moved to the triathlon. He went on to do three half Ironman events.

It was in 2015 that Anubhav adopted a more structured approach to running. At the 2014 edition of Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon (SCMM), he had finished the full marathon in 4:22:53. In five years, he was able to chop off an hour and thirty minutes from that. Mid-April, 2019, he was at the starting line of Boston Marathon. He knew well that the course won’t be easy.

He commenced the race strong and continued to feel strong mid-way through the marathon. He did the first half very clinically, ensuring that he did not overdo. During the second half Anubhav decided to go by “feel.’’ He had heard about Heartbreak Hill, an incline that appears roughly around the 20 mile-mark on the route. Running through it was not that tough. But there were several other downhills, which proved to be difficult. “ It is difficult to pace yourself through the downhills,’’ Anubhav said.

Weather is a major challenge at Boston. On the morning of the marathon, there was heavy rain. Runners getting ready to leave for the start line had to carry a lot of waterproof stuff.

“ While we were on the bus traveling to Hopkinton, it was raining heavily. By the time we reached the start point the sun was out. I discarded my fleece jacket. After some time my gloves went off and soon after my arm warmers too came off,’’’ he said.

Anubhav finished strong. He topped the list of runners from India.

Himanshu Sareen (Photo: courtesy Himangshu)

Himanshu Sareen

Mumbai-based Himanshu Sareen was running Boston Marathon for the second year in a row. In 2018, he completed the run in 2:58:50, a timing considered quite good as race day-weather was brutal with heavy rains, strong headwinds and temperatures that were the coldest in three decades.

Many runners had dropped out of the race because of the deteriorating weather. Despite the conditions, Himanshu’s timing was not very far from his personal best of 2:49 hours, which he achieved at the 2018 Tokyo Marathon.

At the 2019 edition of Boston Marathon, Himanshu finished in 2:54 hours. Having set a target of sub-2:50, he started the run well. He was able to complete the first half of the marathon in 1:23 hours but the downhills in the second half slowed him down a bit prompting him to take a minute’s break at one of the aid stations.

“ For the last six months I have not been going all out in races because of a recurring hamstring problem,’’ he said. Recently he started training with Bengaluru-based runner and coach, Ashok Nath. He has begun to see the benefits of Ashok’s method of training and is confident of the coach’s guidance playing out in races ahead.

Himanshu started running about six years ago. Sometime in August 2013, looking for a holiday, he decided to travel to Brisbane with a friend; the latter had enrolled to run a half marathon. Himanshu did all of the three practice runs for this event – 5k, 8k and 11k. He finished the actual race in 1:47:46. By Indian amateur running standards, this is good timing for a first run.

Himanshu succumbed to the running bug.

Within a short time he ramped up to ultra-marathon distances. In 2014, he ran the 250k Fire and Ice Ultra in Iceland. The very next year, he did an ultra-run in Zermatt, Switzerland and then followed it up with UTMB. “ After these experiments with the ultra-marathon, I decided to focus on the full marathon distance,” he said.

Boston now done and dusted, next week, Himanshu will be attempting London Marathon, another of the World Marathon Majors. When that is completed, Himanshu would have run and finished all the World Marathon Majors.

Himanshu has been running marathons in various continents including Antarctica. With running, he has been able to also fulfill his passion for traveling. So far, Himanshu has traveled to 70 countries.

Purushottam Kulawade (Photo: courtesy Purushottam)

Purushottam Kulawade

In the early years of the Mumbai Marathon, Purushottam Kulawade, then a student staying at Sydenham College hostel, would walk over to Marine Drive to watch celebrity runners go by.

Enthused by the sport, he took to running. But in his first outing at a 10 kilometer-race in Pune, he ended up Did Not Finish (DNF). All the same, running continued; in 2009, he ran his first half marathon at Hyderabad and in 2010 his first full marathon at Auroville in Pondicherry.

A TCS employee, Purushottam now lives in Philadelphia. In 2018, he ran the Lehigh Valley Health Network Via Marathon in Pennsylvania. He got a personal best of 3:08:46 hours in that marathon. His entry to the 2019 edition of Boston Marathon was secured. But his training for it was not up to the mark as he was suffering from shin splints. He had set a target of 3:05 with the aim of bettering his personal best. His run went well but as it progressed the rising temperatures became a bother. “ I had not trained for such weather,’’ he said. He finished the run in 3:14:48.

Having completed Boston Marathon, Purushottam has just one of the World Marathon Majors left – Tokyo Marathon. That opportunity may come through in 2020.

Ashok Nath (Photo: courtesy Ashok)

Ashok Nath

For the last few years, one name has consistently figured among Indian runners attempting the Boston Marathon. The 2019 edition was Ashok Nath’s tenth outing at the event.

“ I started running Boston Marathon with no intention of doing it so many times. After I completed it seven times, I thought I might as well do it ten times as ten is a nice number,’’ he said. To run Boston Marathon he has to block the month of April for it. It rules out the possibility of participating in Rotterdam Marathon, London Marathon and Paris Marathon, he said.

“ There is something about Boston Marathon. As 80 percent of the entrants come through the qualifying route, you end up running with runners of high caliber,’’ he said. The entire city comes out to support the runners.

He also pointed out that weather was a concern. On the morning of the run, skies were cloudy and there was heavy rain. “ My shoes and socks were wet,’’ he said. But as time went by, the weather improved.

The Bengaluru-based runner and coach wanted to finish strong and therefore did not want to push too much, early in the race. “ I was supposed to pace somebody. For the first five kilometers, I was searching for this runner but I could not find him. I then continued running at my pace,’’ he said. Ashok finished the run in 3:10:09 hours.

The uniqueness of Boston Marathon may prompt Ashok to go for it again. He has time to decide until September when registrations open for the next edition. At one level, he also wants to shift to shorter distance obstacle races.

In June 2019, he will be attempting his fifth Comrades Marathon, the ultra-marathon in South Africa.

Sharath Kumar Adanur (Photo: courtesy Sharath)

Sharath Kumar Adanur

Entry norms for Boston Marathon are tough and yet runners, who are able to achieve the qualifying time, come back time and again to attempt it.

At the 2019 edition of Boston Marathon, Sharath Kumar Adanur, currently a resident of Jamshedpur, was attempting the race for the second time in a row.

“ I would like to come back to Boston. It is a challenging run,” he said.

With near perfect weather prevailing, Sharath had a very good run finishing the marathon in 2:51:28. He emerged second fastest from among the runners from India. However, he fell short of his target of sub-2:50. “ I trained well but I feel I should have put in more downhill training,’’ he said.

Last year, he had finished Boston Marathon amid difficult weather conditions. Sharath covered the distance in 3:17 hours; he ended up with hypothermia. He wanted to return to Boston and enjoy the race.

On a quest to complete the World Marathon Majors, Sharath will be returning the U.S. to attempt Chicago Marathon, later this year.  In 2017, he had completed New York City Marathon finishing the race in 2:57 hours.

Seema Yadav (Photo: courtesy Seema)

Seema Yadav

For Seema Yadav, it was her first time running the Boston Marathon.

She was mentally prepared for challenging course and weather.

Standing in her corral at the start line, Seema could only feel a sense of elation at the fortune of getting a chance to run the world’s most iconic marathon.

“ It was like a dream run for me,’’ she said. Yet, the race was not without challenges. “ Every hour the weather was changing. From cloudy, rainy, cold weather to humid and hot conditions, you experienced everything in those few hours,’’ she said.

Seema was nursing injuries. Three weeks prior to the marathon, she suffered Illiotibial band (IT band) and Tensor Fascia Latae (TFL) insertion injuries.  Her training got hampered.

