The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Anuradha dares to be different

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 27, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Anuradha dares to be different

Kalyan Ashok

She is all set for the Half-Ironman meet

Anuradha Vaidyanathan

BANGALORE: Bangalore girl Anuradha Vaidyanathan is someone who dares to be different.

This CEO of a software company, who is into an extreme sport called Ironman (an unsparing and highly demanding version of the triathlon), has qualified for the World Half-Ironman, called 70.3 World Championship, scheduled to be held in Clearwater, Florida, in November.

Ms. Vaidyanathan made the cut for the World Championship following her performance in the Geelong Half-Ironman Championship in Australia recently. Ms. Vaidyanathan almost did not make it to the Geelong event when she missed her flight to Australia.

“I was in a complete state of panic and reached Melbourne just a day before the race. I have been training very, very hard for the last few weeks, for Ironman New Zealand. I even had an injury scare a few weeks ago, which put me in a terrible state of mind. However, everything went OK,” she said.

Describing the race, which involves 2 km of sea swimming, 90 km cycling and a 21.1 km run, she said, “Before we knew it, the gun went off and to be swimming in an ocean with 1,500 people is no joke. It was truly a washing machine in there.

“I kept calm the whole way and tried to not get my goggles kicked off. We really could not see where we were going because the sun was in our eyes and before we knew it, the swim was over. I ran hard through the transition and got on my bike and went as hard as I could from the start.

“I was breathing so hard I thought my heart would pop out. I had a fantastic ride. Later on to the run, I was on track for a great split but I lost 2 or 3 minutes in the last lap and got into the finish just 57 seconds past 6 hours on a hot and somewhat up-and-down course.”

The performance earned her an entry into the World Half-Ironman Championship. “I am pleased to be the first Indian athlete to achieve that,” she said.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka