India swept gold, silver, and bronze at the IAU 24-Hour Asia Oceania Championship in Japan in 2026 — beating Japan on their home soil with a team total that no Asian country had ever achieved in IAU history.
In Episode 256 of Run with Fitpage, Vikas Singh sits down with Santhosh Padmanabhan — Founder of Runner's High and Head Coach & Team Manager of the Indian team at the 2026 IAU 24-Hour Asia Oceania Championships — for a conversation about what it actually takes to build a team that can beat the best in Asia, what the science of 24-hour running looks like in practice, and why everything he learned coaching underprivileged school children in Bengaluru eventually found its way into India's championship-winning ultra running programme.
In this episode we covered:
How a $100,000 fundraiser for underprivileged children in 2004 turned a VLSI chip engineer into one of India's most respected running coaches
Why Santhosh believes PT class is the most undervalued hour in any Indian school — and how he built a programme that teaches VO2 Max to tribal children using a bucket, a tube, and balloons
How India went from never winning a championship outside home soil to sweeping gold, silver, and bronze at the IAU 24-Hour Asia Oceania Championship in Japan in 2026
Why training for a 24-hour race is fundamentally different from marathon training — and the one mistake almost every Indian ultra runner makes
How Santhosh structures 12-hour day runs, 12-hour night runs, and intervals inside long runs to simulate race-day fatigue without breaking his athletes down
Why he does not believe in sleep breaks during a 24-hour race — and the science behind running through the night
The team culture he built that made Amar Singh Devanda — now among only 11 people in history to ever cover his distance in 24 hours — run even better
What India needs to do to stop being Asia's best and start competing for a world championship medal
Padmanabhan — Founder of Runner's High, USATF Level 2 Coach, and the man behind India's national ultra running programme — for a conversation about what it actually takes to coach athletes for 24 hours of continuous running.
About Vikas Singh: Vikas Singh, an MBA from Chicago Booth, worked at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, APGlobale, and Reliance before coming up with the idea of democratizing fitness knowledge and helping beginners get on a fitness journey. Vikas is an avid long-distance runner, building fitpage to help people learn, train, and move better. For more information on Vikas, or to leave any feedback and requests, you can reach out to him via the channels below: Instagram: @vikas_singhh LinkedIn: Vikas Singh Twitter: @vikashsingh101
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