The Working Athlete Podcast

Vinayak Gaonkar is a long time runner, cyclist and triathlete from Goa. He is one of the most inspirational working athletes from Goa who has inspired many youngsters to take up the sports of cycling and triathlon. I sat down with him when he was here in Bangalore along with his team Equipe Goa to take part in BBCH Kolar Express race. In this episode he shares his endurance journey through, runnin...

Saswat Sahu has been on a weight loss and fitness journey for the last 6 years. From being 99kgs to being 75kgs, he has lost nearly 25kgs and gotten faster on the bike. According to him it was only possible through sticking to the process and doing the work needed consistently over a long period of time. In this episode, we talked about his endurance and weight loss journeys. We talked about what...

Rushit started cycling in 2013 with a 10km ride around Ulsoor lake. Within 24 months of starting cycling he finished 1230km ride at the prestigious Paris-Brest-Paris event in 2015. He participated in races across the globe in places like Thailand, Italy, and Dubai apart from being a regular at our local club races at BBCh. Last year he was hit by a motor vehicle on his morning ride which resulted...

Bhagyashree Sawant is a phycologist who is working in the field of sports with Decathlon. She represented her state in school nationals for cycling and is trained in self defense with Karate. She attempted to scale Mount Everest at the age of 18 years and got to within 800m of the summit. But failures never stopped her from pursuing anything. When a serious injury resulted in a knee surgery she ce...

This is a special episode about charitable cause called GivingBack that Dr. Arvind Bhateja runs. Through GivingBack, Dr. Arvind raises funds to provide free or subsidized spine surgeries for those who cannot afford the cost. Over the years, the GivingBack program has supported over 400 people. Givingback's motto is to help people 'Get Back In The Game' and lead a normal life. In this episode...

In this episode, Naveen John breaks down his and Team India's performances at this year's Asian Championships. Failures are as much a part of sport as successes. In fact in sport we fail more times than we succeed. We talk about how he deals with disappointment of failure at something that he worked so hard towards. We talk about the performance gaps with the top guys at the Asian level and what i...

Dave King is a bad-ass marathon runner and a cancer survivor. Dave has been an inspiration for me and many others who are fortunate to cross paths with him. He was one of the key figures who helped me stay active when I was feeling down without any activity during the wintery Vermont days back in 2010 when I was there on work for an year. This life long working athlete is now retired from work and...

Nagaraj Harsha is a runner and a triathlete who has been in the sport for over a decade now. His journey both as a person and as an athlete is pretty inspiring. For me it is a lesson on how one can build a life for oneself through sheer determination and passion despite coming from very humble background with very limited resources. In this episode, we talked about his running and triathlon journe...

Bindiya Surya is a rider who started cycling in her early 30s during the pandemic in 2020. Within an year of starting to cycle she represented her State, Tamilnadu at the Indian Cycling Nationals. From not being able to ride even 5km without stopping for catching a breath, her journey to the Nationals in such a short span is inspirational. It is a testament to her living by the mantra, you don't h...

Nandini Sharma is a doctor by profession and rider who represented Tamilnadu at Indian Cycling Nationals. Her journey in endurance sports started with using running and cycling as stress busters while in medical college. She pursued triathlon for a few years and has completed half iron and full iron distance triathlons. Now while  pursuing a demanding career as a doctor, she is focusing on ju...

Hari Menon is a dear friend and a long time cycling teammate. He is also been a runner for four decades as well. In this episode, we talked about his running and cycling journeys over the years. As someone who has cycled and raced in various parts of the world and as someone who has been living and racing in Dublin for the last couple of years, he shared pretty interesting insights into the club l...

Vinay Basavaraj was a National record holder at 200m breast stroke and represented India in swimming at South Asian Games. He was an Olympic hopeful who came close to making the cut before retiring from sport. After years of gap he came back to sport with triathlon. He not only pursues the sport with utmost passion but also became a Ironman certified coach guiding other amateurs to get better at i...

