Nagpurian Mehre successfully finishes Ironman in Western Australia #pkyblog #pkyvlog

Nagpurian Mehre successfully finishes Ironman in Western Australia

By Pradeepkumar Yadav

NAGPUR’S Mayank Mehre, working as a Bank Manager in New Delhi, has become second athlete from Central India to successfully finish the Ironman race. He achieved the feat last Sunday by completing the tough SunSmart Ironman Western Australia held at Busselton, Western Australia.
Dr Amit Samarth holds the honour of completing the Ironman in Western Australia last year.
SunSmart Ironman Western Australia is considered an important race on the Ironman calendar since over a decade.
Twenty-six-year-old Mehre did extremely well to complete the full Ironman in 13 hours, 44 minutes, 37 seconds. Over 1300 athletes from over 40 countries took part in the race.
The Ironman constitutes of 3.8km swimming followed by 180 kms of cycling and a full marathon run of 42.2 kms. All the three categories are to be completed in 17 hours. Mayank completed the race well before the scheduled time despite having a flat tyre twice.
This year’s Ironman Western Australia was full of incidents including presence of sharks during the swimming events. Mayank shared his adventure Down Under with ‘The Hitavada’.
Despite Australia having best tracks for Ironman in the world the race day was hot and humid where temperature soared to around 38 degrees, Mayank said.
“Because of heat and dehydration more than 250 athletes could not finish or had to leave the race midway,” said Mehre from Western Australia.
The city athlete also had his own difficulties to take care of during the race. He particularly had a bad time during the 180 kms of cycling.
“My bicycle developed punctures twice and I almost lost 45 minutes repairing it. When the front tyre got punctured for the second time I started fearing disqualification as I had lost a lot of time. I had to pace up my speed for next four hours. Fortunately I reached the finish line well in time,” Mayank talked about his relief.
During the course of cycle race, the participants also had to tackle Kangaroos on the road. “Then there was a bushfire and the bike leg was shortened by 11 kms,” he said.
More trouble was in store during the swimming leg. Competitors had to be pulled from the water after a 2.5 metre shark sighting. The unidentified shark was spotted by a race helicopter near the race course.
“Coast guards forced the swimmers out of the sea due to presence of white sharks. There was absolute chaos,” Mayank narrated.
Defeating all odds, Mayank, who recently climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in August, completed the race to become second city athlete to do so.
Mayank had trained day in, day out for more than eight months for this endurance race in.
“A lot of planning was done right from nutrition to strength building and planning of minute by minute details,” he said.
Mayank said, he faced difficulties while preparing for the event as Indian weather was totally different from Australia. “Lack of infrastructure and awareness is also a hindrance in India,” he stated.
Mayank felt that there was huge potential in India to produce great athletes. “Currently there are less than 100 Ironman title holders in India while a small country like Singapore had more than 100 participants in Busselton event,” he said.
The banker is now preparing to embark upon another adventure soon.
“This will not be the last adventure and I will definitely look forward to another adventure in near future,” Mayank concluded.

#pkyblog #pkyvlog

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