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Dr Rajat Chauhan is a student of running (for the past thirty-seven years) and pain. He is also an aggressive promoter of GOYA (Get Off Your Arse). He is the founder and race director of La Ultra, an epic ultramarathon held in Ladakh since 2010. The ultramarathon features categories ranging from 11 km to 555 km, with altitudes varying from 11,000 feet to 17,400 feet. He is the author of Move: Get Fit in 15 Weeks and La Ultra: cOuch to 5, 11 & 22 km in 100 days. Dr Chauhan has been a columnist for Mint and Hindustan Times, besides being a guest columnist for national newspapers and magazines. He is a senior fellow at Livonics Institute of Integrated Learning and Research.
Dr Chauhan got his MBBS degree from Manipal College of Medical Sciences, Pokhara, Nepal. Because of his running, he had a head start of more than nine years over his medical college peers in knowing how the human body and mind work in synchronization to perform at an optimal level, one baby step at a time. Dr Chauhan went on to marry his passion and profession by doing his MSc in sports-exercise medicine from Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham, UK. This was followed by membership of the London College of Osteopathic Medicine, London, UK, and several other certificates and diplomas, which give him a unique approach to human performance.
He was exposed to strength training for both performance and rehabilitation for the neck and back pain while heading the medical department at Kieser Training, a German chain of centres, in London. He was the founding head of the sports medicine department at Manipal Hospital, Bangalore, and the (quit) chairperson of the World Congress of Science and Medicine in Cricket, held during the 2011 Cricket World Cup which was hosted by India. He was also the founding director of the sports department at Manipal Hospital, and the principal running technical consultant and head coach for Adidas India. He was also the founding director of sports and exercise at Ashoka University.