The Working Athlete Podcast

Rick Nobel is a UCI pro rider who races at some of the top UCI races all across the world. He recently represented his home country Netherlands in the Gravel World Championships alongside Mathew Vander Poel with the Dutch National team. This 28-year-old already has 15 years of racing experience. He currently works in India with the Dutch Embassy and has been taking part in our local races in Banga...

Vignesh Rao is a cyclist and a charted accounting consultant. Vignesh lost his right arm from below the elbow due to a bus accident as a 2 and half year old. He says that he is lucky that it happened so early in his life because it allowed him enough time to adapt to a life with a single arm. His parents never allowed him to feel sorry for himself and taught him to be independent and self-reliant....

Kieren D'Souza is one of the best ultra runners from India. It is difficult to put a tag like Ultra runner on him. He is much more than that. He finished 2nd in his category UTMB CCC in 2015, he is the first Indian to complete the 246km Spartathon in 2016, he finished 7th in Eiger Ultra and set course record at LA Ultra the High a 111km race in Leh Ladakh in the Himalayas. He is the first Indian t...

Joel Sundaram started cycling just about 2 years ago. He is now one of the fastest cyclists in India. If the results at the recently concluded National Games is anything to go by, he may be the 3rd fastest cyclist in the country and is fast improving. In this episode we talk about the last 10months of progression since the last episode. We talk extensively about how getting a coach helped his prog...

Bobby Thomas Philip, better known in the endurance circles as barefoot Bobby is an insanely disciplined runner. Well into his 50s, he routinely runs faster than runners half his age. In this day and age where pros and amateurs alike are taking advantage of all sorts of technology innovations to make them faster with carbon inserts and what not, Bobby has a personal best of 2hr 55mins for a full ma...

Shreyas Karnad is a running coach. He was one of the first guests on the podcast. In the 3rd episode of this podcast, he shared his endurance and weight-loss journey of going from 120kgs to 60kgs and from 5 hours to sub 3 hour marathon. That is quite an inspiring journey. If you have not watched or listened to that episode, I highly recommend it. In this episode we talked more about his coach...

Drabir Alam is one of the strongest cyclists from Bangladesh. He won multiple medals at the Nationals. More than 10 years ago, when he started cycling to take care of his health and lose weight, he would not have even dreamt of how far he would come. This year, as part of what he calls the #FlagProject he ensured that his country was represented at the world championships of cycling. At the age of...

Ronny Schrijvers is a cyclist and a triathlete from the land of Eddy Merckx, Belgium. I had the good fortune of riding and competing with him in a few cycling races when he was working and living in Bangalore from 2013 to 2016. He is a friendly and helpful athlete who helped and guided many athletes visiting Europe for cycling or triathlon events. In this episode, I talk to Ronny about his experie...

Dr. Erika Patel is a Gynecologist who specializes in fertility treatment. She is also a runner and a triathlete. She recently completed Comrades Marathon, a 90km Ultra-marathon event which is one of the oldest and most prestigious events in the world. As a gynecologist and fertility specialist, she says, she prescribes exercise as an effective treatment for most of her patients befo...

Today is a solo episode of me answering a few questions from the podcast listeners. I begin the episode by talking about the WHY behind the origin of the Working Athlete Podcast and talk about a possible new direction for the podcast. 0:00:00 Intro 0:00:30 100 episodes, The Why of the Working Athlete Podcast, a very selfish reason 0:09:35 So far so good and something new! 0:12:05 Ask me anything,...

Today's guests are Amit Samarth, Jeetu Nayak and Anirudh who are the organizers of RaceAcrossIndia, a 3650km race from Srinagar to Kanyakumari that is slated to happen in Feb next year. Amit and his team have the distinction of successfully completing RaceAcrossAmerica and many other ultra cycling challenges across the globe. In this episode we talk about the inspiration for Race Across India and...

Sujay Shalawadi is currently the fastest Indian Ironman Triathlete. His timing of 9hrs 4min 55 secs for a full Ironman event is the fastest timing for any Indian. This is Sujay's second time on this podcast. You can check out episode #39 for our conversation last year. In this episode we talk about his first Ironman event which also happened to be the fastest by any Indian. We talked about what ma...