“ It was extremely painful. I could not bend my knee. If I bend my knee I would have shooting pain and my knee would lock,’’ she said. She visited the physiotherapist daily until she left for Boston.

But the pain remained. Having got entry to Boston Marathon through qualification, she did not want to give up.

“ During the run, the support from volunteers and local residents was so amazing that it helped me divert my mind from my pain,’’ she said. The pain kept worsening and Seema wondered if she should stop for a while but decided against it. She continued running.

“ So many thoughts were going through my mind as I ran. I kept repeating a mantra to help me calm down. A famous Hindi film song, Ruk Jana Nahi was also running through my mind. I was feeling so overwhelmed that I could come here and run this marathon in which 80 percent of runners are selected through qualification,’’ she said.

When she finished the race, she was in no position to stand. She was in severe pain; her blood pressure had also dropped. She was escorted to the medical camp where she spent some time before she began to feel better. Despite all these problems, Seema finished Boston Marathon in 3:26:46, a personal best.

A recent entrant into amateur running, Seema had finished overall fifth among amateur runners and first in the age group of 35-39 years at 2019 Tata Mumbai Marathon. Her timing was 3:30:01 hours.

Tanmaya Karmarkar (Photo: courtesy Tanmaya)

Tanmaya Karmarkar

At Boston Marathon, Tanmaya Karmarkar was among runners from India who completed the race in less than three hours, thirty minutes.

She finished the run in 3:29 hours, a personal best for her.

“ At the start line, I was completely drenched and cold. Soon it started to get so humid and hot,’’ she said. The second half of the run was a little tough for her.

Tanmaya has been running for the past four to five years. She has finished on the podium at some of the races she participated in, in India. A Pune resident, she trains under Ashok Nath. At Boston, her target was sub-3:30 and she was able to achieve it.

She completed the Berlin Marathon in 2018 and is scheduled to go for the Chicago Marathon later this year.

Sandeep Kumar (Photo: courtesy Sandeep)

Sandeep Kumar

In the 2018 edition of South Africa’s Comrades Marathon, Sandeep Kumar became the fastest Indian to complete the 90 k ultra-marathon, in the downhill version of the event. He completed the run in seven hours, thirty minutes.

A podium finisher at many of the races that he participates in, Sandeep works as an engineer with L&T in Surat. His preferred terrain for running is trail.

Originally from Haryana, he forayed into long-distance running in 2014. “ When I started running, I had heard about the stringent qualifying time required for entry into Boston Marathon,’’ he said. April 2019, at Boston, his run went off very well.

In 2018, Sandeep had participated in the 30th IAU 100k World Championship held in Croatia. He has also represented India at World Championships in South Africa and China previously.

Sandeep’s training for Boston Marathon was impacted as he was called by Athletics Federation of India (AFI) to attend a certificate course for coaches (to train those in the under-16 age category) at Patiala. He lost two weeks in March, a month ahead of Boston Marathon. The positive side was that he topped the course and stands a good chance of being called for the next level.

In November 2018, Sandeep met with an accident that resulted in hip dislocation. Recovering from that, a month later, he set a course record in the 33k Chambal Challenge in Kota, Rajasthan, with a timing of 2:32:44 hours.

At Boston, the logistics to get to the start point can be quite an ordeal. Also, the fatigue of jet lag was weighing him down.

“ There was so much energy in Boston. I began to feel very positive. I initially started quite fast and then cut back on my speed. I ran four minutes per kilometer until 30k and then slowed down a bit,’’ he said. He finished the marathon in 2:56:07 hours, a personal best. He was one among five runners from India who secured sub-three hours finish this year at the event.

Subhojit Roy (Photo: courtesy Subhojit)

Subhojit Roy

Subhojit Roy’s training for Boston Marathon went off fairly well.

However, he feels that it could have been better.

After running Chicago Marathon in 2018 where he finished in 3:15:25, he ran the full marathon at Tata Mumbai Marathon (TMM) in January 2019.

“ It was a mistake to run the full marathon in Mumbai. Also, I did not drink adequate water or consume gels. Race day was hot. It took me about two to three weeks to get back to training for Boston Marathon,’’ he said.

Nevertheless, the run at Boston was “ fantastic.’’ He finished it in 3:14:33, a personal best.

At Boston, Subhojit was to be paced by his coach but the two of them could not meet. “ I ended up running the first half faster than expected,’’ he said.

In his youth, Subhojit played badminton on a regular basis. As the years went by, the regularity declined and the sport became confined to weekends. Soon friends also disappeared for various reasons; some laid low by injury.

“ I realized that I have to continue my fitness regimen solo. I started running and towards the end of 2013 I enrolled for a race,’’ Subhojit said. He ran that race without any training.

He enrolled for more long-distance running events. With each race his efficiency kept improving. “ I was also committed a lot of mistakes. I learnt from them,’’ he said.

At the 2016 edition of Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon (SCMM), Subhojit ran the full marathon. He finished in 4:30 hours. The timing was not bad for debut but he had to walk the last 10 kilometers to complete the run.

A friend suggested that he attend a workshop conducted by Bengaluru-based runner and coach, Ashok Nath. “ I attended his workshop in 2016 in Mumbai and learnt a lot about the technique of running,’’ he said. He also realized that if he has to run a full marathon, he has to approach it seriously. He enrolled to train with Ashok Nath.

With guidance from the coach, he was able to correct his errors and systematically improve his timing. Participating in the 2017 edition of Berlin Marathon he finished the race in 3:22 hours; this enabled him to qualify for Boston Marathon. For his age group, the qualifying time required was 3:25 hours.

At the 2018 edition of TMM, Subhojit bettered that time to 3:20 hours and a month later at the New Delhi Marathon (NDM), improved it further to 3:16. “ I used the NDM timing to register for Boston as the margin was better,’’ he said.

The race experience in Boston was fantastic with great crowd support. “ When I finished I felt good. I would definitely like to go back to Boston,’’ Subhojit said.

Lata Alimchandani (Photo: courtesy Lata)

Lata Alimchandani

When she crossed the finish line at 2019 Boston Marathon, Lata Alimchandani had reasons to be happy.

With this run, she completed all the six World Marathon Majors.

Her timing at Boston (4:04:43) was a new personal best (PB).

“ I could have finished the run in 3:59,’’ she said with a hint of regret. At mile 24, she saw a young woman runner being picked up by the medical team. She lost some time there. “ I also don’t run with my eye on the watch. Had I done that I could have finished in better timing,’’ she said. Nevertheless she is happy with the outcome and the new PB.

On the morning of race day, there was a lot of confusion over what to wear for the race. “ We got a message that it is going to be stormy and windy with heavy rains. I had to wear layers and cover my shoes in plastic. But by the time I reached the start line the weather had changed. There was a scramble to remove some of the layers,’’ she said.

The Boston Marathon course is tough. But the organization was excellent, she said. This was her seventh international run; she has run marathons at Amsterdam, Berlin, London, Chicago, New York, Tokyo and Boston.

She ran the Tokyo Marathon in March this year.

(The author, Latha Venkatraman, is an independent journalist based in Mumbai.)

Dr Madhav Manoj (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

A narrow, long state, Kerala’s rivers are comparatively small.

They engage for the tiers of elevation they straddle despite short length.

