Up and Down

For a few seconds, I was in two minds this morning. But, I knew that I would regret sleeping in.

Worst case, I could just do a regular run if I couldn’t manage the interval effort today. I was simply dog-tired. The coffee helped – I shrugged – we’ll see.

It was raining steadily. The track would be nearly empty and at the last moment, I decided to drive on to Nehru Park.

The Niti Marg length of Nehru Park is a straight one kilometre road from roundabout-to-roundabout intersecting at Panchsheel Marg and Satya Marg. I was picturing the road, the road I knew better than any other, envisioning intervals, seeing them in my mind.

With Guns N’ Roses playing on the car stereo, as I did these mind exercises, I decided this is where I would approach the interval session.

I did a loop around Niti Marg and Shanti Path as a warmup with quick short strides and arrived at my start point at the Panchsheel Marg roundabout end.

From here, one could barely see the end of the kilometre ahead. In three hundred metres the roundabout ahead begins to come to sight, then the first of the two parking lots is the exact midway point.

At the Satya Marg roundabout end, I finished my first interval in an appreciative time. The rain steadily bore down on me in a gentle shower.

The return journey is slightly downhill, but you can only tell this when you have run this loop – and probably many times over to notice the slight difference. In a car or while walking, it seems as flat as a pancake from either end. As I have been told, it’s a false flat in cycling. The gradient difference here isn’t so grand to earn this expression but it is noticeable.

And so I went, from one end to the other. It was a good session.

I saw a white-throated kingfisher perched on a fountain, a fountain I had possibly never noticed or seen in action.

I smiled at the bird just as my watch started beeping the start of the final set.