In this episode, I have two guests, Joel Sundaram and Shaurya Kaushal. Two young and strong cyclists who started an Youtube channel called FromThePeloton where they are analyzing club races in India.  I really love the work they are doing on that channel. I think content like that helps in educating and improving the awareness of the cycling and racing community. You should check it out and s...

Sridhar is a triathlete and a triathlon coach. At the age of 66, he not only coaches people for triathlon but also regularly takes part in Ironman triathlon events, often finishing on podium or winning in his age category. In this episode, he shares his endurance journey over the years, talking about how he got into triathlon after pursuing various sports including, trekking, rock climbing, mounta...

Shaurya Kaushal is Phd candidate and is one of the strongest cyclists in Bangalore. He is part of LBB Racing, which is one of the strongest cycling teams in India. He is behind initiatives like The Monthly Cours, a club racing series in Bangalore and an Youtube channel named FTP(From The Peloton) where he along with a friend, Joel, analyses club races in India. I really love the work they are doin...

Kabir is the only Indian to have successfully completed what could arguably the toughest ultra endurance cycling event on the planet the Race Across America(RAAM). In this episode, we will talk to him about what it was like. How different was this experience compared to the first time he completed RAAM among other things. 0:00:00  Intro 0:04:01  What was different in his preparation 0:05...

Subu Narayanan has an amazing transformational story to share. He is a person of extremes and loves doing routinely what many consider impossible. He lost 70kgs in 90 days by walking for 40-50kms a day every day. From 150kgs he came down to 80kgs. He then walked for around 3400km in 51 days from Kanyakumari to Kashmir to promote road safety awareness. He then picked up cycling and has been cycling...

Raghul is an Ironman triathlete and a triathlon coach. He is one the earliest triathletes from Chennai and is one of the very few Indian triathletes who qualified to Kona Triathlon World championships based on performance ranking. In this episode, Raghul shares his endurance journey and various learnings from both his successful and unsuccessful attempts at various triathlon events. He also touche...

Kandappa or Kandi as he is endearingly referred to, is an ultra endurance cyclist and coach from Chennai. He is also one of the main driving forces behind Madras Racing Circuit a.k.a MRC which provides a racing platform for cyclists of all age and experience brackets. In this episode, Kandi shares his endurance journey and various learnings from both his successful and unsuccessful attempts at Ult...

Ashwini Bhat is an amazing Ultra Runner from Bangalore. Having worked in IT for 9 years, this one time Project manager quit her corporate career to pursue her passion and traveling solo. She now runs ultra distances and coaches a select group of athletes. She recently hiked solo and self supported to Everest Base Camp and then completed the 60km Himalayan Extreme Ultra. She has a national rec...

Shankar Jayaraman has been my teammate at Spectrum Racing for more than 10 years now. He is someone who does not make too much fuss about being busy and goes about his rides and workouts with the same cool as he does managing a big team with million dollar deliverables at work. In this episode, Shankar shares his endurance journey and how he is able to balance work, staying fit and having fun ridi...

Ashwin Govindswami is one of he fastest cyclists and triathletes from Chennai. He has been a regular feature on the podium in almost all the races he took part in across distances ranging from 25km to 643km. In this episode, Ashwin shares his endurance journey and various learnings from his time in sport so far. He says that he is ever grateful for all that cycling has given him over the years and...

Rakibul Islam is a two time National Champion who won gold in Individual Time Trial at Bangladesh Cycling National Championships. From picking up an MTB during his degree to just ride around, through sheer determination and hard work he has become the first amateur rider to become a National Champion in Bangladesh. He is also an excellent Duathlete and an age group podium finisher in Decathlon&nbs...

Vinay Jani is an epilepsy awareness advocate. Vinay was diagnosed with epilepsy when he was 21 years old. After the initial shock and depression, he had come to accept his diagnosis, started working with his neurologist to deal his medical condition and tried to lead as much of a normal life as possible. While dealing with the condition, he managed to lose weight, started cycling and running. He w...

Ajay Mendes one of the pioneers who is contributing to the growth of the sport of cycling in Goa. He is one of the founding members and owners of the team Equipe Goa, the most promising cycling team currently from Goa. I sat down with him when he was here along with his team Equipe Goa that was taking part in BBCH Kolar Express race. In this episode he shares a bit about his endurance journey. But...