30 kilograms lighter - How Dr. Sachin Bheda ran and is still running his way to a new life
I consider myself a pretty determined person who only starts things to lead them to a certain outcome or for the long haul. I get very disappointed in myself if I give up easily or I find myself slacking. Then, I know the effort it takes to get my mood to accept the slack and start over the next day. For example, if I decide to go for a walk or a run and then something happens and I can't do that, the consequences of the two minutes that I took to give up sit with me the whole day. I find myself either consoling myself and justifying it or chiding myself and asking myself to buck up the next day. Even though I'm determined, the end product of consistent behaviour that everyone sees needs my constant attention. It's never as easy as it seems.
This determination or building of it has led me to run races in the past, and the training, the waking up and doing the routine has got me fit enough to complete the race, however hard it may have seemed on the given day. I'm lucky that I'm running once again, though after a break to recover from an injury, and can resume training. Maybe next year, I will be able to participate in a race, provided I stay fit. This is one of the biggest reasons I get motivation from others who run and admire people who do sports. It's acknowledging others as they go through the daily grind that really makes me say this person is making their health a priority and maybe I should make mine one too.
People who do this for themselves can't help but be noticed. My nephew and I were discussing my articles and he told me about the husband of their family dentist in Vashi, Navi Mumbai, where they live. That's how I knew about Dr. Sachin Bheda. I didn't know how much he ran, though, when I called him to talk.
Dr. Sachin Bheda is a G.P. who works and lives in Vashi. He got married in 2002 and he recalls that from then till 2015 he put on a lot of weight. He says his wife's wonderful cooking got him from 56 kgs to 107 kgs. As a Gujarati, he claims to love food and finds it hard not to eat what he likes. His wife, however, has always been a fitness freak and drew the line when he put on so much weight. His health was at risk after all. Everyone in Dr. Bheda's family is overweight, and recognising that he might have a genetic propensity to weight gain, he agreed to start some kind of physical activity which would hopefully bring about some change in his life. Mind you, even a doctor can get so engrossed in life that activity and health can take a back seat. It just goes to show that each and every one of us needs to make a small step each day to change or keep up our health in whatever way possible.
Dr. Bheda hadn't been inactive all his life. When he was younger, he played cricket, he used to work out and do yoga. After graduation, life just sort of took over. His work duties and clinical practice were a priority, and he never used to have time for anything else. Till the age of around 42, his life was Home - Clinic - Home.
Everyone who lives in Vashi, Navi Mumbai and the surrounding areas knows about the mini seashore. It's a path that loops around water that is about 3 km in length. I myself have run this loop. It's always full of runners and walkers in the mornings and evenings. Dr. Bheda started walking every day at this place. The walking track has one unchanging feature: a man named Mr James who keeps pushing everyone to do a couple of steps more. He says, 'Do Kadam', which literally means two steps, while he himself runs. Mr James is a man who is hard to ignore. Despite this, in the beginning Dr. didn't want to run. He was progressing from just walking to brisk walking. Eventually, as he got used to getting out there and showing up every day, he found himself running. He found it very hard. He even wondered why he was doing this to himself; such was the discomfort.
Running can be super hard to start and to continue to do. If one is overweight, it can seem like a stack of bricks is being moved as you're moving, and sadly it's you - the stack of bricks. The second time you run can seem like the worst moment because as soon as you start again, your body remembers the pain it went through and all you find yourself doing is negotiating with the mind and the body to not stop until you've given it your best. But what I find about running is that if you pass these terrible initial moments and you still find yourself shuffling along and coming back for more, it's also one of the sports that rewards you the fastest. You find yourself standing a bit taller. You start seeing angles on your torso that were curtained by your curves, and your tummy gets tighter than you've seen it in a long time. It's also a sport that is accessible to most people, and you can do it when it suits your schedule. So, as Dr. Bheda started enjoying the sport after not liking it at all to start with, he persisted and got more and more interested. He started seeing the results of his efforts as he started losing weight. He even signed up for his first Half Marathon in 2018 and ran it on 10th June 2018 in 2 hours 23 mins.
Dr. Bheda also loves cycling and considers it as cross training to keep him fit to run. He started alternating between cycling and running. He even found himself doing endless hours of activity. Some days, he would find himself waking up at 3 AM and not feeling sleepy anymore, and he used to run from 4 to 6 AM, then continue with an hour long cycling session and head back home, make breakfast and do household chores between 7 AM and 8:15. After all that, he would be back at the seashore for a stroll of an hour or so. Back home at 9:30, he then finally started his daily activities. This was his schedule for about 3 to 4 years. He then went on to run several 21, 35 and 42 km runs. He found himself cycling 50 to 100 kms. He would cycle from Vashi to Lonavala and back, which is a distance of 140 kms. He has, of course, now crossed over into an Ultra runner's category, and he loves long distances.
