The Thonnur Triathlon 2016

It feels like forever since I have been able to sit down and just ruminate over the happenings of this year, one that has been flying by at break-neck speed. The last time, I attempted the 400K brevet, it ended in disaster with a stinging pain in my knee. After giving the knee the rest it required, I managed to get back on track with my training plan for attempting the TCS 10K. However, as is usually the case with me, I ended up pushing too much, both in terms of mileage and speed work. This led to what I now very clearly know as the onset of shin splints, and this is what made me back off from competing in all the events that I had planned for this year.

Although off training for running, I had started regular visits to the gym in an attempt to keep myself disciplined. During one of these sessions, in a freak accident, I ended up twisting my ankle real bad. This meant that I would be completely off my feet for at least a couple of weeks, After giving my body the requisite three days of complete rest, I decided to start my visits to the pool. Also, the Thonnur Triathlon was on my list of events for the year so I thought this would be a good way to start work on my swim leg.

Niranjan and me had decided that we would train together and attempt the Half Ironman distance at the Thonnur Triathlon. Four weeks passed by, with time running out, Niranjan and me thought we should start with a relatively easy brick workout and slowly build up our mileage for the Triathlon. It is in that training session that I realised my ankle had not healed just yet. A week later I decided to go in and meet the doctor. But with all the travel and events lined up left, right and centre it was another month before I could actually get around to meeting him. A few blood tests later, we figured that my body was not synthesizing Vitamin D, which was affecting its ability to heal. So, hence started my supplements to assist in elevating the Vitamin D levels.

Four more weeks passed by and The Thonnur Tri was around the corner, 4 days away. I had originally given up on the idea of participating in it and was planning to give it a miss. But, on the Wednesday, I gave organiser, Ajit Thandur a buzz and asked him if I may, at all have the option of downgrading to the Olympic distance for the event. To my delight his response was positive. I dropped in the email and shortly after, got a confirmation mail of my downgrade from Prajwal Prasad.

So this was it!!! I had made my decision, I had minimal training but was super excited to be participating in an event after such a long hiatus. I had coerced my friend Sagar into gifting me the most stunning trisuit for my birthday – and the advent of this trisuit from Europe to Australia to New Zealand to Chennai to Bangalore had been a saga in itself. Ankush gave me his pro-lite front wheel for the bike leg. So I took the suit and the wheel out for a quick spin the next morning to get a feel of what I was getting myself into. I was not planning to get any running in, simply because I didn’t want to load my leg unnecessarily. On the Friday, I went for an easy swim in the new Trisuit – again to get a feel of it in the water.

The next step was to figure out how to get to the venue. NIranjan, Deepa, Shuve and Aditya Kaul were planning to drive down early Sunday morning to the venue. Priya had also signed up for her first ever triathlon – sprint distance. Participants were meant to come in the day before for bib collection and be part of the race briefing. This was also one of the very few free weekends I had in the near future. It had been a while since the entire family had taken a short trip together and Ankush was meant to go for surgery on the Tuesday after the event. We thought it would be a good idea for all seven of us – Priya, Murali, Clap, Mum, Dad, Ankush and me, to travel together and make a short family vacation of it. But Doc was not comfortable with Ankush travelling so it ended with Murali, Priya, Mum and me doing the road trip together.

The excitement of competing in an event had me so excited and worked up that I couldn’t get a wink of sleep on the Friday night. As I woke up groggy-eyed around 7am on the Saturday morning, I saw Ankush fiddling with my bike. He was giving it a last minute service. After running around and completing the few errands I had, it was time for us to leave. Priya and Murali came around, and after a quick bike check, tyre change, big hugs and wishes of lots of luck we were on our way. Traffic was terrible but the wonderful company had us in splits the entire way to Mysore. Once we reached Mysore, we made our way to the venue for bib collection. Post that, we drove around to the venue so that we don’t get lost in the morning. At the venue we met Raghul Trekker and his friend both of who were camping at the venue for the night. We then made our way back to the closest resort for the night. After grabbing a quick dinner, we retired for the night.

The lack of sleep the night before came to my rescue and I was lucky to be sound asleep by about 12:00am. At 3:55am, I jumped out of bed, 5 minutes before my alarm went off. I woke mum up and then headed out to wake Priya and Murali up as well. My alarm was screaming its battery off when I went running back into the room to turn it off. As luck would have it, I managed to stub the big toe of my right foot on the threshold in this process. The pain that rushed through my body blinded me for a few minutes. I sat down on the bed quiet as a mouse just processing what had happened. After a few minutes I looked down to my foot and could see the blood gushing out. Mum had meanwhile come out of the rest-room and advised me to go and wash the blood off the toe. I went in, did the required cleaning, brushed my teeth, changed into my tri-suit and kept checking up on the toe at regular intervals. Mum, then tore a piece of cloth and did a make-shift dressing to avoid any dirt from entering the wound. This is how we got into the car to go to the venue. We didn’t speak much, with each one lost in the tide of their own thoughts.

My thoughts went something like this: “ Is this a sign that you shouldn’t participate? But dude! You didn’t come all this way to back out at the last minute – hmmm…. maybe I can go to the medical guys, get a dressing and continue with the event – will it hurt me when I wear the cleats – I wonder what will happen during the run – maybe I shouldn’t participate – what rubbish!! Get into the water and see how it goes – one baby step at a time – if you get overwhelmed – drop out!!”

