New Delhi: The Ironman Triathlon is a series of long distance triathlon races organised by the World Triathlon Corporation consisting of a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bicycle ride and a marathon of 26.22 mile for the professional athletes.
In most Ironman events, it takes around 16 to 17 hours for the professionals to complete the event. Since 1978 the world championship of this event is annually held in Hawaii , US.
In the recently concluded Ironman Triathlon, Delhi's Asitava Bose made a mark in the amateur category. It is to be noted that even for the amateurs the task is very hard to complete the challenges thrown at them.
Asitava finished his first Ironman at Bangsaen, Chonburi, Thailand. For the uninitiated, this consists of a 1.9 km swim in the sea, followed by 90km cycling and finishing off with a 21.1 km run. The total of 113 km or 70.3 miles needs to be completed in one go, with sectional cut-offs and an overall cut off of 8 hours 30 mins. Asitava finished in 7 hours 33 min.
What merely started as a mere lifestyle habit change to get healthier at 110 kg six years back, for this St. Xavier’s Kolkata pass-out, 43 year old Corporate Executive based out of Delhi, it slowly developed into a raging passion. He was merely trying to find a way out of a sedentary lifestyle and get healthier, and started cycling.
Within a couple of years he managed to cycle from Delhi to Mumbai – 1500 kms in 6 days, yes you heard that right and then went on to run countless number of marathons across the country. Today at 77kg, six years later, countless miles on the cycle, countless number of marathons and a few triathlons later, he just craves for more.
Balancing a corporate job, family responsibilities with training for an Ironman has definitely not been easy. A minimum of 12-15 hours of training a week, comprising of swimming, cycling, running and strength training in the gym. So this meant, the weekends were not for long sleeping hours, but wake up at 4am on Saturdays and Sundays and spending at least 3-4 hours of each day of your weekend on training. Definitely not easy but as they say, if there is a will there is a way.
Post training, a quick nap and recovery and back to family chores. But at the end of it all, all of this sacrifice resulted in a definite joy of crossing the Ironman finish line.
Asitava plans to do quite a few more Ironmans, in fact his dream is one day to qualify for the Ironman World Championship which is held in Kona, Hawaii. He also dreams of running the 6 World Marathon Majors – Boston, London, Tokyo, New York, Chicago and Berlin before he turns 50. For him life has just begun.