Gaping onlookers, prurient cab drivers and inquisitive pedestrians will not come in the way of Anu Vaidyanathan's rigorous training, finds Amrita Gupta.
When Anu Vaidyanathan strode into Coffee Day at 7pm on a weekday sometime last fortnight, she did two things. She ordered her fourth coffee for the day, and she dispelled two stereotypes. In a salwar kameez and floaters, hefting a backpack, she looked nothing like the founder-CEO of a company. Slight, and with toenails painted red, definitely not like an Iron Man triathlete who regularly competes in events consisting of a 3.9km swim, a 180km bike ride and a 42.2km marathon run. Sipping on her cappuccino, making a dinner reservation (it was her parents’ anniversary) between fielding work calls, Vaidyanathan was completely animated at the end of a day so hectic, it wouldn’t allow any average human to function normally.
A day that began with her packing fruits, nuts and water for her morning ride – which she needs to finish before traffic hits the roads. In translation: by the time most people start their mornings, Vaidyanathan’s already six hours into her day. The only Indian triathlete training in Bangalore for the past four years, she’s on the road by 3.30am. But beating the traffic doesn’t come without problems – “I’ve been hit by call-centre drivers on the Ring Roads, and followed by a bunch of guys,” she said. Though these circumstances don’t bother her greatly: “Ultimately you’re responsible for achieving what you want, so you do what you have to,” she reasoned.
For the first 18 years of her life, Vaidyanathan wasn’t, by her or anybody else’s definition, a serious athlete. While studying electrical engineering at Purdue University in the US, she ran around the campus mainly to distract herself from the cold. “I also picked up cycling and swimming while I was away at college, so it was a logical progression to try a triathlon,” she said. “I figured, if I can do all three separately, why not try and combine them.” From the first time she competed in a triathlon five years ago, when she “totally freaked out in the open water”, she’s regularly been competing in Iron Man races – the longest single day triathlon event – in New Zealand, Brazil and Canada. “It’s not a mainstream race – there’s no prize money, I’m going to get a towel at the end of it, and I love that,” she said of the three-day Ultra-Man event in Canada that she’s now training for.
She finishes the bike circuit only to hit the road again by 7.30am, this time on foot. That’s followed by fielding peak-hour traffic in a 45-minute drive to work. “I can’t be late, it’s a small team, and as the boss, I need to set an example.” In 2001, when she “was just another grad student trying to be Bill Gates”, Vaidyanathan started her own company – Pat N Marks, which grew from providing database services to information solutions for patents and Intellectual Property management.
“It’s a good thing I have my own office, because luckily, my employees haven’t seen me in a series of odd poses,” she said of her propensity to stretch during the day. The team of qualified patent professionals begin by getting up-to-date on each other’s progress, and the rest of the day “passes in a haze of meeting clients”. By 3.30pm, after a quick lunch and her third cup of coffee, she’s left feeling “like a total zombie, wondering if it would be easier to just get married and have a few babies”. “Around 5pm, just when I’m back on track, there’s the chaos of dealing with courier people, the madness of meeting deadlines, and the last-minute wrap-up that usually takes a lot longer than a few minutes,” she said.
“After work, I get a few hours of swimming in – sure, I’ve had to contend with everything from peeping toms, crazy restrictions at public pools, to people thinking I’m crazy to do lap after lap in the freezing cold, dressed in a wet suit and flippers,” she said. And on days that she’s not in the pool, Vaidyanathan clocks in hours at the gym.
So do weekends offer some respite from the grueling schedule? Not likely; that’s when she steps up on the training, “rather than chill out”. “I know what it is to be an amateur sportsperson without endorsement,” she said, shrugging. “The reality is that you have to put in the work hours to foot a fancy life spent following your dreams.” Though Vaidyanathan is thankful that she has the unwavering support of her family and friends: “I know my parents will always be there for me emotionally, but it’s a bit like [the film] Bend it Like Beckham: if I’m out on a ride, my mother worries that I’d be getting dark in the sun,” she said, chuckling.
Source : Time Out Bengaluru ISSUE 1 Friday, July 23, 2010
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