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Running is his 1st choice of exercise, and he runs 50, 75, 100 or 150 kms. This March, he attempted 220 kms with a DNF (Did Not Finish) at 147 kms at the White Sand Ultra in Dholavira in Gujarat. He will be trying it again in April next year.
Dr. Bheda says that he is strong willed, stubborn and obstinate. All adjectives you have to be to not give up when your body is screaming at you to do exactly that. He says he is a very slow runner and that his goal is usually to complete the race. The slow running keeps him injury free. When he completes a race, he finds himself having a new identity. He finds himself having evolved to someone new, having discovered a new layer in his personality that was capable of overcoming the challenges of the day, the demons in his mind or the devil at play.
He is still a big foodie and loves soft drinks. He still works out for hours at the seashore and has some friends who meet every day for a chai at a tea stall at 8:30 sharp. Dr. Bheda says after running for 2 hours in the morning, he has the chai and even indulges in some fried treat and, if he does that, he just runs another hour to compensate afterwards. On most days, you can find him at the mini seashore till 9:30. He's now 77 kgs.
When you run an Ultra, Dr. Bheda finds that one can have a lot of time alone on the road. This time with yourself can be like meditation. The breath, the thought, the movement, the passing scenery and the thirst of the impending achievement to come.
I ask him if he never developed any injuries, to which he cites an incident during the Tata Ultra Marathon at Lonavala some years back. In this race of 50 kms, he was at the U turn point at Ambey Valley at about 24 kms, where the road became a trail road and he slipped and fell down. He did not realise then that he had fractured his shoulder. He suspected a dislocation. So, at the next Hydration support point, he used ice fomentation, took painkillers and wore a sling and walked the rest of the 26 kms. He just kept walking. Only later did he realise how severe his injury was, as he had an operation and had two metal plates inserted into his shoulder, which was broken in two parts. His doctor suggested that he only walk. After that injury, Dr. Bheda decided that slow running was what he was best at and vowed to do that to stay injury free. He, of course, was back running, sling and all, within 4-5 days!
The video below shows where he is finishing the race with the fractured shoulder joint.
He mentions a special moment when he was running the Khardung La 72 km race in 2023 to 2024. This is the highest motorable road in the world at 17,000 feet. At the first cut off at 32 kms, you reach the Khardung village and then the route goes downwards. When you're on this patch, you can suffer from altitude sickness or even hallucinations. At the end of the race, you reach Leh Market. And Dr. Bheda remembers small kids running with him, telling him that he was very close to the end and that he should go on and not give up. On his BIB (race card that a runner wears on him), people saw his name was Sachin. And he remembers ending the race with a chant of many people calling out his name, 'Sachin! Sachin! Sachin!’ … he was literally in tears.
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| all the races he has done and the number of them in a list |
He's happy that on top of giving himself a new lease of life and getting fitter day by day, he can motivate people to do an Ultra. He says he has happily passed the Ultra fever to people who were only doing 30 kms till now. He knows at least 7 people from the mini seashore who have registered for the Khadakvasla 100 km run after seeing, hearing of, training with and talking to him. He also has people who run 4 kms who have registered for the Kharghar 10 km run.
He knew a young man called Hitesh Jain who used to walk at the seashore and shifted some months back to Hyderabad. He used to encourage Hitesh at the seashore to start running. But Hitesh only walked back then. The other day, to his complete surprise, he got a phone call from Hitesh, who called him to tell him that he had completed the Hyderabad Half Marathon. These instances make Dr. Bheda even happier to run.
He requests people to at least give one hour per day to their bodies, reminding us that the body will thank you in old age. The fact is that each one of these small differences we make for ourselves can be an inspiration for someone else. You can be the big difference and make a lot of difference to someone's life with each small action, even unknowingly. Talking to Dr. Bheda it’s clear that when one does sports, one gets so busy with the effort that all the discipline and dedication brings that there’s rarely a moment for any negativity. It’s a Win-Win!
A small note :- Dr. Bheda is the only person I have met till date who has done Backyard Ultra and I'm so impressed he DNF in 15 loops, 90kms.
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