7-YO and Her Father Go From Earning Karate Belts To Racing Ironman Together
The air was thick with excitement. Seven-year-old Ridhya had braved through her 100 metre swim, five kilometre bike ride and was now at the last leg of the Ironkid triathlon, a one kilometre run. As she was finishing the final lap, her father came close to the sidelines and said, “You are almost there, just a bit more to go, you can do it!” His words gave her such a boost that she launched into a sprint, all the way to the finish line.
For Ridhya, those words of encouragement from her father, her biggest cheerleader, were more than golden. He completed the Ironman triathlon which includes a three point nine km swim, a 180.2 km bike ride, and a 42.2 km run. Her father is her inspiration, her trainer and her best friend. Inspired by her father’s spirit for sports and driven by his enthusiasm for finding new things for her to learn, young Ridhya has many feathers on her cap. She represents her school in swimming championships and practices various martial arts such as Karate and Kobudo — with her father!
Ridhya trains for Karate with her father and got her black belt at the age of 5.
When they are not training together, they are making up stories, watching the sky and sometimes even playing in the park with their friends. Along with his wife Bhavya, he tries to teach his daughter about the world through imagination and creativity, by simply acknowledging and encouraging her curiosity.
‘I want to fly!’
Rijesh Ramachandran works as an Assistant General Manager at the Reserve Bank of India. He fiercely pursues his passion for sports and shares it with his daughter, who spends most of her free time with her father. As his wife Bhavya works as a cloud engineer in the evenings, Rijesh is Ridhya’s official partner-in-crime. When The Better India asked him how he manages to fill all these roles in the twenty hours of a day, he says, “I wake up early. I like to finish my sports training well before work so that I can spend the evenings with my daughter. The discipline I get from my training in sports helps me manage work and life efficiently.”
Ridhya used to watch her father train in awe. They spent a lot of time together, and he enjoys exploring her inquisitiveness and imagination. For instance, they spent an evening following a trail of ants, watching how they marched in synchronisation — just to quench her curiosity about how they lived.
The father-daughter duo spends their playtime together, making up stories and planning new adventures.
When Ridhya was around five, she told her father, “I want to fly.” He showed her videos of parkour and explained that through training, she too could perform these stunts and skills. This piqued her interest, leading her to start karate classes. Eventually, she turned to swimming, cycling and finally to competing in a triathlon with her father, all the way in Vietnam.
The Ironman and Ironkid training
Rijesh started training for triathlons with a professional academy in Chennai and took it upon himself to train Ridhya by taking her cycling and running on weekends, along with her swimming classes.
“Usually, people sleep late on Saturdays and Sundays, but it’s different in our household. Weekends are when we wake up early to train,” his wife Bhavya says with a chuckle. After a few months of training in each of swimming, cycling and running under a triathlon coach, Rijesh started training Ridhya with mock trials.
Every small factor was considered, including preparation to handle the heat in Vietnam during the event. “Since the event was scheduled between nine and ten in the morning, getting used to the heat was essential,” explains Rijesh.
They would try all three activities on one day and experiment with different foods to ensure that their bodies could handle the pressure. This is where Bhavya comes into the picture. With an avid interest in cooking and nutrition, she used to hunt down the perfect fitness recipes for her two athletes.
The IronKid includes a 100 metre swim, a five kilometre bike ride and a one kilometre run.
To prevent the intensity of training from becoming overwhelming, Rijesh would often turn it into something fun. Keeping Ridhya motivated was just as important as the physical preparation. “If she says she doesn’t want to train one day, I don’t push her,” he says. “It’s not about forcing her to win. It is about helping her understand how to work towards her goals in life. Now that she gets a taste for things she finds interesting, it will be easier for her to carve her path, even much later in life.”
The triathlon was one such experience that showed little Ridhya a whole new world and taught her more about both the world and her own capabilities.
The ‘Big Event’ and even bigger learnings
During the event, the couple watched as their daughter completed the 100-metre swim and headed to the bikes. They had rented a cycle for her from Vietnam, and as she sped past on her new cycle, she fell. They were unsure of how she would react, as they couldn’t go to her aid. But the seven-year-old brushed herself off, got back on the cycle, and continued without a second glance. Ridhya chimes in about this experience saying, “I learnt to be brave because I fell from the cycle, and I also loved Iron Kid because I got to make so many new friends.”
