Nagaraj Harsha: The Ironcub from Bangalore

He signed up for the Half Ironman in Sri Lanka which was to be held in Feb 2012. As the name suggests, the Half Ironman has the same events as the Full Ironman, but half the distances. Again, being the carefree person that he is, he didn’t really streamline his training and just continued doing what he was doing. 3 months to event date and our man was training by waking up in the morning, doing a few laps of the pool, a few kms running and commuting to work on his bicycle. Weekends would include long runs and long cycle rides. No method to his madness just yet! He and a few friends made a holiday of the entire event and decided to make the most of this overseas trip. They went loitering all over town the day before the event – train rides, beach walks, local food – name it, they did it. The next day, he wakes up and goes ahead and does the complete 1.8K ocean swim, 90K bike ride and final 21.1K Half marathon in a really impressive 6hrs 37mins – 5th in his age category and 142nd overall. 22 years old and this young man has probably already done more than what many would in their entire lifetime. Once he got back, within 3 weeks he had another big event on his calendar – the Enduro adventure racing event which happens in Pune. This event includes 150K of cycling, 40K of trekking; this is followed by a river crossing and then a final 100K kayaking as the cherry on top. Attempting two such high endurance events within a month, is passion (others may term it insanity) taken to another level altogether. Our man did it anyway – and when you ask him about what he thought of the intensity in such a short span of time, he blinks innocently and seems to be honestly clueless about the fact that what he does with little or no training is actually incredible.

Start of the swim during the Spec-Savers Ironman South Africa, April 2013

Fitness and endurance sports are such an adrenaline rush that most times we forget to give our body the required rest. Sometimes the body requests you for rest with a polite twinge of pain somewhere and other times it demands it with a major injury. If only such was the case for Nagaraj. Unfortunately, a day after he got back from the Enduro event, he met with a motorbike accident. And this was not a small-time accident, it was an accident which broke his foot in 4 places. This was in March 2012. For the next two months, he was ordered complete rest and then he slowly got back into running. A couple of weeks into running, he was still limping and obviously he was ordered to adopt a lower intensity workout.

This was a life changer for him. At this point, he fell in love – with cycling. How? Let me introduce some terms to you. Randonneuring is long-distance, unsupported, non-competitive cycling within prescribed time limits. The events – called brevets -are 200km (13.5 hour time cut-off ), 300km (20 hours), 400km (27 hours), 600km (40 hours), and 1000km (75 hours). Grand Randonnées are 1200km and riders must finish in 90 hours or less. Once you complete any one of these brevets, you are a radonneur. A super radonneur is when a radonneur completes the 200k, 300k, 400k and 600k brevets in one calendar year. Guess what Nagaraj did. He became a super radonneur – in a month! That’s right. An average, really resourceful and smart cyclist would do this in a year. He did it in a MONTH!

With this feat done, the next logical frontier for him is the Full Ironman. He is attempting the Full Ironman at Zurich, Switzerland on July 28th 2013. The TCS 10k was a good boost for his training. He has cut down his 10k timing from 54 minutes in 2011 to 44 minutes in 2013, which I agree is a huge confidence booster. As we talk about his training for the big event which has him totally and completely consumed, I am amused, considering how he has never really had a streamlined training regime in place previous to this. He is a smart cookie, this one. He catches on. He goes on to explain that he was a rookie at the time, plodding on at full steam but now he is smarter. He is aware of how he should be training and how he should have a regime in place for peak performance. He has moved in with a friend for the next couple months to be able to concentrate on training. His training regime includes a daily swim of 2K, followed by 5-7K of running. He then goes into work, and heads straight to the pool after to clock in a couple more kilometers of swimming. This schedule is followed 5 days of the week. Weekends are dedicated to long runs and romantic rides on his Bianchi. He says, with a twinkle in his eye, “Now I completely believe in training”.

All he does is Ironman every day of his life. He doesn’t go out, he doesn’t party. He leads a simple, dedicated and frugal life with no support of any kind. He works very hard every day of his life to achieve his dreams. He operates at a different level altogether – nothing disturbs him, nothing demotivates him, he trains to feed the fire in his soul. He works in a corporate role to fund his need and want of fitness and endurance. The man is all consumed – he lives, breathes, eats and sleeps the Ironman. He is one of the few in our country to attempt this event and definitely one of the youngest. I am sure he will be completing it in 12 hours or less. I am sure there will be a lot of us Indians supporting this young lad from Namma Bengaluru – you go Nagaraj. You make us proud. I know I will be watching out for you and cheering you on each step of the way.