The Karamana River which cuts through Thiruvananthapuram falls in this league. Wikipedia estimates its length at a mere 66 km; by then it reaches the Arabian Sea.  Its source is however pegged at around 5250 feet in the nearby Agasthyakoodam hills (the Agasthyakoodam peak, second highest in Kerala after Anamudi [8842 feet] is around 6128 feet high). How many cities can boast of such variety in landscape? All that uniqueness is now, stuff of the past. There was a time when the river looked like one.  Now, within the city, it stands hemmed in by Thiruvananthapuram’s growth. Its waters have begun ailing from urban pollution. Once in a while when it rains hard; the Karamana – as indeed other rivers in the region – swells. Floods happen. That is when city remembers river in its midst. Water’s capacity to damage and threaten is also when humans are reminded of the value in knowing how to swim.

In Dr Madhav Manoj’s childhood, there was one such devastating flood when the Karamana breached its banks submerging adjacent settlements. Madhav’s father K. Karunakaran – an advocate; in the early 1970s he served as mayor of Thiruvananthapuram – observed how depressing it was to see people rendered helpless before the deluge. His wife decided that their son should learn swimming.  For those aspiring so in Thiruvananthapuram city, the place to train at was the Water Works Swimming Pool in Vellayambalam. Established in the early 1960s, the pool is an integral part of Thiruvananthapuram. Madhav who stayed at Nanthancode, not far from Water Works, headed to the pool to learn swimming. It would be the beginning of a journey.

From left: Rajashekharan (Raj) Nayar, Madhav and Santhosh J. K (Photo: courtesy Dr Madhav Manoj)

Born 1973, Madhav was seven or eight years old when he commenced swimming classes. He was good at the sport; good enough to be a competitive swimmer. His first national level competition was while he was still in sub junior category. By the time he got to juniors, he was South Zone champion and a silver medalist at the national level. His specialty was the butterfly stroke. But he was strong across styles in the short distance swims ranging from 50m to 200m. In his early years in college, he was a regular podium finisher at inter-university competitions. The going was good enough for the Indian Railways to spot him and enquire if he would be keen on a career in sports with them, job and all. But he opted to study further. He cleared his entrance exam to study medicine and joined the local dental college. With that, swimming took a backseat.

The hours offered by the city’s pool – 6 AM to 8 AM – didn’t work well for the schedule his studies followed. The evening hours on offer too, didn’t work. “ That was depressing because at the time I commenced studies to be a dentist, I was swimming 12-13 km at the pool daily. That sort of training and studies were difficult to manage. I had to choose,’’ Madhav said. He shifted from swimming to playing cricket. National level swimmer became captain of the dental college cricket team. A few years later, that too ground to a halt. It was: goodbye to serious pursuit of sports.

After completing his post-graduation, Madhav joined PMS College of Dental Science & Research at Vattappara near Thiruvananthapuram. There, he got around to playing cricket with his students. Meanwhile he got married and settled into the process of raising a family. “ All of a sudden, I found myself aged 42 and with two kids. I didn’t know what happened in between,’’ he said. It is typically around this time of life lost to established pattern that the odd blips and signals emanating from the human networks we are invested in; catch our eye.  Madhav had kept in touch with his old school mates. As is typical in Kerala, many of them were overseas; some were in the US. From this lot, Santosh J.K, who was living in the US, was into running marathons.  Madhav was aware of it. But a marathon is 42 kilometers done one kilometer after another – that’s a lot, especially when viewed from the perspective of middle age blues. At a get together of his batch-mates from school that followed, Madhav reconnected with one of his classmates – Rajashekharan (Raj) Nayar. Raj used to be a plump person in school. Those days, Madhav – he was regularly swimming at the pool – was utterly fit. Now in his early forties, Raj was lean while Madhav seemed out of shape. Raj had gone into long distance running and martial arts. What he didn’t tell Madhav right then was his journey into the triathlon alongside; he had already completed two Ironman events.

In Goa; from the swim in the sea (Photo: courtesy Dr Madhav Manoj)

The meet-up with Raj prompted Madhav to participate in the annual marathon in Thiruvananthapuram. He did a ten kilometer-run with his friend P. Vijayakumar who kept him company, advising him to run slowly. Santhosh then connected Madhav to Vishwanath Harikumar, a software engineer in Thiruvananthapuram who was into long distance running. Later, through Trivandrum Runners Club, Madhav also met Dr Kiran Gopalakrishnan, an ophthalmologist originally into cycling and then taken to running. During one of the runs they were on, Vishwanath introduced Madhav to the idea of attempting Ironman. The reason was simple.  The triathlon – which is what every Ironman event is – is composed of swimming, cycling and running. In India, most people are familiar with running and cycling. Swimming is not only less popular; the ones who manage to perfect the technique are fewer still. Madhav was strong in swimming. From the perspective of triathlon that seemed more than half the prerequisites in place. The way in which the Ironman idea cropped up encapsulates the predicament.

“ During a conversation with my friends, we discussed the need to train for swimming. I offered to coach because I knew swimming. That was when the whole Ironman idea fell into place. I seemed well placed to try it. I talked to Raj also about it. We decided that the best approach would be to first attempt a triathlon in India. There was a triathlon organized in Chennai by Chennai Trekking Club. It had triathlon of Olympic dimension and half Ironman dimension.  I decided to try the half Ironman distance,’’ Madhav said. Now he had to train.

Thiruvananthapuram has never lacked sports facilities. But probably due to the high importance given to academics and well settled life, the vast majority of people around conduct their life without ever setting foot in the city’s stadiums, its swimming pools or stepping on to its athletics tracks. Once described as apt place to settle down after retirement, Thiruvananthapuram has since, slowly changed. It is still very much in the grip of the old but new generations and the presence of IT companies in the neighborhood have contributed to shaking off some of the inertia. For sure it isn’t Kochi, which is more free spirited and has made a popular movement of running. Thiruvananthapuram is comparatively regimented. Free running on its roads for example, is still a distant second to appointment based running at locations like the local museum and zoo. Now slowly, in bits and pieces, the city is learning to relax, breathe free.

From the Langkawi Ironman (Photo: courtesy Dr Madhav Manoj)

From the Langkawi Ironman (Photo: courtesy Dr Madhav Manoj)

Madhav bought a Scott Speedster road bike from Crank, a newly opened bike store in Thiruvananthapuram. For cycling, he and his friends counted on stretches of road like the one from city to Kovalam. Up and down that amounted to a circuit of roughly 40 km. Such outings came, courtesy Madhav’s association with Trivandrum Bikers Club. For swimmer, running was the toughest activity to get used to. “ I found it really difficult,’’ Madhav said of the impact-free sport he loved and the impact-filled sport running is. One day, Madhav ran ten kilometers and then ended up in the pool for a swim. For the heck of it he swam 1500 meters that day.  It was a wake-up call. He was doing breast stroke. Trying such distance after a long time, he got tired. “ Every 300 meters, I had to take rest. I felt very bad because these are distances I used to swim at a stretch in the past,’’ he said. The predicament also presented him with another issue to tackle. A triathlon requires sustained use of one’s legs across three disciplines. You can’t have your legs fried up doing one discipline and then crumble doing the next one.  He needed to be efficient and good at a swimming style that spared his legs too much strain and kept them alive for the disciplines that followed.  At this time, Madhav was teaching at PMS College. He was also consulting at a clinic in Male, Maldives. He cycled, ran and swam in Thiruvananthapuram; he ran whenever he could in Male too, at the local stadium.

