04 March,2020 07:52 AM IST | Mumbai | Sonia Lulla
Milind Soman. Pics/Instagram
Milind Soman asks us to do 10 push-ups for a selfie. We ask him to join us, insisting it will make for a better grab for this piece. He refuses. He's too cool for 'regular' push-up. "If I do it, we'll have to do clap push-ups," he sets conditions. We give it a shot, fail, and blame the deceptive flooring for being too slippery. Arms tucked into the pockets of his hoodie, he seems all too comfortable to even lift a finger. "I'm the laziest person," he announces at one point in this conversation, and follows it with clichés such as "Everyone can run a marathon", "I'm addicted to fitness", and even gems like "Have you seen my body in the Made in India video? It's amazing!"
There's abundant tomfoolery going on at this interaction, or so we believe it would. Not because we didn't intend to take this seriously, but because we had read so much about Soman's fitness journey that we wondered if he would perhaps even have anything more to say. After cracking the eulogised Ironman challenge (3.86 km swim, 180.25 km bicycle ride and 42.20 km run) in 2015, and giving a spate of interviews describing his fitness routine, he went on to complete the Ultraman, which made the former look, well, 'cute'. It comprised a 10 km swim, 424 km bike ride and 84 km run. So we only begin with what seems to be the most obvious question we can: 'Which question pertaining to fitness are you most tired of answering?" Pat comes his reply, "All".
It's decided: we're heading nowhere. Only, emerging from this chat with the fitness icon, Soman has shattered several pre-conceived notions we'd harboured about people who could achieve the incredulous feats that he has. (Read: It's not just good genes!) If you want your kids to be like him, here's what you need to do:
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Long before Soman covered distances on foot, he did so under water. "At nine years of age, I was swimming at the international level. By the time I was 23, I was swimming 65 kilometres a week. That's a lot! I don't even run that much each week now. But that kind of training had me develop a level of fitness and conditioning that I could carry forward in my life. For all these years, till the age of 23, I was at the peak of my physical fitness, each year. And because I had this extraordinary training, my conditioning and mental state emerged to be such that it took a long time for it to deteriorate." After giving up training at 23, Soman didn't invest in physical activity till the age of 37. "I stopped exercising in 1988, and shot Made in India in 1995. Between the years, I did not exercise at all. But, look at my body in the video, it's amazing. It took 17 years after I stopped swimming to feel the need to exercise again. At 37, I realised there is a problem. Now, I've been running for 17 years, and what I've accumulated in 17 years through running, both physically and mentally, will not be forgotten by my body, even if I don't do anything for a long time again."
Of course, Soman's awe-inspiring abilities are the result of abundant hours put into his training, right from his childhood. But, would his devotion to fitness be as earnest as it is had he not been as good as he was in athletics? He believes, it's questionable. "Sports taught me a lot, but also, the fact is that I would win. I was a national champion. It wasn't like I was at the 100th spot, and then had to gradually work my way to the top. I was at the top, and hence, I had to find competition within myself and build a greater sense of self-awareness about things like my strokes, what I was eating, and how I was thinking, to get better. Had I been terrible at sports, it wouldn't have helped me. Being good helped me get better, it made me understand what success and sustainability meant. So, it's important to find things you're good at; regardless of whether that is commercially important. If you are good at it, do it, because you will explore life through it. It's connected to everything, whether you run a business, or choose to dance."
Soman says there is an average of 1.5 lakh individuals who give a go at the seemingly onerous Ironman challenge each year. But even those who complete it shiver at the thought of the Ultraman. "Why is that the case? From 1.5 lakh, the number falls to 150 at the Ultraman. People tell me, only I can do it. The guy who finished before me was 67, with only one leg. So what's the problem of a person who is 45 with two legs? It's all about what you believe." The process to creating a mind that "believes" such feats are possible can also be broken down into actionable tasks. For Soman, that is goal-setting. "I got into the mind-space where I could believe I could do anything after my first half-marathon at 37. People said I wouldn't be able to do it. I said, okay. I trained for four months, and completed it easily. So, I realised that I don't need to think anything will be hard; I just need to prepare for it. Running is a mental tool. When I realised that, I said I must take up more challenges. Any challenge you choose is a tool to become better at life, which is always throwing unpredictable things at you, via stresses at your job or family life. To be mentally and emotionally capable of dealing with it, you need to train your emotional and mentally well-being by throwing challenges at yourself. There is a debate on if a marathon is healthy, since it puts great pressure on organs. It's not healthy. But it is necessary because it's a fantastic exercise for the mind."
37 - The age when Soman took to running
14 - Number of years he had no physical training
The discussion around carbohydrates, fats and proteins has begun in India only over the last five years. Fifty years ago, people simply ate whatever was available. I eat whole foods and let my body decide what it needs and what it must get rid of. It is way more capable than I am of deciding that. Calories are not important, the quality of the calories is. Hence, foods like almonds are essential. Refined sugar has empty calories, but sugarcane juice is loaded with micro-nutrients, minerals and vitamins. One will only spike your insulin level, the other can enhance your performance. So, whole foods are important.
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