Madhu moves for community
“Although people think that swimming is a solo sport, it’s not.”
Madhu Nagaraja has crossed channels, lakes, deserts, and long-distance courses. But for him, endurance has never been a solo story. It is about friendship, community, and the people who help carry each other forward.
Madhu Nagaraja grew up swimming in Mysore, India.
He learned to swim in grade three or four, then began competing in grade ten with a swim club near his home. The 50-metre pool was close by, and one thing led to another.
“Swimming got me out of a lot of trouble,” Madhu says. “In terms of my personality, leadership skills, things you don’t learn in school — that is what I learned from that sport.”
Swimming also taught him that even the most individual-looking sports are rarely individual.
“Although people think that swimming is a solo sport, it’s not,” he says. “There is always another person pushing you.”
Madhu later moved into open-water swimming while living in California. After losing his job during an economic downturn, he needed something to help keep his head steady. A local masters swim team became the place he could fall back on. In May 2003, he did his first open-water swim. The next year, he swam the English Channel.
Since then, endurance has taken him across the English Channel, Lake Ontario, the Strait of Magellan, the Sahara Desert, and toward new long-distance challenges. But he does not describe these achievements as solo victories.
“My favorite aspects are community, inclusion, camaraderie, team building,” Madhu says. “Most of my athletic goals are not traditional. I don’t crave speed.”
During the Marathon des Sables in the Sahara, he noticed he was racing alone and felt miserable. So he slowed down.
“I would rather hang out with a group of fun people in the water or in a race,” he says. “We all shared stories, laughed at each other’s pain, made memories.”
For Madhu, physical activity is connected to mental health, sunrise swims, friendship, and the people who become chosen family.
“I don’t have a lot of family here,” he says. “I depend on a lot of friends for moral support.”
That is what keeps him going.
“I don’t have any family so my family are all my crazy friends,” Madhu says.
Madhu moves for community.