# From IT Cubicle to 100km Ultramarathon at 47: A Migrant's Playbook *What 22 years in Australia and two transformations taught one Indian-Australian.* --- When I landed in Melbourne in the early 2000s as an international student, I had two pieces of advice from family in India: get into IT, and don't make trouble. I followed both. It took me 25 years to realise neither was the whole story. ## The first migration The migration most people see is the literal one — country to country. The harder migration is the one inside your own life: from who you were before the move to who you become inside it. For most Indian migrants in Australia, the first decade looks the same. Settle in IT. Buy a house. Start a family. Visit India when you can. The community is dense — temples, restaurants, WhatsApp groups, weekend cricket. You're in a new country but rarely outside the diaspora. That worked. Until it didn't. ## The 110kg wake-up By 25, I weighed 110 kilograms. The IT job was paying, the family was growing, the visa was sorted. Everything that was supposed to work was working. And I was the heaviest I'd ever been in my life. The second migration started there. Lost 40 kilograms over two years. Wrote a book about it in 2017. Got featured twice on SBS Hindi national broadcast. Quit the IT job. ## The decade of building From 2016 to 2026 I built Keystone Fitness Club. Four locations — three in Melbourne, one franchise in Ghaziabad. The franchise back to India was deliberate. It closed a loop. Someone who came out of that town as a student returning as a brand founder. Different person. Same passport. Ten years of operator work taught me what no textbook covers: - Cash flow is the only thing that matters in month one through year five - Staff are the business. Equipment isn't. - Your first market is harder than your fifth. Build the playbook once. - Family is upstream of business. If home isn't working, nothing else holds. In March 2026 I sold Truganina, the last location. The chapter closed. ## The third migration — and the running At 40, I started running. Not jogging. Running. The first full marathon was Auckland 2015 — back-of-pack, 5:46:45, no training partner, no coach. Just the decision that I was going to finish. Then it cascaded. Brooks Half. Melbourne Half. Bravehearts 777. The Tenzing Hillary Everest Marathon — 42.2km starting at 5,364m altitude in Nepal. The Comrades Marathon — 89km from Pietermaritzburg to Durban, the "world's toughest ultramarathon." Then trail ultras in Victoria. I'm 47 now. The body is finally moving the way it should have been moving the whole time. ## What this is about This isn't a fitness story. It's a migrant story. The Indian diaspora in Australia (and the US, UK, Canada) is sitting on a generation that did the first migration well — got the job, bought the house, raised the kids. But many people I talk to are stuck on the second migration: from "what I had to be" to "what I actually am." That second migration is harder. There's no visa for it. No community advice. No WhatsApp group of aunties to ask. What I've learned — across the weight loss, the four gyms, the ultramarathons, the book, the recognition, the exit, the pivot — is that the playbook is simpler than it looks but slower than you want. 1. Pick the goal that scares you most 2. Reverse-engineer the smallest daily action that points at it 3. Do that action when you don't want to 4. Document the receipts so the next person can see it's possible That's it. That's the playbook. I'm now investing in industrial property and AI ops infrastructure. Mentoring early-stage founders. Still running. Still writing. Still moving. If you're an Indian-Australian (or any first-generation migrant anywhere) and you can feel the second migration coming, I'd love to know what you're working on. Reach me at [mannyadhana.com/work-with-manny](https://mannyadhana.com/work-with-manny/). --- *Manny Adhana is an Indian-Australian author of [The New You (2017)](https://mannyadhana.com/the-new-you/) and founder of Keystone Fitness Club. He lives in Melbourne with his wife and three children.*