Detangle by Kinjal
Detangle is a podcast created by health psychologist and writer, Dr Kinjal Goyal. Each episode is a conversation with an expert in their field, as they dive deep into their journerys and experiences. The conversations are full of insight and a great way to hear, first hand, how the mind plays a pivotal role in almost everything that we do. The guests range from doctors, to writers, to those in entertainment and of course, those from mental health fields.
Detangle by Kinjal
Detangle with Mr Dhananjay Yellurkar
A single moment split his life in two: before the heart attack and after the surgery. What followed wasn’t a retreat into caution but a deliberate climb from base zero, two minutes at a time, toward a finish line he couldn’t yet see. We sit down with Dhananjay Yellurkar to unpack how a non-athlete became a seven-continent marathoner by swapping fear for disciplined patience and trading shortcuts for rituals that actually work.
We explore the early days of cardiac rehab, where trust in the body had to be earned slowly and safely. Dhananjay shares how he used heart-rate caps, weekly check-ins, and incremental mileage to rebuild confidence without recklessness. The first unsupported run at dawn, no nurses, no machines, brought fragility into focus, but community and a supportive partner kept the plan intact. Within six months, he crossed a half marathon finish line. Less than a year later, he trained methodically for the New York City Marathon with a 20-week plan, pre-dawn long runs through Mumbai heat and monsoon, and a commitment to show up at work as if the miles didn’t exist.
The conversation moves beyond running. We connect endurance training to life: focus over frenzy, consistency over novelty, depth over dabbling. Dhananjay’s simple system- sleep by ten, wake at five, mostly home-cooked food, hydration, portion control, light strength work, and four weekly runs-became a durable identity. He explains how mindset and preparation carried him through extremes like Antarctica and the Big Five Marathon, where flexibility and pacing trumped ego. We also open his 'emotional first aid box,' a small toolkit of music and pet memories that restores calm when motivation thins, and we frame recovery as trauma-informed rather than trauma-driven.
If you’re rebuilding after a setback, or just trying to create a steadier life, this story offers a blueprint: start from your real baseline, go slowly, respect the data, and let consistency do the heavy lifting. Subscribe, share this episode with someone who needs hope, and leave a review telling us the one habit you’ll commit to this week.
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Welcome to DTangle, where we untangle the complexities of life one conversation at a time. I'm your host, Dr. Kinjal Goal, a psychologist and a writer. Today on DTangle, we meet a man whose second heartbeat began at 46. Dananjay Yalurkar survived a massive heart attack and open heart surgery, but instead of slowing down, he laced up his shoes and started to run. From someone who had never played a sport, he went on to become a seven continents marathoner, a symbol of endurance and a voice of hope for thousands recovering from cardiac illness. His story is not just about a strong heart, it's about a mind that refused to give up and a spirit that turned pain into possibility. Welcome to my show, Mr. Tananjay. It's so nice to have you here.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you, Dr. Kinjal. I am looking forward to talking with you and sharing my story with you.
SPEAKER_01:Well, let's get right in.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks.
SPEAKER_01:You've lived through something that most people only read about a heart attack and open heart surgery at 46. Now that you're 62, when you look back at that moment, what emotion comes up first? Fear, disbelief, or determination?
SPEAKER_00:Uh it that moment actually was a defining moment for me. Uh mainly because you know uh there was no way I could predict how life would be from there on. At that particular moment, when it happened uh 16 years ago, there was fear and disbelief. But today, when I look at it, it is only determination. Determination uh mainly because how did I get out of such a situation? And if it happens again, I have the tools, etc., to to bounce back again. So either no fear or disbelief at this this juncture today.
