Tales from the Saddle......: The Tri Life!! Bhor Triathlon Report

It’s a great pleasure to share with you all about a recent change in my life. In December 2015 Multifit sponsored me to do the Ironman Zurich in July 2016. Since then I have wholly devoted myself to training for this beast of a race. For those who don’t know what Ironman is , it’s a race consisting of 3 sports swimming , cycling and running. The full Ironman (140.6) requires an athlete to swim 3.8 kms then cycle 180.2 kms and lastly run a full marathon which is of 42.2 kms. All this under 16 hours of time limit, to achieve the coveted title of Ironman.

With the support of Multifit and Cymour I have embarked upon this journey not only to complete this gruesome race which will test my endurance but also to achieve a competitive timing. I have been sharing my training pictures and videos online. But that is only 10% of what I am actually doing. The triathlon training has changed my life. I am in the fittest shape I have ever been. Each day is harder than yesterday. Everyday, I feel like quitting but that is when I get over it and keep pushing on. Thanks to my crew, coach, sponsors and supporters I have developed myself into a weapon.

Last week I took part in the Bhor Triathlon just to test myself. The longest distance offered was the Olympic distances (1.5 km Swim, 40 km Cycle, 10 km Run). Check out the following race report.

Bhor Triathlon

The reason to do the race was just to get myself ready for the bigger and more brutal Ironman. To simulate that I went in tired and exhausted into the race. I had a hard build up of training before the Bhor triathlon. Right upto the day before the race I was still doing running and swim intervals. However I was still confident of doing well.

All Packed and Prepped

Getting Ready for the Race

I camped out near the race venue on the night before the race. The race start was in a small village of Mhakoshi near Bhor. It rained throughout the night. Thankfully the tents kept us dry. I had the awesome Nikhita Nath for company and help me prepare for the race. After a good nights sleep I was feeling great for the race. A light breakfast and I was ready for the 1.5 km swimming. The organizers (Zenith Sports Initiative) had a pretty neat and efficient setup. The Olympic Cat triathletes were the first ones to get flagged off.

The beautiful location of the race!!

First out of water

I dived straight in and started with a fast freestyle pace to get away from the crowd and soon managed to put quiet a distance from them. The swim was is a small lake with good clean water. The swim had 4 loops of 375 mts. I had recced the loop the day before so I knew what to expect. I kept a comfortable pace never exerting too much which was enough to get myself the first person out of the water. I could sense my triceps were tired from swimming drills from last week, which did not allow me to function at my optimum. I later got to know that I took about 44 minutes to finish 1.5 km of swim. Usually I would do it in 30 minutes.

The cycling route was winding and rolling through the amazing countryside

After the swim I headed straight for my bike. The bike was a hybrid which was given to me by Aniket Mahashabde of Cymour. The hybrid served me well on the immediate slippery and muddy uphill section to get to the road. Thanks to the organizers who provided me with a pilot vehicle who was ahead of me the whole time clearing traffic and showing way. The cycling terrain was all rolling with pothole ridden roads and sometimes no roads at all. It was good to have the Cymour crew and Niki cheer me as they chased me in their car. I took about 1 Hr 30 mins to finish the 40 kms of cycling and managed to gain a considerable lead on my competitors. Then off I went for my run which was supposed to be only 10 kms but ended up doing 16 kms.

Trail Run

Greatful to Sushil and Prashant Tidke who paced me on my last lap

Always a relief to cross the finish line

Getting my bearings

The running route was supposed to be a loop of 2.5 kms x 4, but it actually turned out to be 3.2 kms. I started off with a comfortable running pace, slowly increasing my pace as I went further into the laps. By this time the weather had turned from a cool overcast to a hot, humid and sunny. By the 3 rd lap I still had a lead of over 2 laps over the guy behind me. After a cool 13 km run to finish first I was joined by Sushil and Prashant where we did one more victory lap and still finishing first. Although I would be lieing if I said I had an easy race. I was competing against myself never getting comfortable and pushing myself through the pain. I was glad to finish and lie down.

That is all you need after a hard race

Crossing the Finish Line

It was an honour to receive the winner’s trophy from Prashant Tidke, a long time friend who has been inspiring me since I took up the sport. I was overwhelmed by all the strangers coming up to me and said I was inspiring them. They all cheered and clapped for me. All in all it was a great race, very well organized, a beautiful backdrop of the sahyadris and the perfect rainy atmosphere of the monsoons to top it all. I would recommend the race for beginner triathletes, a great way to get your first tri experience.