\n
Manmadh Rebba M \u201906<\/b><\/p>\n
Ultraman<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> By\u00a0Sara Ann Hutto \u201917<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> Rebba is a three-time Ultraman World Championships racer \u2014 but he wasn\u2019t always an athlete<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> \u201cWe don\u2019t think you\u2019ll die.\u201d Rebba is a three-time Ultraman World Championships racer \u2014 but he wasn\u2019t always an athlete.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":23348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[21,8],"tags":[159,901,2475,2899,3087,3134,3360],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-23344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumniprofiles","category-my-clemson","tag-alumni","tag-cycling","tag-running","tag-swimming","tag-triathlon","tag-ultraman","tag-winter-2021-alumni-profile"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/02\/Manmadh-Rebba-Thumbnail.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23344"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=23344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\nThose were the words of encouragement Manmadh Rebba got from his friends and fellow triathletes Zharel Silva and Chris Fesq as he was gearing up for his first triathlon, the 2013 Miami Man. Just three short months before the race, with the help of Silva and a slew of YouTube videos, Rebba had taught himself how to swim at the age of 34.
\n\u201cI focused on conquering my fear. The fear was I would drown and die,\u201d Rebba says. \u201cYou can\u2019t just move your arms and legs and think you can swim; you have to work on each and every muscle group. So, I rotated the left hand like a thousand times, then the right hand, then the legs, then the breathing \u2014 and then combined them.\u201d
\nRebba grew up in south-central India, where his athletic opportunities began and ended with street cricket, and studying was more of a priority than access to a swimming pool. He attended Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University for architecture, and after working in India for a few years, he decided to pursue a master\u2019s in construction science and management at Clemson to bridge the gap between his academic background and more practical knowledge.
\nFrom there, Rebba began working as a construction project manager in California before temporarily relocating to Miami for the Port Miami Tunnel, an under-ocean tunnel project. In Florida, after finishing the 2013 Miami Man (without dying), Rebba \u201cgot the triathlon bug\u201d and moved on to other triathlons, then half Ironmans, then his first Ironman in 2016. Later that year, Ultraman Florida caught his eye online.
\nUltraman races consist of a 6.2-mile, open-ocean swim, a 263-mile bike ride, and a 52.4-mile run, completed over three consecutive days. Looking at Ultraman Florida, Rebba remembers thinking that Ultraman athletes must be gluttons for punishment \u201cbecause I\u2019d done an Ironman, and that was painful. I was like, \u2018Those people are crazy, man.\u2019\u201d But just three days later, Rebba called the race director and asked, \u201cDo you have any openings?\u201d
\nThanks to a last-minute dropout, Rebba got into Ultraman Florida \u2014 three months before the race. Training became almost nonstop. When he wasn\u2019t working 60-hour weeks, Rebba was fitting in two-hour workouts at 4:35 a.m. and lunch break runs to a nearby burger joint, where he would cram down a sandwich and run back to work. \u201cWhen you\u2019re running 52 miles on the course, your body should adapt to running with food in your stomach,\u201d he explains.
\nRebba was the second Indian male to finish an Ultraman race and the first Indian to qualify for Ultraman World Championships in Hawaii. He has since completed three Ultraman World Championships and aspires to finish some of the most famous ultrarunning races in the world, like the Badwater Ultramarathon and the Barkley Marathons.
\nBut what\u2019s the secret of Rebba\u2019s incredible endurance? How does he keep going, mile after mile, race after ultrarace? For him, the finish line affords a priceless feeling: \u201cWhen I finished Ultraman Florida and Ultraman World Championships, I had the emptiness of a Zen state. No pride. No ego. Nothing. And that was the most beautiful part of my race. I always strive to get to that nothing feeling because that\u2019s the best state of mind.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
\n