Tasneem Topiwala is a practicing Architect and interior designer. This mother of two is a long distance endurance cyclist who has just come back from completing the 4000km journey from Kibithoo of Arunachal Pradesh, which is the last town on the Indo-China border in Eastern India to Koteshwar of Gujarat, which is the last Indian town on the Indo-Pak border. She and her co-rider Meera Velankar who...

Neil D'souza is one of very few adventure sports film makers we have in India. He covers various sports like river rafting, kayaking, climbing, cycling etc. He spent almost 6 months trekking in the Himalayas and made an amazing documentary about the experience. In this episode, we talk about his how he came to covering sports and his journey in the Himalayas. He shared some of those experienc...

Kavi Mahajan has started cycling 5 years ago at 98kgs. After starting cycling he has lost 20kgs in the last 5 years and has become one of the strongest masters cyclists in the country. In this episode, we talk about his cycling journey and how it helped in him in losing weight and becoming a healthier human being. We talk about his training routine and what helped him become stronger over the year...

Dharmendra, Coach D as he often referred to in running circles, is a Boston qualified runner and USATF certified running coach. After 10 years of corporate life he spent the next 10 years as a fulltime runner and coach. He is now back to corporate life in the health and fitness space while still coaching for running. In this episode, we talk about his current work at Ultrahuman and how continuous...

Anindya Chattergee is an film and TV actor. In his younger days he has been a state level swimmer who represented Bengal before Heroine addiction took over his life and drove him to ground. After years of struggle he managed to undergo rehab and stay addiction free since 2008. In this episode, we talk about how his struggles with addiction and how he managed to overcome them. We talk about how cyc...

Apurv Verma is one of the riders I first met during Tour of Nilgiris in 2013. Since then I have seen him evolve as a strong rider and humble human being. He has taken part in races both short and long including ultra races and has done well in all of them. He won the 6 hour World time trial championships twice and continues to do well in cycling while balancing his family and work lives in th...

Jasleen Sahni has suffered with obesity and severe depression as a teenager. At 120kgs she struggled to fit in anywhere she went. With the help of her parents, she started to work to turn her life around. Over the next few years, she not only managed to lose 50kgs but also became a triathlete completing her first 70.3 distance triathlon at Oman 70.3 race. In this episode, we talk about her incredi...

Drabir Alam is one of the fittest master's riders in Bangladesh. He started cycling about 10 years ago to lose weight and to deal with his asthma problem and has never looked back. He is a key part of team BDC, a top amateur cycling team in Bangladesh. He is one of the 4 riders who attempted to set a Guinness record by riding a massive 1600km in just 48 hours and successfully finished the ride. In...

Arvind Panwar is one of the most successful cyclists at the National level. He is an inspiration for 100s of 1000s of riders from all across the country and mentors and coaches many young riders getting them ready for future. In this episode, we talked about his journey in cycling. We talked about his various medals at the Nationals and his performances in International events representing India....

Anyone who is vaguely familiar with cycling in India knows, Naveen John. He is the current and 6 time National Champion in Individual time trial. It is his 4th appearance on this podcast. So, we have some catching up to do to keep up with the number of his National titles. As with the earlier 3 episodes, he shares some fantastic insights in this one. In this episode, we talked about what went righ...

Shiven is one of the fastest and most technically adept riders on a mountain bike. Having started in the junior ranks, he grew from strength to strength and became Indian National champion in MTB in 2020 and 2021. He wants to go beyond and perform well at Asian level and world UCI MTB events. In this episode, we talk about his cycling journey from being a scrawny kid to becoming a National champio...

Vishnu Bhat is an executive at Blueneem medical devices which designs and manufactures minimally invasive medical devices. This ex-infosys executive got into cycling after realizing how unfit his busy lifestyle has made him. I have met him and recorded this episode during Tour of Karnataka that we did last month. He was there cycling with his 21 year old son. As someone who has two sons, it was ve...

Joel Sundaram is a young cyclist. He got into cycling in 2018 to lose some weight and ended up on podium at his first race at BBCH. He made it to Indian cycling nationals representing Tamilnadu with in a few months. Racing with the most basic equipment and doing reasonably well, he realized that racing is something he really enjoyed and might actually do much better if he devotes more time to it....