If the spotlight is firmly focussed on Nisha Madgavkar (37) a mother of two young children and one of Goa’s finest triathletes, she deserves every bit of the praise. Earlier this month, the young mother from Panjim became just the second Goan woman to successfully complete the gruelling Bahrain Half Ironman Triathlon race.

Nisha joins an elite club which includes Shweta Bhandare, originally from Goa and now based in the USA, who completed the Colorado Half Ironman in the year 2005.

The Half Ironman Triathlon is not for the fainthearted. The triathlete has to first swim 1.9kms usually in the open sea or a lake and follow it up with a 90 km cycle ride and a 21 km Half Marathon run to be completed back-to-back.

Nisha, believe it or not completed this arduous course in a very quick 6 hours 11 minutes. According to Nisha, the conditions in Bahrain earlier this month were extremely difficult. The sea was choppy and the headwinds were extremely strong on the cycle route, but she prevailed.

Sports runs in Nisha’s veins. Her father, Anil and mother Christine were national level badminton players and her father even graduated to become a windsurfer. Dad Anil introduced Nisha to swimming when she was barely five. Nisha took to swimming like fish to water and by the time she was seven, had swum both the Mandovi and Zuari rivers. At age 9, when most children are learning math tables by rote, she was swimming the gruelling 36 kms, Dharamtar to Gateway of India sea route in just 12 hours. As a teenager, Nisha became Goa’s leading swimming champion and won a cupboard full of medals.

However, by her own admission she retired from swimming and active sport at age 22. In the 15 years that followed, she kept away from sport and obviously got very rusty. Hence, preparing to be a Triathlete was not an easy task. As Nisha said, “I had to start the process from scratch.”

Nisha began training for her first Goa Olympic Triathlon in April 2015. To her horror, she realised that she had developed an exercise induced asthma which got triggered off every time she ran. Her legs did not move easily and her feet hurt so much that she could not put her foot on the ground. She also realised that she could not cycle more than 8 kms without getting tired and when she swam eight laps of the pool, she was pale and exhausted. But this was just the trigger Nisha needed to get physically fit again.

Nisha enrolled with Pune based Triathlon guru, Ironman Kaustubh Radkar for specialised training. But despite all the preparation, Nisha ignored the basic nutrition tips. She ate and drank very little during the course of her first Olympic Goa Triathlon on February 21, 2016. As a result, when she began her 10 km run, she was pale and fatigued. “I was completely delirious by the time I finished my Triathlon,” said Nisha. It is another matter that she actually finished the event in first place!

Post the Goa Olympic Triathlon, Nisha went into more intensive Radkar training and this time took her nutrition tips very seriously. After Nisha decided to take part in the Bahrain Half Ironman race in December 2016, Radkar put her through some very systematic training. It was bedtime by 9 pm and wake up time by 5am. There was a daily morning drill alternating between cycling, running and swimming and often a combination of two events followed by gym work.

But things were still not hunky dory. Nisha had to fight several physical fitness demons. She needed a strong steroid inhaler to counter her asthma, osteopathy and acupuncture for her sciatica problem and traction treatment for her back. Phew!

A normal training day, closer to the Bahrain Half Ironman date usually began with her morning practice drills, followed by a visit to her physio, a round of traction, working at the family-run business establishment and back home to sleep. “I used to simply go home and crash and get as much sleep as possible for the workouts the next day. I had to encounter a lot of pain too but was very determined to succeed,” said Nisha.

Nisha attributed her mental toughness to her early years of sport and her father Anil’s guidance.