SPEAKER_01:This is very interesting because all our emotions are so time-bound. What we feel today and what we feel in retrospect can be completely different. That's a fresh perspective. So before this event, you weren't a sports person at all. What was your relationship with your body back then? How did it change after your recovery began?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's it basically starts from my childhood, I guess. I was never into sports because I had some kind of a mind block. That uh I have my hand-eye coordination is weak, and I also had many good sports people in my family, especially men. So I always was under the uh my own mind, I would say that I had certain ideas that I am not in not a good sports person, and that made me kind of find exit routes. I stayed away from uh sports, and I tried to do as much as possible to not take part in any whether it was in school or college or later in life, any any sports meant that I needed to find an exit route from that situation. It was mainly an escape mechanism for me because I really didn't feel comfortable that I could my body could uh could be as good as anybody uh of my peers. So that was the the starting point of this, you know. And when it when this uh episode happened, I really needed to uh there was only one thing I wanted to do after that, you know, how to bounce back because I had we have we are a nuclear family with two small children, and it was at that time there was no safety net, and also the responsibility for nurturing them, etc., was on my shoulders. My uh wife was a homemaker, and it was a situation where I had to do something to bounce back, and the only and I had somewhat lost my uh kind of confidence to get back to work too. So, and that situation I just wanted to do something to prove to myself that I'm as healthy as or as physically okay as a 46-year-old person. So, what I did at that time was, you know, earlier my averages for like sports performance were pegged to say peers of my age. So suddenly this this episode got me my new average. So my average was base zero now. So I was very comfortable with that. That now from here I had to go up and do it very, very gradually. So there was no comparisons in my mind. I knew that I had to do it very slowly, and I did a half marathon within six months of my ICU. For a non-athlete to do that, it was a difficult uh thing, you know, it because I had to. There were so many demons in my head that I'm not good in sports. I if I do this, if something happens to me, what will happen to my family? And uh, whether I'm looking only at myself or I'm looking at a broader picture of because most of the medical fraternity generally asks you to slow down post your surgery, and here I wanted to do something extreme just to feel good about myself, to regain my confidence. So that was the situation at that time, and the the relationship with the body also was something that I had to improve because that was my only way to bounce back. I could no longer shirk away from the from the past or dwell too much into what happened and why I was staying away from all those things. So this was my way of recovery, and that's how it began. And once I started the recovery, then it was much more easier because I did it extremely gradually, one step at a time. So, like I said, my average was very low. I had set my own average now, so it was increasing that there were no uh no fears anymore. Of course, there were fears that I I was doing it. I started in the rehab with two minutes of run.
SPEAKER_01:Right. So, how many marathons have you done so far now? Including half and full?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I must have done over uh half itself. I must have done together maybe two dozen.
SPEAKER_01:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:That's a great number to begin with, and I'm sure you have a lot more coming over. But tell me, Naranja, many people see running as a physical exertion. I mean, like you even said you had to start with short runs in your rehab, but eventually you made it your own therapy. So, what did running teach you that no hospital did?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, most of the hospitals or doctors, you know, that they they focus mainly on getting you back on your feet, and the focus is also on making you live. But at that stage in life, just living was not a solution. I wanted to thrive. So running gave me that platform, you know, it helped me uh channelized my values into like focus, discipline, hard work, into something that became a daily habit. And that really opened the world for me, and because of that, I'm where I am today. So no doctor or hospital could have achieved that. Because if I had I had just become one more of the patient, just taking medication and slowing down my life, new doors would not have opened for me.
SPEAKER_01:Right. There's also this profoundly psychological element that I see in cardiac recovery: the mind's willingness to trust the body again, because somewhere that trust is lost after such a major cardiac event. But how did you rebuild that trust after your surgery?
SPEAKER_00:It was when I after the surgery, the first time, of course, when I was uh I was on a wheelchair and taken to the cardiac rehab. That's the first time I felt uh you know that this okay, there is life after this episode too, because I saw all the other cardiac patients, earlier cardiac patients, coming there and doing some kind of exercise, whether it was on the treadmill or lifting light weights, etc. So that's when I thought, okay, these are like my band of brothers now, you know. If they can do this, I can surely do that. So that was my first kind of uh uh uh alarm that okay, all is not lost. Because at that time, you know, it's like I've having some kind of uh goalpost. Each time an episode like that happens, which is challenging and changes your life completely. Uh we always look for some uh guidance or goalposts, but some of these events happened so randomly, like this heart episode. It was not like graduation or becoming a parent or something, it was completely a lonely kind of uh uh uh episode where there was nobody to check how to navigate out of the situation because the stories so far were of patients who had uh in the 60s or more who could not survive the episode. So, for a young person to survive it after five blocks and uh open heart surgery, I needed something like that. So the rehab was a good place to begin. And when I enrolled for it, I really started with very basic two minutes of on a treadmill, two minutes of rowing, but over a period of 13 sessions, it ramped up slowly. That I was doing uh 15 minutes of cycling and 15 minutes of treadmill that itself gave a confidence and it was extremely gradual. And of course, the fact that there were doctors and a nursing station there monitoring all your parameters because you are very unsure because you are just about healing, there's a deep cut in your uh chest, and you are unsure about what will what unfolds. So that kind of at kind of environment is extremely important to give back confidence, and after that, I think it's mainly doing it very gradually, one step at a time, from two minutes. By the time I I finished my uh rehab, I was doing 30 minutes of run on the treadmill, that was one month after my um ICU. So that's how the body got into some kind of running. It was extremely slow. It was not that it was uh I was uh running very fast or something, but it was ramped up very, very, very gradually and with all my monitor all my parameters, whether they were in in check or not.