Raj, who had taken on the role of planning Madhav’s training schedules, would mail it from the US. Problem was finding adequate time for training. Madhav worked from 7 AM to 7 PM. On weekends he managed long runs of 15-17 km and 60-70 kilometers of cycling. Weekdays were a struggle.  At the event organized by Chennai Trekking Club (CTC), he developed cramps while cycling. Then he briefly lost his way. Eventually he managed to complete the 1.9 km of swimming, 90 km of cycling and the half marathon in approximately seven hours, 20 minutes. After the CTC triathlon, Madhav spoke to Raj and communicated his decision to go for the full Ironman. Raj reminded that the full Ironman isn’t the half doubled but much more for that is how the ramp-up works. Starting with training, it will consume significant chunks of time. Raj recommended that Madhav first talk to his family. They are the people closest to him; they are the ones he would be sparing less time for when training starts. Madhav’s wife Manju is also a dentist. At that time when Madhav was contemplating the full Ironman, their daughter was in the eleventh standard. Having secured his family’s support, Madhav committed himself to the training. For event, he chose the Ironman in Langkawi, Malaysia because he reckoned, the weather there should be similar to what prevailed in Thiruvananthapuram. He had roughly seven months to prepare.

From the Langkawi Ironman (Photo: courtesy Dr Madhav Manoj)

Fitting the training schedule for the full Ironman into his teaching and travel schedules was difficult. By now, Madhav had also begun swimming in Male, where there was a pool marked out from the sea. He swam there after work. “ The first time I swam in that pool I felt very uncomfortable because unlike in an artificially lit pool where you see all the way to the bottom, here it was dark. Then I got used to it,’’ Madhav said. In March 2017, he went to Goa for a five kilometer-swim in the sea. This was his first real taste of open water swimming. He covered the distance in roughly 105 minutes. By June-July the monsoon was in full force in Thiruvananthapuram. So he acquired a trainer and did his cycling indoors.

Of all three disciplines required for the triathlon, cycling was toughest to train for in Thiruvananthapuram. Its undulating terrain makes the city great for training to do endurance sports. Aside from general apathy to the active life, the main problems are narrow roads and the growing Malayali propensity to announce well-being in the form of more and more vehicles purchased (some recently published figures of state-wise automobile sales, available on the Internet, position small Kerala among the biggest vehicle markets in South India). Result – roads fast choking with traffic. The city’s roads – especially ones like the highway to Kollam, which Madhav used for long cycle rides – tend to fill with vehicles. Cars and buses squeeze out room for cyclists. “ It was risky, cycling on such roads,’’ Madhav said.  On some of the long bicycle rides, he had family tagging along in a car behind, offering hydration support. In the last month leading up to Langkawi, PMS College allowed him to report for work an hour late so that he could use that extra time for training.

From the Langkawi Ironman (Photo: courtesy Dr Madhav Manoj)

Three days before the event in November 2017, Madhav and Manju left Thiruvananthapuram for Malaysia. “ It was a well-managed event,’’ Madhav said of the Langkawi Ironman. The full Ironman entailed 3.8 km swim; 180 km cycling and a full marathon. The swim went comfortably for Madhav. Cycling in the hot sun was tough. The hydration he planned was inadequate. The run was alright. “ Some parts of the course were dark and tad depressing. Otherwise everything was cheerful. In the end, they announced: Madhav Manoj, you are an Ironman – that was fabulous to hear,’’ he said.  Madhav took 15 hours, 50 minutes to complete the Ironman. Of 13 Indians who turned up that year for the event in Langkawi, six finished.

In the media, Madhav has been reported as the first person from Thiruvananthapuram to complete a full Ironman. According to him, in the months that followed, Sam Chandy, a chartered accountant from the city, completed the Ironman in Copenhagen. “ I am not keen on repeating an Ironman because it is too expensive especially for somebody from India. An exception would be – if it can be combined with a family holiday. The triathlon definitely interests me,’’ Madhav said. Going ahead, he would like to take up the full marathon as a distinct discipline, know more about the world of randonneuring in cycling and try his hand at swimming in the Masters Championships.

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai. This article is based on a conversation with Madhav Manoj.) 

K. T. Irfan (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

In April 2018, K. T. Irfan was at a low point in his career in sports. Roughly ten months later, in a return to form, he became the first Indian athlete to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. “ I am very happy,’’ he told this blog at his house in Kuniyil in Kerala’s Malappuram district. This is his story:

Race walking is a little understood sport.

Actions like running, jumping and throwing are well-defined; they highlight ability. To our minds, walking has never been in the same league as running. If you walk fast, it remains just that – a fast walk. Leveraging that to mean high sport is tough on the imagination. Unless you get down to attempting a 20 km or 50 km walk and complete it in times that would put most amateur long distance runners to shame. Which is what, race walkers do. But then all sports have become so wrapped up in their private ecosystem that imagining what it’s like being in someone else’s shoes is a fading talent.  The uniqueness of running is that it is not as common as walking. Who will empathize with what’s perceived as less?

That’s why the news of mid-March 2019 engaged. Six years earlier, in September 2013, Tokyo had been selected as host city for the 2020 Summer Olympics. In the time since, a lot changed with regard to rules for athletes to qualify for the Olympics. While the jury is still out on how apt the revised qualifying norms from International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) are, the general impression is that qualification by timing has been tightened further while some cushioning (as additional route to qualify) has been provided courtesy an international ranking system in each discipline. At the beginning of 2019, there were three major events looming before elite athletes – the Asian Athletics Championships in Doha (Qatar), the IAAF World Athletics Championships in Doha and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The qualifying mark got tougher as one moved from the first event to the last. The Sixth National Race Walking Championships held in Chennai in February 2019 was to serve as platform for Indian race walkers to qualify for the world championships in Doha. None made the cut.

Following the race walking competition in Chennai, the sport once more sank from media attention. Then a month later, race walking provided a story worthy of national attention – K. T. Irfan had placed fourth in the 20 km race walk at the Asian Race Walking Championships in Nomi, Japan. More important, at one hour 20 minutes and 57 seconds, his timing was within the qualification standard of one hour 21 minutes assigned for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Race walking had produced the first Indian athlete to qualify for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics. For Irfan, already a veteran of two Olympics in his 29 years on the planet, it was more than qualifying for Tokyo; it was much awaited return to normalcy.

K. T. Irfan (Photo: courtesy Irfan)

Roughly ten days after the event in Nomi, it was very hot in Kozhikode, north Kerala. The state, battered by heavy rain in 2018, was now in the grip of a heat wave.  Health advisories were out. “ Are you sure you don’t want an air conditioned room?’’ the front office manager at the hotel asked. “ Absolutely,’’ I said. There are certain things you are sure of when surviving on freelance journalist’s income; type of hotel room is one of them. Over an hour later, the trip by transport bus to Kuttoli in adjacent Malappuram district was surprisingly tolerable.  I attribute that to vegetation, still alive and offering shade in these parts.  The region was hilly with ups and downs, not pronouncedly but definitely so. From Kuttoli, one took the road proceeding to Kuniyil. Wikipedia provides further insight into the geography of this area. Kuniyil falls in Kizhuparamba panchayat; the latter in Malayalam means low lying land. Essentially the valley between nearby hills, some parts here are susceptible to flooding when water levels rise in Chaliyar River during monsoon. Kuniyil is where Irfan grew up.

Born February 1990, he was one of six children. His father’s work entailed aggregating coconuts from the region and drying it to copra for onward supply to oil mills. Financially, it was hard times for the family. They struggled.  Irfan studied at Kuniyil’s Al Anvar High School up to tenth standard. For eleventh and twelfth he attended Government Vocational Higher Secondary School at Kizhuparamba. Traditionally the more sport loving part of the state, north Kerala is crazy about football. “ This is football country,’’ Irfan said. Like any other youngster he too ran and played in school. There was nothing remarkable in that engagement with sports. Sole incident recalled was a fall during high jump that left him with a cracked arm. Things changed when Rebas Mosahi entered the frame.