And this is how I made up my mind to compete on the morning of 4th Sept 2016. We reached the venue by 5:20am, and after parking the car, we were setting up our transition spots by the reporting time of 5:30am. Last minute checks, nutrition check, tyre pressure check, timing tag check – everything done. Before we knew it, it was a bustle around us and all the familiar faces started showing up. I went over and said hello to Anil at the timing tent, then heard Shuve’s familiar voice saying, “baba!!!” followed by a hug. The medical team had still not reported so I had not got my dressing done yet. In fact, at this point I explained to myself that a dressing will only make the toe bulky so it maybe best to just attempt the event as is. Next, I headed out to test the water and get a feel of it.

After that I got out of the water and announcements for the start of the event started soon after. I ran upto Priya to wish her luck, grabbed a gel and downed it. It was the start of the Half Iron distance. Ten minutes later at 7:15am was the start of the Olympic distance. And away we went. Just the swim was a workout in itself – from the actual swimming to the perils of a mass start which include getting kicked, slapped, pulled and pushed. And although I did keep switching to breast stroke in the swim leg (due to my extreme comfort levels with this stroke) I was fairly satisfied with it. Somewhere in the chaos, I lost count of the number of laps I had done and jumped out to head towards the transition area. But I was unsure and checked with mum – she said she thought I had done just five laps so I ran back down, jumped in the lake and finished another lap – better safe than sorry!!!!

Then I came out and headed towards the transition. Got out my towel, sat on a chair, dried myself – mum n murali were around cheering me on, Maha was assisting me with moving the timing chip from the wrist to the ankle and I was busy putting my cleats on. Then took the bike and ran to tap the timing mat to start my bike leg. As expected, this was my strongest leg in the event and boy !! did I have fun. The first 3K through the village are annoying with traffic, hay, harvest and broken roads but the cheering and energy of the village folk, especially the kids makes up for it. After the 3K mark, once you get onto the national highway, it is a stunning rolling route with minimal traffic and you can actually cruise the route in TT manner until the U –turn and back. So this happened, I had Raghul pass by me at a certain point, also passed by Vignan, Anubhav and so many others – all of whom waved in acknowledgement of the other. At the 20K mark, we had to get off to stamp the timing mat and then jump back on the bike for the next loop. I popped my second gel at the 25K mark. Along the way I saw Anil Kadsur, ever the angel that he is – handing out nutrition and assistance to riders/participants in need.

Before I knew it, I had completed my 40K ride – this had been my favourite part of the race – back in the transition area, I unloaded the bike, mum helped me put on my racing bib (note to self – its time to get a race belt), changed my shoes and was on my way. The idea with the run was to keep a steady 5:55-6:00min pace to do an easy 10K without hassling the ankle or the shins so that I can come across unscathed on the other end. As I crossed the Start arch for my run leg, I had Shuveshek and Adi appear from nowhere – “ we are going to pace you”, they said. I told them I was not going to push at all and they may get bored – they said they would enjoy getting bored together – and so it was set. I was running with these two gorgeous men one on either side of me, chatting away to glory and feeling overly nostalgic because it truly had been a while since we had all run together.

We saw Priya on her return leg with just under 2K to go, Shuve jumped onto the other side to pace her to the finish line while Adi continued with me. We kept jogging together – a lovely chatty jog – enjoying the weather – which was surprisingly cool for Thonnur. At the 5K mark, Adi decided to jump on the bike for a training ride and Shuve came along to jog by my side. This is how we jogged together for the last 5K until I crossed the finish line. Everyone was right there and we all gave each other huge hugs. I went back into the transition area – grabbed my phone from mum and called Ankush to let him know I had finished and missed him at the finish line.

After that, I went back into the lake to cool down and relax the body. We had breakfast together and went onto discuss the happenings of the event in great depth and detail with each other. Niranjan and Deepa were on the cycling leg of their event. My foot was relatively better now. The ankle was holding up well. Priya had conquered her fear of Open water and managed to complete her first tri, narrowly missing the podium. Everyone around was in high spirits. Shortly after, we had the prize distribution – it felt pretty darn good to be on the podium!

Anil filled in my timing details for me – 3Hrs 17 minutes for the Olympic distance – I had hoped for a sub-3 but this was ok considering all that had happened. There is much room for improvement – ALWAYS!!! All of us jumped back in the car and came back to Bangalore – it indeed was a good weekend.

An honourable mention here of the winners of the Half Iron Distance – Vignan and Raghul – a display of true sportsmanship. I saw them both transition to the run leg when I had finished my Tri. At that time, Raghul had mentioned that his electrolytes and water bottles had been lost on the village roads and his nutrition plan was out the window. He mentioned that he could feel cramps coming on. I had a few salt capsules with me, so I gave him one. When we were leaving, both Vignan and Raghul were running together towards their 10K U-turn. As they passed by, Raghul asked me to wait, as he needed another capsule. Sometime later, Vignan came by without Raghul by his side – Vignan asked me to take the capsule to Raghul explaining that he had started cramping. I jumped on the bike, grabbed a bottle of water and rode to his rescue. Also left a couple spare capsules with his friend for the last loop. We left for Bangalore – but I needed to know what happened. So, obviously I followed up. From what I understand, Raghul dug deep and caught up with Vignan until the last 400mtrs where his legs completely cramped. Vignan went ahead and the champ that he is – he waited for Raghul at the finish line so that they could cross the finish line together. I honestly had this gush of warm mush in my heart when I found out what ensued. So so proud of these boys!!! Both displayed the spirit of true champions – one fought his body with his will and determination and the other demonstrated respect for a worthy competitor. They inspire!!!!

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