SPEAKER_01:All this brings us to the hospital environment. But once you're an endurance athlete and you're doing this outside the hospital, I'm sure there are moments of doubt where you know your pain carries such deep memories, and also your body keeps reminding you of its fragility, even when you don't have the support of hospitals and doctors later. So, how did you deal with that?
SPEAKER_00:Right. So at the uh rehab, you know, the the hospital that were where I was doing rehab, they were the medical partners of Mumbai Marathon at that time, even now they are. So I that's the time when all the advertisements started coming up for the marathon, and uh they were sending heart patients, but it was for more for the dream run, which was like a seven, six, seven kilometers walk. Okay, so I just wanted to do something uh extraordinary to prove to myself. So I said, let me enroll for the half marathon. The doctors they were extremely reluctant. They said it is not possible to do the half marathon post your surgery within six to seven months. But since they saw my uh kind of uh recovery in the rehab and my attitude that I wanted to do something, they asked me to join a running group outside, which had certain doctors also running along. And uh so they told me to come back every week to get checked and also gave me a lot of do's and don'ts. Like keep a check on your heart rate, it should not go over 140. If you feel any discomfort, stop, etc. But having said that, when I first did the run outside with the running group, it was I remember uh going there, it was early morning, five o'clock. That's the first time I had started driving also post the surgery, and it was a little unsure because it was little dark and they all started running, and they just ran very fast. And here I was a laggard, and suddenly there was no nursing station to monitor your parameters, there was no doctor to look around, there were no other heart patients, and that put the fear back in me. What am I doing? If something happens to me and I fall down, will people know, etc. But here I should also credit my family, particularly my wife, because uh in India we live in a in a in a family where everybody gives advice that this has happened, you have small children, why do you want to run? Why do you want to take extreme endurance when you should be just go returning back to work and and becoming a regular person again? But uh it was my wife who supported me and she understood that you know he I needed to do this, so she was also my partner in this journey. So all the fragility that was there in my body, etc., also was there in my mind. But uh having said that, it was after I did my run, I uh became more confident. And since it was initially just one kilometer of run, in that I slowly managed to ramp it up to one and a half, then two, then three kilometers, four kilometers, and by the time of 18 weeks, I did 16 or 17 kilometers that too in the hills of Lunaula. So that's how amazing the body is. And if you push it gradually and build up your endurance and be very, very careful about your heart rate, you if I was uh speeding or if I was reckless, I would not be here today to talk about all these things because I would have given up long, long time ago. But the fact that it was gradually done, it helped and all the fragilities that we were there in the body. In fact, the body started cooperating so well that that it it it took me to uh uh places where I had not been to, also. Of course, there are there are issues about you know that even if you when you are in pain or there are the first one year was difficult because you always uh remembered about what you went through, your your open art surgery, the bypass, and here you are on the road alone. Of course, the we were in a group, but everybody runs at their own timing. So it is uh not a very comforting situation, but your mind and body both are wonderful. Uh once you uh make decisions and do it very gradually, they all come back to help you.
SPEAKER_01:So basically, you changed your whole identity from being a patient to a marathoner. I mean, it was not just health, it was a whole identity change.
