Prajwal Prasad of Mysuru returns from Australia with 'Iron Man' title

Mysore: It is one of the toughest physical sports of the world and merely celebrated in India. But here is the Mysore triathlete who has become first ever Iron Man. In the recently concluded Iron Man competition in Australia, after completing the event in 5 hours and 52 minutes, Prajwal Prasad has emerged as the first iron-man of the city.

The event was held at Queensland at Sunshine coast and in his first ever international triathlon appearance, Prasad has earned the tag of ‘Iron Man’.

Explaining about his event, he said, “Ironman 70.3 is a 1.9 km swim in the ocean followed by 90 km of cycling and 21.1 km of running. The day started out with a swim in the ocean which was my first swim in the ocean. After some initial struggles with the salty water, I was able to do the swim in decent time.”

“After the swim, we had to run to the transition area and get our bikes for the 90 km ride. Bike course was 2 loops of flat and fast course of 50 km and 40 km, respectively. Coming into the run I was not feeling right, I was feeling a bit heavy on the legs. But I started to run hard and ran the first 10km in under 50 minutes and I started to fatigue from the 12 km mark.

Then I said to myself I'm not going to walk I'm going to run slow but not walk. I ran the whole half marathon on coke and was able to finish in 5:52 hours,” he added.

It took a long and dedicated training schedule to be able to compete

Speaking about the preparations he said, “I landed in Australia a week before the event so that I would have enough time to adapt to the conditions. I also had the opportunity to train with Australia's best Triathlon group called the East Coast Cycos, headed by Allan Pittman who was also a mentor for Pete Jacobs (2012 Ironman world Champion). My Coach Deepak Raj was training under him, so I was able to get vital tips from the best in the business.”

“I had been training for this event for the past 7-8 months and I was confident that I was going to finish it, but I too had some doubts. Confidence given by my friend Ajit and my coach Deepak helped me achieve this feat” he said.

Preparations were good for the first 5 months, I was improving daily and was getting stronger day after day. But with two months to go I started getting mechanical issues with the bike. I got a lot of flat tires and during long rides like 100km to 120km, I was not able to ride continuously.”

“So, I had to swim in the lakes. With a month to go for the event, the problem of flat tires was still not fixed. Ajit, who introduced triathlon to me, lent me his two wheels so that i could train and use them at the event. I was able to able train and taper to the event at the right time,” he said.

Speaking about the city’s potential for the sport he said, “Mysuru definitely has the potential to become a triathletes’ hub of not only Karnataka but India because we have everything in Mysuru. We have lakes, pools, hills and also empty roads to ride. So it can become like Boulder , the mecca of triathlon of USA.”

“I want to explore physical capabilities and find my limits. But people should understand the importance of fitness and lead an active lifestyle,” he said.

Speaking about the potential for triathlon in Mysuru he said, “We have created a cycling group which has around 50 riders and still growing and we are also about to launch our running group which is the first running group from Mysuru called ‘Mysoorunners’. We are doing this to promote Cycling and running in Mysuru.

“Hopefully, we will succeed in bringing more to people into the sport. This community is growing exponentially and in the near future we will see a lot of people participating in the events from Mysuru.”

Prajwal Prasad is an engineering student at National Institute of Engineering.