“This is where it all began,” begins 67-year-old Arun Krishnan, sipping a cup of coffee on a lovely morning at the lawns of the Boat Club.
He looks at the greenery and the waters beyond, and goes back to the day years ago, when he and a friend, Chandramouli, finished an hour of rowing and decided, on an impulse, to train for a marathon. He was into fitness from a young age — Arun was the captain of his college swimming team — but he hadn’t taken to it in all earnestness.
But after he and his friend trained for a month, Arun “got hooked on, especially to running”.
He ran the Pune Marathon in 1987, the beginning of a long journey of runs, covering international venues such as Singapore, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo and Chicago.
His latest love is for Australia, where he finished the Ironman Asia-Pacific Championship Cairns, making him the oldest Indian to be christened an ‘Ironman’.
Today, he sits back comfortably, almost flaunting the white ‘Grand Canyon’ T-shirt he’s wearing, but Arun admits that things did get too close for comfort during the adventure Down Under. “It was very, very tense,” he shudders, as if he were still feeling the pain.
On June 12, when he completed the Ironman, he actually did feel it. The Ironman consists of a gruelling 3.8-km swim in the open sea, a strenuous 180 km of cycling and a tiring 42.2 km run — something that Arun completed in 16 hours, 27 minute and 35 seconds, barely two minutes and 25 seconds ahead of the cut-off time.
Arun had prepared vigorously for 24 weeks, but once he started the Ironman, things didn’t quite work out. The sea was rough (“it swelled….I lost all sense of direction for a while”), and his cycle emitted a constant noise that couldn’t be fixed. “It was emotionally draining, but the support I received was overwhelming. These Aussies… if they know you’re fighting, they’ll back you.”
Also backing him was his wife Nandita and a few other friends he’d made on the trip. But, self-motivation was his biggest strength. “Why would you subject yourself to 16 hours of torturing your body? You need to stay motivated. But, those four words over the microphone at the finish line: ‘You are an Ironman’ makes it all worth it,” says Arun.
Arun had previously participated in the Austria Half Ironmanand the Chennai Iron Triathlon organised by the Chennai Trekking Club, and he says that anyone can accomplish what he has. “Sitting behind a desk and typing away on a computer, you feel it is beyond you, right? But no, you can do it… if you are motivated enough.”
He’s trying to give back to society by inspiring youngsters and setting up a centre that will teach total immersion swimming techniques, among others. But, for now, Arun is basking in all the compliments he’s receiving for the Ironman. “I’m still a little intoxicated from the runners’ high I got there,” he grins.
