Competing in the Ironman 70.3 triathlon can seem daunting at times, and some getting flagged off at the scenic Miramar Beach on Sunday morning may find it a little more unnerving still, with Indian Olympian and Asian Games bronze-medallist Sandeep Sejwal joining them in the water as part of a relay team.
Sejwal, who is now a coach at the Inspire Institute of Sports (IIS) in Bellary, has teamed up with IIS colleagues Rishabh Chauhan and Makarand Mane in an attempt to conquer the 70.3-mile long challenge. Chauhan and Mane, who both come from sporting backgrounds and now work in athlete management, will be doing the running and cycling courses respectively, while Sejwal will be returning to the water.
Dubbing themselves ‘Try to Survive’ ,the trio came up with the plan in the spur of the moment at Chauhan’s suggestion. “I need to travel a lot, and I wasn’t able to go to the gym properly. But then, because I have a background in sports I needed to do something.
“Running is the easiest, you don’t need a lot of things. You just need a pair of shoes to start running. So I was doing it, but I thought I needed something to strive towards. We were sitting and so we decided to start doing Ironman as a team,” he said.
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Mane remembers, “There was no prior planning, or training for a year — nothing like that. One fine night, we were just sipping on beer, we looked at each other and looked at the event. It seemed interesting, and [thought] we could do it as a relay team.”
“We were making up our minds from July, but by September, we registered. And then we were like, okay, this is getting serious now,” he added.
“It’s within driving distance from Bellary for us, so we decided, yes, it’s doable, and it’s on the weekend, so these guys (Chauhan and Mane) have to take about a day off, and I have to get back to training,” Sejwal said.
While Chauhan and Mane began preparing from July, Sejwal, for whom Goa will be his first swim since 2018, only began preparing a month ago, although he quickly found his form again. He said, “In the last month, I’ve been training about three times a week, and just getting my rhythm back.
During the third week, I realised that the muscle memory has been built in so well that it didn’t take me so much time to get used to the metres that I was doing.”
However, speed is not the focus for him this time around. “I just want to go out there and have fun. This is my first experience coming to Goa and doing an open water event, so for me, 1.9 km is going to be a task, because I haven’t swum since 2018, but I’m not here to compete against each other, it’s just for fun,” he said.
Sejwal will hope that Sunday morning provides a moment where he can realise one of his long-term aspirations. “Doing an Ironman has been my long-term dream,” he said. “But then again, finding a sponsor for a bicycle, which is very, very expensive, and finding time to train for cycling and running is difficult for a swimming coach.”
“When I was a swimmer, I wanted to do an Ironman, but then it was really difficult to find time to take time off from swimming to put it into cycling or into running,” he added.
All three team members expressed an interest in doing Ironman 70.3 Goa individually next year, but for Team ‘Try to Survive,’ the goal for Sunday is clear.
“Right now, we’re here to enjoy Goa, to be frank,” Sejwal said. “And with that, if we are able to finish the relay in a good amount of time — our target is about five hours — it’s basically putting icing on the cake.”
Published on Nov 08, 2025