SPEAKER_00:Right. It was actually actually the identity change and it it happened very gradually, I would say. It was not a conscious decision. It what started as a one-time uh I wanted to do a half marathon. Uh it it I never when I started doing training for that, I never knew that I would one day do seven continents. It never was not a planned thing like that. What but what happened was during the first half marathon training, I started feeling so good about myself. And here I was a non-athlete, now fully trained. When I went for the half marathon, I was so confident because I was well trained, and when I went to collect the medal, when I saw people half my age or in their 30s lying around on the ground in aches and pains and uh having some cramps, and here I was walking confidently to collect my medal without having any injury, just told me that meaning this is how I could crack this uh ghost or slay the demons in my mind that were there, that I could not do this endurance activity, I could not do sports, and by that time it got addictive also. So once the half marathons uh happened, the group that I was running with disbanded because that time marathon was not that popular and they would run only for six months. But I was addicted to it now, it gave me newfound confidence and I loved myself. So I said, okay, let me do an international marathon now and train for it and make it into a holiday also after that. Hence, I one fine Sunday I I logged in to New York City Marathon. It was available on a lottery basis, so I applied for the lottery. But I was naive even then. I thought it was like the Mumbai Marathon at the end of the it there was a tick for half or a full, only to realize this was for full marathon because half marathon was six months away. But anyway, it was a lottery, so I applied, and two months later I got an email that I was in and post that, and it was again how do I because I then I was searching all over the internet for days. Is there any heart patient who has done a full marathon within uh one year of his surgery and nothing showed up?
SPEAKER_01:So that's tremendous. I mean, that means there's a lot of people who can but don't.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and then of course I had to become my own hero. You know, I had to be do it myself, I had to have my own plans, nobody to support you because the guru and New York City marathon resources in November first weekend, and that means I had to train in the summer of Mumbai and the monsoon and the October heat all alone while working, just recovering. It was a challenge, but I was meticulous. I had a 20-week training schedule, I rammed very, very slowly four to five times a week of running, and I was working and I was doing it, and I was feeling very good about myself. That nobody at work would realize that you know Monday I have come for a credit committee, but Sunday I had run 32 kilometers all by myself. I would get up at 2 o'clock in the morning, from 3 o'clock, I would start running from Bandra to uh or from Dadar to uh Nariman Point and back and try to finish it by 7, 7:30 and come back, rest, recuperate, and go back to work on Monday and attend the meetings. But yes, it was all possible because it was done very gradually, and the mind and body was supporting, so that that's how it was.
SPEAKER_01:Uh, we usually look at recovery only about rest, but there's so much routine involved. I mean, there are so many habits you need to inculcate, there are so many things you need to do on a daily basis. So tell me about the rituals that you followed. What did you do even when you were not running maybe extensively? But what were these rituals that got you here?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. First of all, I have been running now for 16 years, and cumulatively I must have run in training itself 24,000 kilometers. Wow. So I have been very, very uh really, it has become my identity. So it's like virtually covering the distance from North Pole to South Pole and more. So and that all only by consistency and discipline. But daily habits are that you know I sleep by 10 o'clock, come what may. I get up at 5 o'clock daily, even on days when I'm not running, I follow this schedule. I'm a vegetarian, so I eat home cooked food preferably, and there's no extra that I I follow. I did for I tried to do a lot of stuff, like I became a vegan for some time. I I I gave up other stuff at some time. But being a family member, I I need to see also ensure that the kitchen is not open for me continuously. So I do eat whatever is prepared at home, but I do portion control, I stay away from sweets, and I do little lightweights also, and this is there as a daily habit. So uh this is what has helped me, and I do try to do some breathing exercises too, but most of the time it is related to drinking hydration, rest, and and and proper sleep and nutrition. These are the things that I've done consistently. Of course, I do eat out, and I do it's not that uh I'm completely only into all the I do go on holidays and that's the time there's a break. But consistently out of uh I run at least four to three to four times a week, and even today I do that, whether I'm training for a marathon or no, so it has become like my second nature. So I it's not and I I do it also because it like it's like a meditation to me. Suppose I'm running for one hour in the morning, for nearly for 40 minutes, my mind is kind of at peace. I'm not thinking of work, I'm not thinking about my dog, I'm not thinking about my family. Of course, I know that there's a bus coming or the rickshaw is turning, but there are no thoughts as such. So when I come back, I'm totally refreshed. So this is a daily habit. I think it has become uh a ritual for me.
SPEAKER_01:I think it's very uh it's very interesting to note that a lot of doctors who've been on my podcast repeatedly say the same thing that everybody asks them for shortcuts to health or shortcuts to recovery from an illness. But the simple things they don't want to take part in, like rest, hydration. You know, these simple things people don't want on a daily basis. They want quick fixes, protein powders or you know, extra supplements or anything to boost their recovery, but simple things add up, which is amazing.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:So tell me, let me take this into another angle now. Let's digress a bit. Endurance running definitely builds your stamina, but it's not just for the races or the marathons. Endurance training also changes the way you work, the way you handle your life and your family. So tell me how has running overflowed into the other parts of your life?