Race walking’s origins date back to the nineteenth century, to competitive long distance walking events generally called pedestrianism. According to Wikipedia, it was a popular working class past time in England and America. The first English amateur walking championship was organized in 1866. Race walking first appeared in the Olympics at the 1904 Olympic Games as a half mile walk in the all-rounder category, a precursor to the modern decathlon. From 1908 onward it has been at the Olympics as a distinct, stand-alone event. Women’s race walk made its Olympic debut in 1992. At senior level, the distances tackled are usually 20 km and 50 km but this, the IAAF has said, is set to change (for more on these changes please try this link: https://shyamgopan.com/2019/02/07/race-walking-iaaf-committee-recommends-changes/). By the time Irfan was growing up in Kuniyil, race walking was already a discipline included at school and college level athletics competitions in Kerala. Rebas – he was senior to Irfan and a friend of Irfan’s brother – was a competitive race walker. He trained under their school coach, Jose. Race walking is not a sport featured frequently in the media. In rural Kuniyil, there wasn’t much information available on race walking. Jose was window to the sport.

It was generally felt that Rebas would benefit from having a training partner. That is how Irfan came into the picture, as did another friend, Salman K.P. The trio trained to race-walk at school and on the local roads. Typically, it was jogging in the morning; race walking in the evening. Race walkers have always been an oddity for their peculiar style of walking. It is a style that takes walking to as fast as it can be while respecting two critical conditions – (a) the athlete’s back toe cannot leave the ground until the heel of the front foot has touched the ground (b) the supporting leg must straighten from the point of contact with the ground and remain straight till the body has passed over it. Walk so and it is often a peculiar gait to behold. With three local lads into the sport, Kuniyil got used to the sight of them race walking on local roads. But in a sport where logging miles is part of training, reactions weren’t the same everywhere they went to. “ When we crossed from Kuniyil to other places in the region, it was common for people unfamiliar with race walking to make fun of us. You ignore it and carry on,’’ Irfan said. As the months went by, the boys logged miles on the region’s ups and downs. The first break through for Irfan came in 2006. At a school meet in Palakkad, he finished fourth in the state in 20 km race walk. Salman placed fifth.

K. T. Irfan (Photo: courtesy Irfan)

Following the Palakkad result, Jose suggested that Irfan appear for trials to secure admission to the Sports Authority of India’s (SAI) regional training facility in Kozhikode. The trials were due at the city’s Devagiri College. When they first reached the scene, both Irfan and Salman turned back owing to sheer nervousness. But they felt guilty; Jose had invested time and effort in them and they couldn’t let him down.  So they returned to the trials, where Irfan made the cut and was accepted as a day trainee. Given Kuniyil was some distance from Kozhikode he stayed with his aunt in the city and attended training. At SAI, his coach was Bose. In 2007, at Puducherry, Irfan set a new under-20 South Zone record in the 10 km race walk, covering the distance in 46 minutes 46 seconds. At the next level – the inter zone meet – he finished sixth. “ I was tense. It was my first national meet,’’ Irfan said. After that South Zone record, he was provided hostel accommodation at SAI, Kozhikode. He also gained admission under sports quota, to study at Devagiri College. “ One reason I persisted with sports is that I wanted my education to be self-supported and not be a drain on my father’s income,’’ Irfan said.

For three years – 2007, 2008 and 2009 – Irfan competed in university level competitions (he represented University of Calicut). In 2007, he did his first 20 km race walk, completing it in two hours five minutes.  In 2008 and 2009, he secured gold medal at these contests. Given the timings reported by race walkers in their discipline, they would seem good candidates for crossing over into the world of distance running. For instance, the timing reported for 20 km race walk compares well with timings at half marathons (the half marathon is longer by a kilometer) while the timing for 50 km race walk (as of early 2019, the world record in the discipline was held by Yohann Diniz of France; 3:32:33) sits comfortably in full marathon territory despite 50 km being longer than a marathon. Irfan said, he never had any inclination of that sort. “ I was never in doubt or wanting to shift to another sport,’’ he said. One reason for this was his cadence; he called it “ frequency.’’  He has very good frequency in this movement, critical for race walking. “ I had faith that I would do well,’’ he said. In 2009, as SAI started weeding out over-age trainees, Bose told Irfan that it was time he looked for a job. Around this time, there was an inter-state athletics meet held in Kochi. At this meet Irfan met the race walking team from the Indian Army’s Madras Regimental Center (MRC). Their coach P. S. Jalan, took note of his performance and asked if he would be interested in joining the army. Following trials at MRC, Irfan was selected. After the required medical tests in Bengaluru, he formally joined the Indian Army (Madras Regiment to be precise) on March 15, 2010. He reported to MRC in Ooty.

MRC had a sports company, which had in it the regiment’s sports stars. It was coached by Subedar Ram Kumar. In September-October 2010, Irfan participated in an army sports meet featuring athletes drawn from its units in South India. He got gold in the 20 km race walk. After this, he moved to Hyderabad where the Southern Command maintained its sports team.  At the inter-command sports meet, he finished first in 20 km.  Selected to represent the army, Irfan next participated in the Services Meet where again he finished first. Thereafter at the 2011 National Games, he placed fourth. At the behest of Gurudev Singh, coach at the national camp, Irfan reported to the national camp in Bengaluru in June 2011. After about ten days of training under Gurudev Singh, on June 12, he secured silver at an inter-state championship in Bengaluru. That was his first medal at the national level, in senior category. Following this he shifted to National Institute of Sports (NIS) in Patiala for the remaining period of the national camp. In September 2011, at the Open National Athletics Championship in Kolkata, Irfan secured gold.

At Gurudev Singh’s suggestion Irfan was continuing on at NIS, when he was called to Ooty by the army to prepare for their internal competition. At this time, selection for the Asian Championships was on at NIS; two of his compatriots qualified for the 2012 London Olympics. Irfan missed out. Meanwhile Irfan hit gold at the army area meet. In March 2012, at the Federation Cup held in Patiala, Irfan resolved to do well. He set a new meet record of 1:22:14 in the 20 km race walk, which also sufficed to see him qualify for the London Olympics. Interestingly at four race walkers qualified and destined for London, race walking had significant representation in the Indian athletics squad for the event. Conditions were good in London. Irfan set a new national record in 20 km race walk at the Olympics; 1:20:21. He finished tenth in a field of 56 participants. He recalled warm, welcoming receptions in India after this achievement. Then it was back to national camp in Bengaluru.

In May 2013 at the IAAF World Challenge Meet in China, Irfan finished in 1:20:59 placing fourth. This gained him entry to the World Championships in Moscow in August 2013. In Moscow, he was disqualified; at the time of disqualification he was in fourth position in the race. Disqualification (it follows a series of cautions) is for losing leg contact with the ground and for not keeping the supporting leg straight. “ Such mistakes usually happen due to the pressure of competition. The first warning does not affect you. The second one makes you conscious. It slows you down,’’ Irfan said of how the process elicits toll on athletic performance. In 2013, Indian authorities commenced a national championship for race walking. That year Irfan didn’t participate. He did, at the 2014 edition in Kochi, where he finished second in 20 km and qualified for the Asian Championships despite pulling his hamstring at around eighteenth kilometer. At the Asian Championships, he topped among participating Indian race walkers covering the distance in 1:21:41. In April, at the Federation Games, he returned a timing of 1:24:21, tad outside the qualifying mark for the upcoming Asian Games. Nevertheless based on previous performance, he made the cut. The training that followed was in Dharamshala. Somewhere during this phase, probably due to over-training or vitamin deficiency or maybe, both – he developed a stress fracture on his right ankle. Not realizing the gravity of injury he participated in the Asian Games at Incheon, South Korea and finished fourth in his discipline with a timing of 1:23:14. “ There was pain. After the Asian Games, I rested for a month and then resumed training. But the pain came back. It was then that stress fracture was diagnosed,’’ he said.