Their trip to Vietnam was the family’s first international trip. For Ridhya, it was her first dip into the outside world. She made friends from around the world and tried new experiences, including tasting a ‘bitter and silly-tasting’ popsicle made of the pungently-smelling Durian fruit.
Ridhya speaks about how the event made her more confident, “Swimming in the sea was much easier than swimming in a pool because the waves helped me go on. Finishing that has made me more confident.”
For her, the dream was to finish the triathlon with a cartwheel, and with the triumphant joy of a small conqueror, Ridhya cartwheeled across the finish line, her excitement and joy masking her fatigue and celebrating a great victory.
‘My dad is my best friend’
From watching Rijesh train to eventually training with him, Ridhya shares a special bond with her father. He often asks her to ‘look at the sky and draw what you see,’ sparking discussions about her observations. Rijesh uses these moments to creatively explain new information on clouds, trees and birds.
“If anyone asks who her best friend is, she answers without any hesitation — that it’s her dad! As soon as anything exciting happens in her life, she wants to tell her dad more than anyone. She’s okay even if I’m not around, but she can’t stay long without her dad,” Bhavya says.
“While I’m busy with household chores, they spend time together. We understand each other’s responsibilities. He plays a more active part in her playtime while I take care of her other needs. He is generally great with kids as well. When the other kids come home to invite Ridhya to play, they are always begging him to join them.”
Rijesh concocts comical and intriguing stories out of everyday situations, ensuring Ridhya stays engaged. “Rijesh always takes initiative for finding new activities for Ridhya to try, and spends a lot of time and effort in understanding where her thoughts and knowledge are heading,” recounts Bhavya.
The little blogger’s diary
One day, when Ridhya came home with a drawing of a sugarcane, her parents hatched a new plan. They wanted to preserve her creativity and have something for them and her to look back on, about her childhood. So they started writing a blog online with the stories she narrated about her experiences and even silly little whims and fancies. This is how “The Little Blogger’s Diary was born. Rijesh and Bhavya converted these blog entries into a book.
Ridhya’s blog posts from 2024 was compiled and published as the Little Bloggers Diary.
With technology and social media, parents now can preserve nearly every aspect of their child’s growth, and this becomes a meaningful reminder for children of how deeply they are loved. Visible affection like this lays the foundation for a strong, lasting bond.
The couple’s efforts to let Ridhya’s creativity and imagination shine are admired by their friends and family. “For all trips and activities, Ridhya always wants to be with her father. They are always making up games together or going on little explorations and adventures. It is admirable to see the amount of time and effort he places on his daughter’s life. He is extremely disciplined, and his daughter, who follows his every word and move, has caught on the same way, says Shrinidhi, a family friend”
Shrinidhi talks about the couple’s parenting as well. They make it clear that learning does not have to happen only in a classroom. Rijesh makes it a point for the family to share, to tell each other all about their day, before heading off to sleep every night. From making up silly characters to narrating silly and funny stories with facts and morals sneakily packed in, to discussing her thoughts and feelings, his investment and approach towards fatherhood is a breath of fresh air.
In India, especially in the older generations, it was an unspoken rule that fathers would take on the breadwinner role in the family. The responsibility of taking care of the chores in the house and taking care of children fell completely on the mother. Even in many households today, involvement in these activities and taking a fair share of the work is not commonly expected from men.
Their journey inspired other families to take part in similar events. Watching the family in action at various events inspired parents from Ridhya’s school, Sri Mutha School, in Chennai, to join them. “We’re coming with you next time. We didn’t know something like this existed — is what most people say,” adds Bhavya. She plans to join her husband and daughter for the next triathlon.
The couple plans to participate in a swimming event in Kerala, organised by the Valasseril swimming club, and are already planning for the next Ironman event in 2026!
Their story isn’t just about medals, finish lines, or competition. It is what happens when a family chooses to live with the intention of showcasing affection. Chasing dreams together, cheering each other on through every challenge, and turning shared passions into lifelong memories.
Edited by Saumya Singh; All pictures courtesy Rijesh Ramachandran
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