Tejaswin Shankar is a busy man. Having started his day at 5:30 am, he has blitzed through a lifting session in the gym, crunched some numbers at the office, done a track routine, cooked, and has enough left in him for an interview. He isn't complaining though. Having his time and space occupied is how he likes his days, and the tough balancing act — juggling a full-time finance job and training as an elite athlete — is not worth
Tejaswin Shankar is a busy man. Having started his day at 5:30 am, he has blitzed through a lifting session in the gym, crunched some numbers at the office, done a track routine, cooked, and has enough left in him for an interview. He isn't complaining though. Having his time and space occupied is how he likes his days, and the tough balancing act — juggling a full-time finance job and training as an elite athlete — is not worth brooding over.
"It is challenging, but not something that bogs me down. I like to have my plate full," Tejaswin, fresh from winning gold at New Balance Indoor Grand Prix in Boston, said.
For someone given to over-analyzing, a busy mind helps him think straight. It has been this way for Tejaswin since his school days in Delhi when he successfully straddled studies, sports, tabla, and singing. Moving to NCAA, he shuttled between leadership workshops, college assignments, bartending (he can rustle up a mean Old Fashioned), and sports. There was also a small matter of winning the NCAA title twice, taking the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) to court over non-selection at last year's Commonwealth Games (CWG) before winning a bronze there.
"Indian athletes, in particular, sometimes make a big deal of balancing things in life. The only time you see an Indian athlete at a workplace is after they have retired. For me, going to work is the most refreshing part of the day. The second most important part is when I leave for training. Even if I have had a bad day at work, the moment I step on the track, my focus changes. That discipline comes naturally to me."
Odd dalliances with desserts apart — he is game for stepping out in sub-zero temperatures at night for a comforting scoop of ice cream — there are no distractions. The Friday night temptation to let his hair down with colleagues is non-existent, and neither is he given to bouts of loneliness that par for the course for a young life in a restless city.
"I think it is really hard to be average," he says. "Everybody can have a good day where you jump 2.26m and a bad day where you don't jump at all. But to go out there and jump your average every day is something worth celebrating too. My bigger goal is to be a better average person than what I was yesterday. I don't aspire to be the world's best in a single day. I went through that phase too, where I would stick 2.46 (the ‘new’ world record jump, the current record stands at 2.45m), at the back of my jersey and roam around. But did I break the world record?"
Though not a world record, Tejaswin's last week's jump of 2.26m in Boston did help him open his season on a high. Importantly, the win came as a validation for his training process that he revisited post-CWG.
While a jump of 2.22m did win him a bronze in Birmingham, it was not an effort Tejaswin was proud of. He figured that a prolonged pre-season, that began in December 2021, exhausted him before the main events commenced.
"I am the kind of jumper who doesn't need too many practice jumps to jump high. This is something I realised post-CWG. Then, I decided to identify my end goal and work backwards," Tejawin, who trains under Cliff Rovelto, said.
The 24-year-old marked out July's Asian Championships in Pattaya, Thailand as his first major pitstop where he plans to compete in the decathlon. The training was chunked out in phases; the initial slots being reserved for "donkey's work."
"Basically, high intensity, technical, and volume work is typically done at the beginning of the phase. We begin to taper down from there," he said.
In the five months since CWG, Tejaswin and Rovelto started "building the base" for the season. It meant low intensity-high volume activities, the likes of tempo running and low amplitude plyometrics activities.
"The idea was to build a solid base. I started lifting more, got stronger and fitter, did a lot of hard labour. Now that the base is set, it is the time to ease into the season."
Tejaswin entered the Boston event after about a month of jump-specific training but with very few actual jumps. "It was a litmus test for my new training approach and I am very happy with the way my body felt. I try to take lesser jumps in practice now but I try to stay fit by doing hurdles and long jumps which transfer into high jump but are not exactly high jumps," he said.
"It was great for me to perform outside the college setting where you are spoon-fed. Training and recovery were not always ideal. Balancing work and sport, dealing with good and bad days at work, operating on five hours of sleep and still being able to pull off a 2.26 gives me a lot of confidence. I know I can do even better because I know how committed and dedicated I am in going through my routines despite these challenges."
The larger goal, however, remains setting up for the decathlon. Another high jump meet later this month will be followed by two months of training, and if things stay on track, a decathlon debut in April first week should transpire.
"In the days leading into that, I will try and get more quality reps in pole vault, javelin and discus which are my weaker decathlon suits," he said.
The throws practice though hinges on the availability of resources. The stadium in Kansas City that Tejaswin visits every evening offers hurdles, long jump drills, sprinting and running. For high jump, pole vault, shot put, discus, and javelin, he drives two hours every Friday night to the Kansas State University where he trains over the weekend.
"Gradually, I will change my high jump sessions to pole vault sessions. Similarly, I'll keep testing myself in every event till April which is when I'll put all these events to one comprehensive test in my decathlon season opener. After that, I will come to India for Federation Cup, and a month later, hope to win a medal at Asian Championships."
Before that though, he'll appear in at least four more individual high jump events to ensure he stays in the top 36 to make the cut for World Championships. "By the end of June, I want to be in a position to qualify for individual high jump event at Worlds while honing my skills for decathlon for the Asian Championships. I think it's doable," he said.
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