K. T. Irfan (Photo: AFI Media)

Of help in this phase was his signing up with Olympic Gold Quest (OGQ); it had happened two years earlier in 2012. OGQ assisted with medical treatment.  Recovery took time. Post Asian Games, Irfan was coached by Alexander Artsybashev, a Russian coach who had been working with the Indian race walking team. The next major event for Irfan was the 2016 Rio Olympics. The qualification for it was hoped to be achieved at the Open Race Walking Championships in Jaipur. Irfan placed fourth in Jaipur but he still made the cut for Rio; he clocked 1:22:45 against the qualifying mark of 1:24:00. According to Irfan, at Jaipur, as many as nine Indian race walkers made it home within the Olympic qualifying time. Then fortunes nosedived for the athlete from Kerala. The old hamstring injury he sustained in Kochi returned. Irfan couldn’t participate in the Asian Championships; he also had to avoid the Olympics. But he continued at the national camp doing off-season training.

In 2017, he participated in the Open Race Walking Championships held in Delhi, where he finished first. At that year’s Asian Race Walking Championships he secured a bronze medal. “ It was my first medal at the international level,’’ Irfan said. He followed that up with good timing – 1:21:45 – at the World Championships in London. But his position in the field wasn’t as good. In 2018, he secured gold at the Open Race Walking Championships in Delhi with a timing of 1:21:31. It was good enough to qualify for both the upcoming Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games. The first of these events was the Commonwealth Games held in Gold Coast, Australia in April 2018. The weather was terribly warm. Irfan didn’t do well. He finished thirteenth in a field of 16. He got a caution in the first two kilometers; then a second. It rattled him and inhibited his performance. “ It is my habit to spend the first three quarters or so of a race with the leading group. Given the cautions, I got scared, slowed down and missed being part of the lead group,’’ he said. However, the worst was yet to come. Some days after the above mentioned race, news appeared of two Indian athletes – triple jumper Rakesh Babu and race walker K. T. Irfan – asked to leave the 2018 Commonwealth Games for violating the no-needle policy. The said policy was part of measures to weed out doping. According to published news reports a cleaner alerted Games officials to a used needle found in a cup in the room shared by the two athletes; a second needle was later discovered in a bag belonging to Rakesh Babu. The athletes said they had no idea how the needles got there. Games officials were not satisfied with their explanation. On April 17, 2018, Times of India reported that the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) had challenged the decision to remove Irfan from the Games village. But the damage had already been done. Public perception of athlete altered with the media reports from Australia.

The 2018 Commonwealth Games was the lowest point in Irfan’s career. “ It was a difficult period,’’ Irfan said. The first competition after the Commonwealth Games was the World Team Cup of May 2018. “ I was mentally depressed after the Commonwealth Games. My timing at World Team Cup was quite bad,’’ Irfan said. Three months later at the Asian Games in Jakarta, he was disqualified. “ It happened at 15 km. Till that point I was in contention for bronze,’’ he said. According to the media, four Indian race walkers including Irfan suffered disqualification at the 2018 Asian Games. It was a major setback for the squad. After the Asian Games, Irfan took a break for about a month. Around December 2018, he started training again. His coach now at the national camp in NIS, Patiala was Harminder Singh, former race walker and bronze medalist at the 2010 Commonwealth Games. For coach and ward, ahead was the National Race Walking Championship scheduled in Chennai for February 2019. “ It was a good competition. But the weather was very warm,’’ Irfan said of the event, where he defended his national title in 20 km for the third time in a row but failed to qualify for the 2019 IAAF World Athletics Championship due in Doha. However, his timing in Chennai was good enough to earn him a berth for the upcoming Asian Race Walking Championships in Nomi, Japan.

K. T. Irfan (Photo: courtesy Irfan)

Located in Ishikawa Prefecture on Honshu, the largest among the islands constituting Japan, Nomi has a humid continental climate characterized by mild summers and cold winters with heavy snowfall. According to Wikipedia, Nomi’s average annual temperature is 14.1 degrees C. The temperatures are highest in August at around 26.8 degrees C; it is lowest in January at around 2.7 degrees C. The 2019 Asian Race Walking Championships were scheduled for March. “ The weather was really good,’’ Irfan said of conditions on race day in Nomi. One hour 20 minutes and 57 seconds after commencing the 20 km race walk, he was once again the stuff of positive news in India; he had become the first athlete from India to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. On March 17, 2019 the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported: National record holder K. T. Irfan on Sunday became the first Indian from athletics to qualify for next year’s Olympics while finishing fourth in the 20 km event of the Asian Race Walking Championships in Nomi, Japan. A huge load was lifted from Irfan’s shoulders. The long shadow of the 2018 Commonwealth Games seemed to recede. “ I hadn’t gone to Nomi hoping to qualify for the Olympics. I was looking to meet the qualifying standard for Doha. I am very happy with the outcome,’’ Irfan said.

Irfan’s personal best (also national record as of March 2019) was the timing he returned over 20 km at the 2012 London Olympics – 1:20:21. The world record for the same discipline (at the time of writing) was 1:16:36 held by Yusuke Suzuki of Japan. According to Irfan, in the 20 km discipline, the weakness of Indian race walkers is usually the last five kilometers. “ For 15 kilometers we manage to stick with the leading group. Thereafter we begin to fade while the stronger race walkers in the field get quicker. If we try to go faster, we risk disqualification,’’ he said. It highlights the points to focus on in training, as race walkers try to honor the sport’s technical rules and still push pace despite exhaustion. With the means to identify loss of foot contact and bending of support leg, set to become more sophisticated and accurate, race walkers have their work cut out. It was now noon in Kuniyil and K. T. Irfan, glad for Nomi, was not looking that far into the sport’s technological future. He was just happy to put all that bad press from Gold Coast behind, enjoy his days at home on leave from the national camp and when the break gets over, return to training for Doha and Tokyo. Just as we left the sturdy brick and mortar house that was now his home, he pointed to a small crumbling building on the edge of the compound. “ That is where we used to live,’’ he said. Half an hour later, I was on the bus back to Kozhikode.

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai. This article is based on a conversation with K. T. Irfan. Timing at races are as provided by him.)       

Shibani Gharat (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

“ I am not obsessed with completing the Marathon Majors. I am not obsessed with anything actually. I just enjoy running.’’

For those working in the media, general elections are usually a period of hectic activity.

In India, 2019 dawned with elections around the corner. Political parties in the fray attached much expectation to it. A familiar litany of heated discussions, exclusives, poll forecasts, exit polls and election analysis would roll out across television channels and publications. Having covered elections before, Shibani Gharat knew what would head her way in April-May, which was when polls were due. Before the decibels peaked, could she squeeze in a challenge? It was a journey, as yet six years old. Unlike elections, this one was her own. Canberra? – She wondered.

January 2013. Among those lined up for the year’s Mumbai Marathon was a young woman clad in Bermuda shorts and T-shirt. Apart from her daily half a dozen loops around Shivaji Park in Mumbai’s Dadar and weekend mileage of as many kilometers, she had run all of one long run – 17 km – as preparation for the marathon she was set to attempt. She was neither familiar with the right attire for running nor aware of the training required for a marathon.

