North India’s first ‘Ultrawoman’ Manisha Srivastava: Took up running at 42 – Times of India
The race involves participants finishing a 10km swim, a 421km bike ride, and a 84km double marathon distance r…Read More
Last month, when the Ultraman Challenge – one of the toughest endurance triathlons in the world – was held in India for the first time, a dozen athletes finished the gruelling race and etched their names in the history books. One of them – Gurgaon’s Manisha Srivastava – was a woman. The feat makes her the first woman from north India to finish the race, which involves participants finishing a 10km swim, a 421km bike ride, and an 84km double marathon distance run, spread over three days. The triathlon has been aced by only a handful of people from India before this and barring one – Anu Vaidyanathan of Bangalore – all of them were men.
Unlike most other endurance runners and fitness buffs from Gurgaon and Delhi, Manisha was a late bloomer. She did not take up running until her 40s. She tells us, “I started running quite late in my life. I was 42 and it just happened naturally. Initially, I used to run 5k runs. The first jump was to a half-marathon distance. When I did well there and had good timing, I became confident that I can push further. The next year, I attempted my first full-marathon and ran another one barely a month later.”
Manisha Srivastava, a resident of Sector 50, Gurgaon, says she is surprised that no woman from a fitness-crazy town like Gurgaon achieved this feat before her
The 47-year-old worked in a couple of MNCs’ HR wing before starting her own firm. “But it was too much work and took too much out of me,” she recalls. Hence, a few years ago, she “gave up on the idea of working” to focus on the upbringing of her daughters. In 2014, she took up running and soon, that became her “full-time work”. She says, “In 2016, after having done a few marathons, I wanted to do something new, so I tried triathlon. I wasn’t an expert swimmer and at that time, I wanted to do it to confront my fear of the depth. I did it somehow. That motivated me to go for triathlons over greater distances. In 2018, I finished Half Ironman and a full Ironman distance earlier this year.”
The Sector 50 resident says she is surprised that no woman from a fitness-crazy city like Gurgaon achieved this feat before her. “A lot of women have misconceptions about this sport. Many don’t like the idea of attempting it because you have to train a certain way and take carbs and electrolytes, which make you bulkier. I felt that discourages many women from taking up endurance running or triathlons. But if you are consistent in your training, you can achieve this without a diet that makes you bulkier,” she says.