SPEAKER_00:And that's a good question. Uh Endurance running has built my stamina, but it has also given me something, a knowledge which is uh which is applicable to life, work, relationships also. And it flows into that because I feel now after 16 years of running and running in seven continents, the world opened up to me. But it took but to create anything of value in life, you know, it takes a lot of time and it needs a lot of focus, it needs a lot of discipline, and it needs a lot of hard work consistently. So whenever I speak about all these things, the people do say the same thing that you know, this is not for me, this discipline is not for me, I can't do it. All everything sounds boring consistency, discipline, focus, but that's what creates value. And the same thing goes in in relationship also. If you want anything to work at life, you need to give it time, you need to focus on it, you need to really work on it. So I think the same stamina or endurance that is there in long distance gets applied to life also in all situations. That if there's no quick fix, we have to do the heavy lifting consistently if you want to have something of value. Whether it's work, whether it's running, whether it's life in general, parenting, anything.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. I think it's just so well put. It just aligns, you know. You see something at the beginning of the marathon, that's all of us when we are starting our adult life, or even teenagers for that matter. But unless you do the right thing over and over and over again, you're not going to get to the finish line, and that to not lying on the grass but walking towards your finish line.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:That's amazing. So, from a psychologist's point of view, I often see how belief precedes change. I mean, so many times your body must have said no, but your mind said yes. Tell me more about this.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, there are there are times like uh uh Dr. Kinjil that you know the body says no, or you know, uh it is under under a lot of stress. And I have gone through such situations. I have done difficult marathons like the Big Five marathon in the game sanctuary in Africa or the full marathon in Antarctica. These are uh uh situations where it's really your body says no. But I I believe that if you are well trained, most of the times, not not most of the time, always all the times, you know, uh the mindset is such that I will be able to do it. Uh even if you know uh there is the body saying no, but the body's trained. You cannot just walk into any situation or any endurance-related sports, only when you're not trained that your doubts will start coming in, that you can't do this or you will not be able to do it. But having trained also, sometimes there are situations where uh the terrain is so difficult and you're not trained in those kind of terrains, that puts you into a situation where it becomes difficult. And then your then your mind takes control of that, you know. That even uh then you kind of uh align, you know you cannot be rigid about this thing. You have to sometimes take every day, is not the same day, so you have to take it in your stride, or sometimes do run-walk strategy, or you kind of slow down considerably, or you take whatever, but the focus is on doing it to your best of your abilities. You have to be flexible and your mind uh meaning it will start playing games like when I was in Antarctica Marathon, after I was before at the start line itself, I was little nervous because I'd never gone to uh never run in minus 20 degree kind of uh and there was a blizzard too. But having said that, I said let and I was not well because of the tension and I was on a medication, but I said okay, let me do half kilomet half a marathon and then opt out. But uh somebody there uh helped me, another co runner from US, and we he walked with me for the rest of the other half of the marathon. So you do yeah, do you do meet uh angels like this some also on and everybody is there to out to help each other? So even when your mind body is shutting down. There there are people who are telling, okay, I'm there, and then the mind says, Okay, I have support, let me try it out. And yes, we do complete it. But you have to be flexible, you have to. But once you're trained, I think, then most of the fears go out. Unless, of course, there is completely something is too different from where you have trained.
SPEAKER_01:I got it. So it's I think consistently we are coming back to the same things that you know when we were young and we were listening to those stories of the rabbit and the hare, I mean, and the tortoise. Slow and steady wins the race. According to what you're telling me, slow and steady wins many a race. As long as you keep doing the right thing, keep picking your own pace, not many things are impossible.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, it's like you know, uh it's it's actually a lot of focus and discipline because see if I had done uh a little bit of weights or a little bit of yoga, a little bit of running, a little bit of swimming, I would have remained fit.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:But just doing long distance running for every week for like uh 52 weeks into 16 years, if you consistently do the same thing with that kind of focus and discipline, you go deeper and deeper and deeper and you actually strike gold, or you actually the world opens up to you, and that's how it has happened to me, also. So I I'm a great believer in focus and discipline and hard work.
SPEAKER_01:How lovely. So tell me, let me ask you something from the other side also. You've become a symbol of hope for so many people recovering from illness. But does this sense of being a role model feel empowering sometimes, or does it come with its own pressure where you feel like you can't let someone down?
