Sunday with Shikha

Roughly around the midway mark, Shikha and I decided to take off to a longer loop.

Until now we had been running the familiar rounds of Vinay Marg, Shanti Path and Niti Marg, waiting for dawn.

Beginning the longer route, we ran down Niti Marg, looped around to Shanti Path, then Teen Murthi, to the expansive stretches of Akbar Road.

The sun, orb like, peeked just behind the leaves of the trees.

The length of the wide open tree-lined Akbar Road is about two and a half kilometres. I thought what a fantastic and fast five kilometre race it would make.

We hit the India Gate quadrant, took Dr Zakir Hussain Marg, then right at the Subramania Bharti Marg – or what I and probably many others call the Khan Market road – a short climb towards Lodi Garden, Rajesh Pilot Marg, a left at Aurangzeb Road down to Race Course and back to Niti Marg, Nehru Park.

It made for a fabulous, clean running route rounding up to thirteen kilometres. From here, I had but a loop to do to finish off the long run thirty kilometre Sunday.

Shikha and I had barely spoken through the run. A few sentences here and there pointing out the route or gauging the mileage. We didn’t have to.

To breathe and run alongside a runner you’ve known for years meant a balance of company, harmony, and finding silence in one’s own thoughts. Even this, only as I write reflect because simply put – it’s just simple.

This run, this running.