"I am looking at qualifying for Boston" - Chat with Sanjeev Ramki - Runner, cyclist, trekker, freak athlete

Sanjeev Ramki (right) with his 3rd place award at the Jawadhu Hills Ultra

In July 2012, Sanjeev Ramki weighed 105 kilograms and was desperate to shed the pounds. He says his story is “a classic case of an overweight, even obese boy developing a compulsive, obsessive love for running.”

Upon asking a good friend on the best way forward, he was given two options – to either take supplements or get his butt out on the road and start running. He chose the latter, despite it being the more demanding of the two, because he did not want any artificial substances in his system. Once he’d decided to go that route, his friend told him to start with doing five kilometres on a regular basis.

“He told me to run, walk, jog, crawl, do whatever I needed to do, but complete the five kilometre distance somehow”, exclaims Sanjeev.

And as he started doing the 5K thrice a week, he went from finishing it in 40 minutes to 35 minutes to 28 minutes and eventually an astonishing 22 minutes. He decided to challenge himself some more and started doing the 10K distance. Before he knew it, he was running the half-marathon at the 2012 Chennai Marathon that December which he finished in a remarkable time of one hour and 48 minutes.

During that race is when a personal sense of accomplishment struck him.

Says Sanjeev, “I wasn’t checking times then. As I was running through IIT (Madras) a policeman who was standing by was counting numbers shouting out “75” when I passed by. I stopped to ask him what that number was and he told me that I was the 75th person to cross him and thus 75th in the race. 75 is not in the top, but when I thought that I was 75th out of 2,000 people, I was amazed and thought to myself that my time must be a good one.”

By the end of 2012, Sanjeev had lost 35 kilograms in body weight and gained quite some momentum as a regular runner. However, he was struck down with dengue soon after the Chennai Marathon, side-lining him for two months. He started running again in February 2013 and completed three more half-marathons before more agony in the form of typhoid and a shoulder dislocation waylaid him for three more months.

He returned to the track at the Chennai Trail Marathon and completed the half-marathon there in one hour and 46 minutes and then registered the same time again in the half at the Wipro Chennai Marathon 2013.

“Running just became a routine for me. I am a very impatient person by nature and all those months in the hospital and in recovery just made me all the more eager to return to the track.”

Just when he thought he had some momentum going, he was hit with dengue in early 2013 which put him out of action for some more months and it wasn’t until the middle of the year that he began running again.

“I had completely become thin and lost all energy and stamina. Those illnesses can be very sapping. But still, the first thing I asked my doctor was when I could start running and he looked at me in utter shock”, chuckles Sanjeev.

There was no looking back for Sanjeev after that as he racked up the races one after the other, almost with a relentless sense of pursuit behind them.

Even when he had to sit out a planned event, the Chennai Trail Marathon, thanks to his brother’s wedding, he could only sit in the hall and think about what time he would have clocked as he received updates from other runners on their pace.

“It was my brother’s wedding and I had to go as my family compelled me to. But, I was sitting in a corner by myself while the function was going on and thinking to myself, what if?”

Putting all those injuries and illnesses behind him, 2014 has been a stellar year for Sanjeev. He’s run 10 half-marathons this year with a personal best of one hour and 36 minutes in Coimbatore and four full marathons (Auroville, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai) with a personal best of three hours and 36 minutes in Bengaluru.

His official track record now stands at four full marathons, 16 half-marathons, six 10K runs, two half iron triathlons, one Olympic triathlon and one Ultra 50 kms at Jawadhu Hills (where he finished third in 5 hrs 10 mins).

Sanjeev has accomplished all of this in a short span of barely two-and-a-half years. His thirst for such avenues of expending energy is almost limitless. Being a part of the Chennai Trekking Club, he’s always on treks, sleeping out in the wild, checking out and exploring new trails for running in the hills.

”Being with Peter (Peter van Geit, the founder of Chennai Trekking Club) is crazy. He’s just on the move all the time looking at things to do. This is a guy who did the 10X10 (a self-inspired race where one runs 10 kms every day for 10 days) 10 times over! So spending all that time with him I guess has just made me that much more of a freak”, says Sanjeev.

He’s taken up cycling and is a randonneur, having completed the 200 km and 300 km cycling brevets certified by the Audax Club Parisien. So much so, he commutes within the city by cycle, including to his Cognizant Technology Solutions office which is 25 km away (making it 50 km up and down).

“I don’t train these days, the daily cycling keeps me in shape, and whenever an event comes around, I do the practice runs to train, that’s it”, exclaims Sanjeev.

At the Chennai Marathon this year, he had a separate mission on his hands and hence wasn’t focussing on finishing at the top. His served as pacer for his good friend Sayuri Dalvi, who he managed to coax to a 3 hours and 46 minutes finish which netted her second place in the women’s category.

Sanjeev just likes running, he believes it doesn’t matter whether it’s a professional marathon or a casual evening jog, whether it’s slow or fast, long or short, he believes what’s important is to run for the joy of running.

The 26-year-old who has battled back from numerous debilitating injuries and illnesses is continuously on the search for new challenges as he admits to being a “what’s next?” guy when it comes to running. So when I do eventually ask him that question he has a ready answer.

“I want to set a time which will qualify me at the Boston Marathon. It’s currently at 3 hours and 5 minutes, so I need to find a way to bring my best down by about half an hour”, says the techie.

(Sanjeev is looking to add to his list of official marathons in 2015 and is also looking at doing the Ultras and is a prime candidate for the Iron Man Triathlon. That is, of course, besides all the trekking and cycling and simple running)