Running at Saratoga Creek, San Francisco (Photo: courtesy Shibani Gharat)

It was sometime in the second half of 2012 that a friend pushed her into enrolling for the half marathon at the 2013 Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon (SCMM). By the time she decided to enroll, slots for the half marathon were full. The half marathon segment of Mumbai Marathon is hugely popular with recreational runners. Without any hesitation she enrolled for the full marathon (42.2 kilometers). The full marathon at Mumbai starts in the southern part of the city, moves towards suburbs in the north-west and then returns. On race day, at Haji Ali, during the return leg of the marathon, a friend called out to her: tu zinda hai ya mar gaya (are you still alive or dead)? She completed that maiden marathon in four hours 58 minutes. By the standards of recreational running, that is good timing; certainly for a first timer.

Running in New York (Photo: courtesy Shibani Gharat)

The erstwhile textile mills of Lower Parel are now among Mumbai’s bustling business districts. The old mills have transformed to shopping malls, office spaces; even apartment complexes. As if that injection of perceived modernity is not enough, you have vertical lines of high rises – some of them, among the tallest buildings in India – stretching into the sky. Yet typical of India, no scene is sanitized to favor a single attribute. The old and the new co-exist. The roads of Lower Parel also have plenty of old buildings. The streets are congested and oozing at every twist and turn, the hallmarks of high population and densely packed life. It was December 2018. The television journalist we were to meet wasn’t hard to spot as she walked in. She wore a bright red dress and there was make-up from the studio, still on her face. It was late evening; the closing hours of another working day. The café in Lower Parel was packed with people, mostly young. “ During my school years, I was quite fat. I used to eat my classmates’ lunch,’’ Shibani Gharat, now trim and athletic, said recalling her past. She may have looked the consummate rookie, Bermuda shorts and all, that early morning of the 2013 SCMM. But she was no stranger to the active life. During her undergraduate studies, she had enrolled in a self-defence course and been subsequently introduced to taekwondo by coach, Bhaskar Karkera. Shibani went on to represent Mumbai in the sport at the state level; once she competed at the nationals too. She started running as part of her training for taekwondo.

Photo: courtesy Shibani Gharat

Born 1985, Shibani is the only child of her parents, both of them retired bankers. She grew up in Mumbai’s Shivaji Park area; heart of the city and quite centrally located if one imagined a portrait of town by sports facilities. Following her studies at the city’s Sophia College for Women, Shibani aspired to be a journalist. It was an uphill task. She could write well; she was already contributor at Asian Age and Times Journal of Photography. But the completion of studies and search for a job coincided with economic recession. There were no openings immediately available. Her parents, hailing as they did from banking circles, knew nobody in newspapers or TV channels to request for opportunity. Shibani’s first job therefore was as copywriter at an advertising agency. This was followed by a stint working at the publishing arm of Network 18. In no time employment elicited its first casualty. In her college days, she used to practise taekwondo in the morning and evening. “ The odd working hours meant that there was no time for taekwondo and running,’’ she said. The impact of declining physical fitness came sooner than expected. She suffered severe backache and ended up in hospital. Medical investigation showed vitamin deficiency among causative agents (vitamin deficiency is now widespread in India’s white collar workforce). She endured vitamin injections for a month. “ My condition was so bad that my mother had to come and lift me from bed. Compounding matters was my travel schedule. It was a wake-up call. I had to take my fitness into my hands. I went back to my old discipline of going for a run around Shivaji Park,’’ she said. She ran slightly longer distances on the weekend.

With Sunil Lahigude; from a stadium run in Bengaluru (Photo: courtesy Shibani Gharat)

The jogs at Shivaji Park brought her face to face with other runners from the region, like Sayuri Dalvi, who is among Mumbai’s well-known woman marathoners in the amateur category. It was at the behest of one of them that Shibani tried registering for that half marathon in 2013 (she was between jobs at this stage; on her way to joining CNBC), ending up eventually in the full. After this unexpected debut in the full marathon in Mumbai, Shibani enrolled for the full marathon in Hyderabad. It was a tough race and took a lot out of her. “ I suffered reaching the finish line,’’ she said. Between SCMM and the Hyderabad Marathon, there had once again been no formal training; the longest distance she ran in training was 20 km. On the bright side, she was into yoga and strength training. Notwithstanding the experience in Hyderabad (in amateur running circles the event is recognized as a tough but well organized marathon), she found herself signing up for the 50 km-category at the Bangalore Ultra. That was a jump from marathon to ultramarathon led by curiosity. Next on the cards was the Nilgiris Ultra where she covered a distance of 100 km. Here, for the first time, she met some of the known names from ultra-running in India, including Aparna Choudhary. There was little by way of structured training and progress in this journey from jogs around Shivaji Park to first marathon and ultramarathons; all in relatively short period of time. But by the end of that eventful year after participating in events far from home, Shibani got round to doing what she should have perhaps done earlier – she met runners from Shivaji Park Marathon Club. They provided her a sense of what training for the marathon entailed.

With Arun Bhardwaj; from a stadium run in Bengaluru (Photo: courtesy Shibani Gharat)

It didn’t take long for television to notice runner in its ranks. In December 2013, Star Sports contacted her seeking to track her run during the 2014 edition of SCMM. “ The magnitude of having completed the full marathon hit me only when Star Sports approached wanting to cover me for 2014,’’ she said. The channel tracked her run at the 2014 edition of the Mumbai Marathon. It ended up being a personal best (PB) for her. She covered the distance in four hours 36 minutes. In February of 2014, she attempted the 101 km category at Run the Rann. But it turned out to be a disappointment. She quit the run at 65 km after she found herself going around the same loop several times. In August 2014, after training with Milind Soman (he was heading for the 12 hour-stadium run in Bengaluru), she ran the 12 hour-Mumbai Ultra. It was her first run of such duration. That year, Bengaluru-based ultra-runner Dharmendra Kumar told her about Khardung La Challenge, the 72 km ultra-marathon held as part of the annual Ladakh Marathon. She promptly registered for the ultra-run in 2014. “ As part of my training I did stair workout, running up several floors. I also avoided alcohol for three months before Khardung La,’’ she said. She made sure to acclimatize well ahead of race in Ladakh. The race was a fantastic experience for Shibani. She became the first non-Ladakhi woman to complete the ultra-marathon. Completing the Khardung La Challenge helped build her confidence. The same year, she enrolled for 100 km at Bangalore Ultra and completed the run in 18 hours. By now, she was quite well known in running circles as an ultra-runner.

At that time, the ultra-running community in India was still small. As a recreational sport, the discipline was just picking up. The first stadium based ultra-run was organized in Bengaluru in 2014. In August 2015 the second edition was due. The organizer, NEB Sports, was inviting ultra-runners for the event. Shibani was among those invited. Running for 12 hours, she managed to cover a distance of 87 km. “ Stadium run is like a party with friends around. There is food and hydration every 400 meters,’’ she said. Stadium based ultra-runs are now held in many Indian cities including Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chandigarh and Hyderabad. A week after the stadium run in Bengaluru, the 12 hour-Mumbai Ultra was scheduled. The course was in and around the same region in town as Shivaji Park. Shibani was among key runners at this event in Mumbai; she covered a distance similar to what she covered in Bengaluru, during the allotted 12 hours. Before the year was out, in November, she also ran the 2015 edition of the Istanbul Marathon.

