The Start
My heart is thundering, and sound is blasting on the speakers before the race starts to tell the athletes, its time. This is Ironman. A triathlon that involves 3.86 km of swimming, 180 km of cycling, followed by a full marathon of 42 km running all at once.
I am standing in the seeding slots, with hundreds of athletes around me. My mind is shutting down, it drowns out all the noise around me…and I focus on the now and prepare myself for what’s to come.
The gunshot sounds and the crowd starts to move towards the sea.
I have just entered a frigid sea, athletes swimming around me, I’m getting kicked in the face,
There is no clear vision, the tide is rough, I am now swimming against the choppy current. All that is on my mind is how to get to the next marker, and staying one length ahead of those behind me, and to keep my form and technique consistent. In the water every minute seems like a lifetime. 5 minutes, 10, 20 minutes and before I know it, I am out of the water. 3.86 kms in 65 minutes… My legs are jelly, I can’t catch my breath, but I can’t stop moving, I run towards transition gate already removing my tri-suit, and run to find my bike in a sea of cycles.
Cycling – The Most Technical leg
I rush out of the transition with my triathlon bike, and begin my 2nd leg of the race 180 km of cycling. While I do this, I am calculating my power output, how to pace myself, gauging the wind, the road, the elements, Planning & consuming my nutrition while never leaving the bike, and if it comes to it…even pee-ing inside my tri-suit as I ride! Because every second counts! And I finish this leg of the race in 5 hours 20 mins and rush to transition for the run.
Running – The toughest part of the race.
After 3.8 Kms of swimming and a non-stop 180 km of cycling, I now transition to run a full marathon in record time. My legs are cramping hard, and are in agony, my body is sweating in buckets in the peak afternoon heat, my back is killing me and I feel nauseous and light headed, but I don’t stop. I run.
This leg of the race is hardly technical at this point, I am now solely running on mindless muscle memory and absolute will power. I have only one goal, Finish the race in under 12 hours.
The Finish
As I run the last mile, the cheers from the crowds get louder, my only consciousness is the lights and blasting music at the finish line becoming louder by the minute. And then I step on the red carpet to the finish line, and everything else is forgotten, its done, the emotions are leaping out as I run the last few feet with my country’s flag over my head. I am an Ironman!
My name is Chaitanya Velhal, and I am an Endurance Sport Athlete and Coach.
I started out as a recreational cyclist in 2009, to an armature racer in 2012, to a professional athlete by 2013, and Set the national record for Ultra cycling in 2014, Became a sponsored athlete by 2016 and Became a Certified Coach in 2017.
Where is the Indian Athlete on the global map. Are we there yet?
In a country of 1 billion, we have never had a single athlete participating at the Olympics in a Triathlon. And we have had only one athlete who qualified for the Ironman Championships and that is about it. This is where we currently stand on the global triathlon scenario.
One of the major reasons why our athletes do not do well in the international forums, is lack of access to infrastructure, mindset and social stigma’s, lack of funds, politics and most important of all, the dearth of qualified coaches.
What is scientific training?
I bet you can’t help but visualize the scenes from the famous movie “Rocky” where Ivan Drago is shown destroying everything he touches in a clean white lab somewhere in Russia. To some extent that is what scientific training looks like. All those gauges, electrodes measuring every aspect of the athletes required physical prowess. The very first step in scientific training starts with measuring, as only after you measure you know what it is required to improve.
Scientific training not just helps the athlete to do better but also helps in recovering faster, being more efficient. This kind of training involves a lot of numbers, and as you all know, numbers never lie. All that data recorded from various training devices are thoroughly analyzed for shortfalls and efficiency, that can be used to customize a very specific training plan for the athlete as well as formulate a race winning strategy.
As a scientist it was natural that I turned to the science of training to understand all the knowledge and knowhow of the technical aspects of training and leveraging it to improve my performance as an athlete.
Through this journey I realized the value of what was missing in the fabric of endurance sports in India, that is Infrastructure, Accessibility to Equipment, Knowledge
And most important of all guidance.
And that is when I set myself a personal goal of becoming the best ultra-endurance coach in India, and that is just what I am doing through my academy. With having trained over 100 athletes competing at national and international forums.
Hence at the academy we have been working hard to provide athletes with access to world class equipment, Performance measurement indexes, Technique analysis, Cognitive conditioning, Precision nutrition etc.
While training an athlete I go down the minutest details to make sure that they get every possible advantage to perform at their maximum potential through what I call my Peak Performance Module.
From Accurate measurements of body parts for a biomechanically correct fit on the cycle, slow motion video analysis for dynamic running gait, pedal stroke analysis using power meters and stress gauges, genetic testing, under water video analysis, and VO2 max measurements to name a few. Apart from the physical parameters each of the athletes go through a unique mental conditioning process. This mental conditioning first identifies their weaknesses and helps them deal with training stress, discipline, motivation & focus.
After all this each athlete has to get a proper meal plan along with routine calorie cycling to fuel all that performance towards a winning outcome.
And this is what we have achieved for the top 20 odd athletes from our Advance Athletic Development Program. This program has been showing amazing results in our athletes.
For example:
Mihir Deo
5:06 in his debutant Ironman in Oman, missing being qualified for the World championships by a few seconds.
Neel Deshmukh
3 times Ironman finisher
Turkey – 6:13 (2017)
Sri Lanka – 5:54 (2018)
Oman – 5:28 (2019)
Improving by 20 mins on an average at every race.
Dr. Anand Patil
56 Years old, Winner in Masters Category at Deccan Cliffhanger (643 kms cycling Race) 2016
Sanket Bhirund and Divyanshu Ganatra (Blind Athletes)
First Visually Impaired athletes to finish a 200 KM Brevet (Cycle Ride) in India 2019
Lt. Col Bharat Pannu and Darshan Dube
First Indians to successfully finish a 2200 km Bike race in Austria. 2017
Arham Shaikh
One of the only 3 Indians to finish the 5000 kms Race Across America Race in 2019.
And to lead by example, I, myself have been able to improve my personal timings by one hour for each of the Ironman’s that I have attempted. All thanks to the incredible power of Data Analysis and Scientific techniques. With science and technology powering our athletes I don’t see why Indian Sport cannot achieve its UNBOUND POTENTIAL in the next few years!