6 Ways I’m Including Vipassana and Ayurvedic Medicine into My Ironman Training

I’m Srija. Ex-marathoner, 24/7 frothing surfer, bharatanatyam dancer, MD-PhD student, triathlete. Training for Ironman 2025, Switzerland. @srijajajaja 

Quick Stats for Ironman Switzerland

Total Mileage: 140.6 miles
Swim: 2.39 miles
Bike: 111.13 miles
Run: 26.3 miles
Time Goals: 13 hours
Injury goals: None

Pre-Race Thoughts

“What kind of lady are you? Running around the street like a loose animal?” My grandmother yelled as she chased me with a stick, trying to get me back inside after a hot evening run in Texas. I cackled, dizzy with freedom, dodging my mother who was whipping up a turmeric-yogurt face mask to slather on my face every night to prevent my skin from tanning, skipping past my dad insisting I change into proper clothes that covered my legs. Or at least that’s how I remembered my Dallas upbringing. “Be like other Indian girls and dance Bharatanatyam or do Yoga for exercise. Do not damage your healthy body.” 

When I got to college, I, outside the purview of my tradition, began running marathons. I eventually got into weightlifting, Jiu Jitsu, Muay Thai, climbing, skateboarding, and really any new movement of my body that came across my path. I moved to California and later Hawai’i to invest in my love of surfing and became a rather 5-star surfer and beach bum. 

Yet, a couple years later, I decided, with difficulty, to not make my hobbies and other-worldly joy when integrated in nature into a career and moved to Washington, D.C. to pursue my MD-PhD dreams, a deep respect for the pursuit of knowledge instilled from the very traditions I ran away from. Situated amidst brutalist architecture, it took me extra work on top of the soulless curriculum to keep my intrinsic joys of fitness and movement as my own medicine alive. 

I eventually learned to swim last summer and did an Olympic triathlon a month later as a way to push myself. This year, after a month-long-stint in Sri Lanka learning an introduction to vipassana meditation and ayurvedic medicine teachings, I hope to unite the South Asian upbringing and values that had initially discouraged sports with my training for the Ironman in Cambridge, Maryland in September.

6 Ways I’m including Vipassana Techniques and Ayurvedic Nutrition into Ironman Training

1. I don’t know much about it but it has inspired a journey to have a deeper awareness. Vipassana is a style of meditation that is rooted in true awareness and observation: of sensations, thoughts, feelings. I also imagine it in the context of loving-kindness meditation for all. By remembering to think about my body’s sensations without reaction and to embed all actions with love and kindness, I aim to begin my days aligned on the path of dhamma. I probably can’t speak on it further, but I also tend to have higher proprioception and interoception within my body, which leads to better stamina as I simply observe when I feel a certain sensation internally, like fatiguing muscles, and then not react to it. It also helps me stretch intuitively and eat and think intuitively as well, aligned with my short-term and long-term goals.
   
2. Ayurveda is based on ritualizing your diet to your body type. I had my body type read by an ayurvedic doctor in India. I am mostly a bit of the pitta (a sort of fire element) with a little bit of aggravated vata (a sort of air element). This means that I should eat foods that are cooling to the body and use certain spices and foods, that when cooked together, help to nourish these imbalances. For example, I will use ginger and apple, well cooked, into my oatmeal and eat yogurts. 
   
3. Ayurveda also incorporates appropriate timing of ingesting food (medicine) and building a bodily hunger or internal fire before eating. This means not eating within an hour of waking up and exercising, but rather eating when you are sitting down to eat and feel happy and satisfied to eat – not craving for food nor emotionally filling a void. It also means enjoying the time you are eating, really tasting each morsel, as it is considered what your body is made of. I also don’t eat raw fruit unless it’s before a meal as that is best digested on its own, or cooked into a meal. This helps my body feel strong and with inflammation reduced.
   
4. Ayurveda can help with injury – lots of homemade spice recipes and herbs are used when feeling lower back pain – such as coconut oil – or feeling bloated from processed nutritional packs. I use the coriander, cumin, fennel tea to drink in the morning- boiling those seeds with water and just sipping on that helps with digestion tremendously, leaving me ready to eat later on. Perhaps there is a liquefied rice and dal (kitchadi) mixture that can be given for digestion on an aerobic conditioning bike ride.
   
5. Vipassana helps to relieve stress associated with poor performance in a training session, or even better, prevent poor performance as my mind is more focused on the tasks at hand. It helps me align my day to fully set aside an hour thrice a day intentionally – once to meditate, the other two for strength and endurance. When it doesn’t happen, I don’t fall into relentless cycles of self-blame and doubt but rather an understanding of all the other things I am juggling in my life that I am giving enough space for.
   
6. Vipassana allows you to heal areas of your body that are painful – I often get flares in my pelvic joints from sitting too long and not stretching and moving them. By concentrating on all my sensations and processing them before responding to them, I have better control of the both positive and painful sensory pathways in my body.  

Final Thoughts

I’m super excited to get to know my body and especially my gut, my mind, and my spirit better as I train for a hefty goal –  one that I know I can finish regardless, but also one that will challenge me to grow deeper in practices I want to strengthen to be a better, more resilient version of myself. I want to show other South Asian women or women from other under-represented cultures in sports that you don’t have to give up deep-rooted spiritual or cultural practices or familial knowledge to pursue any movement you love.