If you feel like a slug and are seeking some inspiration, look no further than Dr. Shitij Arora who went from doing some light fitness to alleviate back pain to running marathons and competing in Ironman races.

Until 2013, he did not even know how to swim and now he has completed one full and seven half Ironman races. The former includes a 112-mile bike ride, 26.2-mile run, and 2.4-mile swim. That’s in addition to the eight marathons and many half-marathons he has run in cities around the world – Paris, Copenhagen, NYC, and soon Berlin. Since the pandemic started, he has participated in two to three marathons each year. Oh, and he has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro with his eyes set on Mount Everest base camp – “Because it is there” as the famous English explorer George Mallory said 100 years ago – and because Arora likes the challenge.

Learning to Swim

“When I first learned to swim, I stayed close to the wall by the beginners’ lane,” says Arora. “When I mustered the courage to just let go and swim, I flip flopped for about 20 yards before I started to sink. The lifeguard had to come save me.”

There is a metaphor in there somewhere. 

This “sink or swim” or, in his case, swim and sink attitude, has served him well in his professional life where he spends long days as associate professor in the department of medicine’s division of hospital medicine, and where he was among the first to recognize that steroids were beneficial in treating COVID patients.

He manages to squeeze in training before sunrise and sometimes after sunset about five times per week and runs about 30-40 miles per week. 

Not everyone is going to go from fitness 101 to becoming a triathlete but Arora’s perseverance is certainly motivating. Just take it one lap at a time.