Running in Amsterdam (Photo: courtesy Shibani Gharat)

When it comes to courses for running, Shibani prefers undulating terrain over flat ones. “ I have never felt motivated to apply for races like Berlin, which are famous for their flat, fast courses,’’ she said. Yet, she has participated in a number of stadium ultras run on flat, synthetic track. “ Stadium runs, though on flat course, offer a different challenge. The challenge in stadium runs is combating the boredom of running on the 400 meter-track, loop after loop. It is mentally challenging. Further extended running in loops casts greater pressure to one side of the legs; race organizers address that by shifting from clockwise to counter clockwise and vice versa every few hours. That said, the nicest part of a stadium run is that you are assured of food and hydration at regular intervals. The stadium runs in Bengaluru are great fun. Plus the weather there is fabulous,’’ she said. In 2016, the stadium ultra in Bengaluru introduced a new 36 hour-run. Entry for this segment was by invitation and many ultramarathon runners were invited to participate. Held in August 2016, Shibani was one of the participants in the 36-hour run. “ The first thing I went and asked the organizer was how many hours of the 36 hours I could spend sleeping. I was told six hours. I slept for five hours,’’ she said. For this run, she attempted running with shoes sporting different types of soles; she also ran 40 km barefoot. She covered a distance of 184 km and ended up in the third position after well-known ultra-runners, Aparna Choudhary and Meenal Kotak. The 36 hour-run, according to Shibani, is challenging because of sleep deprivation. However, challenge or none, she doesn’t appear to have slowed down in the momentum of participating in events. A week after that 36 hour-run, she ran the 12 hour-Mumbai Ultra held on August 15, 2016. That outing was followed by a 100 miler in September 2016 in Singapore. “ I like to register for a race. It gives me a goal to chase,’’ she said. In the weeks following the event in Singapore, she placed first in a 12 hour-race organized by Oxfam. Then, she took off to Finland alone to see the Northern Lights.

Running in Prague (Photo: courtesy Shibani Gharat)

In 2017, among the many runs that she enrolled for, Shibani attempted the 24 hour-stadium run in Bengaluru. According to her, from the pantheon of stadium based-distances in ultra-running, it is the 24 hour-category that challenges her the most. As regards distances in road running, she finds the half marathon more challenging than the 10 km or the full marathon. “ I find the 24 hour-ultra-run much more challenging than 12 hour and 36 hour-ultra-runs. The 12 hour-run is easy. The 36 hour-format is tough sustaining. The challenge in 24 hour-ultra to me is akin to that of running the half marathon. I really like ten km-races because they typically get over in an hour. The half marathon stresses me because two hours is deemed respectable timing. That element of respectable timing makes some distances challenging. I want to get better in the 24 hour-run. I feel I have not given my best in the 24 hour-ultra-run yet,’’ she said. Along with her ultra-runs, she also added several marathons to her list of races, not to mention the occasional 10 km events and half marathons. In 2018, she ran the New York City Marathon, one of the six Marathon Majors of the world. The high point of her running so far has been participating in the 2018 International Association of Ultrarunners (IAU) 24 Hour Asia & Oceania Championships held in Taiwan. The run did not go as well as she would have wanted it to. “ On the day of the run, the weather was boiling hot,’’ she said. Her mileage suffered on account of the weather. “  It was great opportunity to get a chance to participate in this event, I had to change my training overnight from marathon training to ultra-marathon training with only a couple of weeks left for the event. I had barely any time to get the mileage required for ultra-marathon, under my feet. I could have trained better. Ultra-marathoners can’t really complain about the weather,’’ she added as afterthought. She followed that with another 24 hour-stadium run in Delhi, her last run of 2018.

From the IAU 24 Hour Asia & Oceania Championships (Photo: courtesy Shibani Gharat)

Shibani is one of those runners whose participation at events has been so prolific that specific instances escape quick recall and details tend to blur. Along the way there have been multiple editions of the Vasai Virar Mayors Marathon (VVMM) participated in. There was the Saputara Summit run, the Saptashringi Parikrama run. “ In 2017, there were only two months that I didn’t do a full marathon. I really like registering for a race. It keeps me focused on fitness. My work is such that you get sucked into it. Ultras challenge you to do well amid this predicament. I like challenges. I like races that offer some amount of challenge,’’ she said. Shibani has had her share of podium finishes, some in tune with her known strengths, some pretty unexpected. “ It comes as a real shock to me when I get a podium finish in a half marathon,’’ she said. Starting with the FICCI Flo Run in September 2015 in Pune, she has also been a pacer at running events. Given her approach of running and the distances she loves to tackle, some of these assignments are challenging on Shibani. “ Pacing is a tremendous responsibility. You have to think about others. I don’t normally drink water in the early part of a run. But there are others who need to. There are so many such details about your running that you have to change when pacing,’’ she said.

Photo: courtesy Shibani Gharat

With her running gaining volume and frequency since 2015, a lot of things have changed. There is more structure to her training; there is a dedicated long run of 50-55 km on weekends, there is also greater focus on yoga and Pilates. Now, a familiar face on television, work does interfere with Shibani’s running. “ At any given point of time, my biggest challenge is work. I am passionate about whatever I do. When I work that has my entire attention. When I run, that is all that matters,’’ she said. Shibani often travels on work. When she does so, she makes it a point to make time for running. “ I make sure that happens. My works hours are crazy. Even if I am in office for 14 hours, I am out running at 6 AM. I have my lunch and dinner at the desk. Dinner at the desk because I can go home and sleep; it makes waking up early next day possible. Every 10-15 minutes saved thus gets added to my bank of time for running,’’ she said. There are also other angles. While registering for a race gifts her goal to focus on, she is also someone who digs solitude (she does a lot of her training alone). That is one reason she likes the long haul the ultra-marathon represents. But then it should be designed such that nothing distracts from the trance of being in an ultra. In 2016, she came off feeling not so good about the 100 miler in Singapore precisely because of this. There was an element of treasure hunt built into that race; it wasn’t a clearly marked course, she said. “ I like getting into a trance. Ultra-running is a lot about being in such rhythm after a certain amount of distance covered,’’ Shibani said. And so Canberra it was.

At the event in Canberra (Photo: courtesy Shibani Gharat)

She enrolled for the 24-hour race at the Canberra 48 Hour Race, a track and field ultra, scheduled for March 15-17, 2019. “ I wanted to do a race in March to keep up the mileage as in the following two months I may have to travel on election related work,’’ Shibani said. It was a fantastic experience. She found the camaraderie from Australian runners warm and helpful. She was running without any crew. Her run was from 9 AM to 9 AM; it was for 24 hours. “ For the first 15 hours, my run went off well and I was in fourth position among women. During the second half of the run, I started to face stomach issues and was unable to eat anything at all. For the last ten hours of the race, I just survived on water,’’ she said. At around 3 AM, with six more hours to go for the finish, Shibani started to feel a bit faint and decided to approach the medical team. She was advised rest for about 20 minutes. Barring this 20 minute break, she was pretty much on her feet all through and as the hours rolled by, she kept improving her rank moving up from fourth to third to second and finally first position. She ran 343 laps covering a distance of 142.2 kilometers during the 24-hour period, finishing first among women and eighth overall, as per official results. “ The most amazing thing was the help I got from other runners. They cheered me and offered me their crew members for assistance,’’ she said.

Among plans for 2019, Shibani had registered for the Chicago Marathon. “ I am not obsessed with completing the Marathon Majors. I am not obsessed with anything actually. I just enjoy running,’’ she said.

(The author, Latha Venkatraman, is an independent journalist based in Mumbai. This article is based on a conversation with Shibani Gharat. Names of events and timing at races are as provided by her.)