SPEAKER_00:Uh that's a good question. I see, uh I I'm glad that I am I am a symbol of hope to many people recovering, and it's always the purpose of sharing my story and take and thanks to you for taking it forward is also that that it reaches people because I didn't have any guideposts when it had when such things happened. So now if more stories like this are shared, it gives people hope. But having said that, you know, I've done it this thing mainly for myself, and I don't seek external validation for what I have done. So uh that is one thing that uh the though like I have done this marathon or this timing or whatever training, I'm doing it for myself, meaning I'm doing it to for my uh my what I believe in. So if if something tomorrow happens to me also, so there will be there will be oh he was running and yet he had a heart episode again. But but what has what it has given me for 15, 16 years is is a completely different life, and it is a far better life than it was the best phase of my life. So I don't carry pressure. I I do it for myself, and I'm glad that others get hope out of it, but other people's opinions do not make a difference to me.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that's a very nice way of going through life, it just makes your footprint a little bit lighter. And if you are carrying all that pressure, I'm sure a lot of things go downhill with that as well. So this is a very refreshing way of looking at it. But let me now bring you uh to a question that I enjoy asking all my guests. It's my favorite question on the show. We all know of a physical first aid box, you know, something that we keep in our homes, the band-aids, the painkillers. If anything goes wrong, minor cuts and bruises, and you don't really need a doctor. But what if I were to ask you to keep an emotional first aid box for yourself? For those days when you're emotionally run down and you need just a little pick-me-up, what would you personally keep in a box like this?
SPEAKER_00:What would I personally keep? I would keep my favorite song that would be Let It Be from Beatles. I would listen to that, and uh I would also keep videos of my pets and and hear them bark and they're no more, but they uh their unconditional love really lifts me up, my spirits. So just just seeing them makes me uh happy. So, yeah, these two definitely will be in my mental first aid box.
SPEAKER_01:How nice. Before I come to a close and before I share my closing remarks with you, is there a question that you want to ask me as a psychologist?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah uh Dr. Kinjal, first of all, yeah, thank you for uh this podcast. But I'd also like to understand from uh from your your quote perspectives or your thing, like since a lot of our like actions or something is related to something that has happened in the past, or you know, you dwell too much on that or keep dwelling too much on that, is that meaning if we are talking so much about uh recovery from the medication point of view or from the hospitalization point of view, but most of it is coming from some kind of remembrance of the past or dwelling there. So, how how did do you think that this this part of it dwells with also other endurance-related sports? Or do you think most of them who are into endurance sports may not have this kind of uh baggage or they their mind is different?
SPEAKER_01:Let me break this down. Any intense medical event, anything which is an emergency or a life-threatening event, will definitely have a whole set of memories. It will be a kind of trauma response that your mind and body have both gone through. Now, how you tackle this in the future is up to you. It could be being trauma-informed where you know that something happened and you have recovered, or it is being trauma-driven, where that is what drives everything you do after that. You might have noticed that even when you spoke about your time in the hospital, you used a phrase it was after my ICU. So that my ICU means you had a very specific personal experience while you were recovering in a very stringent part of the hospital. It's not pleasant, the lights are different, the sounds are different, everything feels different, but it becomes very personal to you. This is how everybody experiences an intense medical event. And it's alright to own up to it. It's alright to say this was my experience, this was what I went through. There's no point in telling people, you know, it's all in the past, forget about it, move on. It's best to own up to it and say, this is what happened to me, this is where I was, but this is where I am. So, yes, endurance athletes also have a baggage, they also have a past if they have gone through a medical emergency. But dealing with it is what everybody does in their own way.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:So, well, it's been phenomenal talking to you. When I first found out about your journey, I was so intrigued. I said, seven continents is no mean feat, and that too, after something which is so intense and so major medically, most people, like you say, would have slowed down. I really enjoyed the fact that while I was reading up about you and listening to videos and you know audio clips about you, very few of them actually talk about how your mind took over and your body just followed. And I'm so glad we were able to have this conversation where we were able to bring your mind to the forefront because that's exactly what I love to do. So, thank you for giving me your time. Thank you for giving the audience your time, and thank you for sharing your story with us.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you, Dr. Kinjal. I too had a great time talking with you, and I hope the story goes and reaches the right people and they get some hope from it. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_01:Definitely, thank you so much, and we wish you all the very best for all your endeavors in the future.
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