No Rhythm

Sometimes in life you expect or want everything to come together. To be a utopian time.

At least, these thoughts come to me.

An infant girl comes home and I hope for a period of time that everything is just right.

In that, to be clear, nothing is wrong. And if one has to focus on that oft-used word gratitude, everything is indeed right and where it needs to be.

But when I had to veer off the Bombay marathon course and settle for a Did Not Finish, I did get the following thoughts – it would have been amazing at this moment in time to get to the moonshot goal, it would have been just as amazing to do a PB, and it would have been amazing enough to simply have a run with rhythm even if the time didn’t speak for the training. But it wasn’t to be.

When I was flailing, I tried all the psychological tricks in my trade. I thought of my coach, the young boy and the infant girl. Of friends, family and others. Nothing worked.

Above all, I thought of my training, the kids at the track, and that I could no matter what do this. But I couldn’t.

A marathon is a gruelling distance for any runner – amateur or elite – especially if you are racing it. There are pockets of time that can feel just right, and pockets of time that feel miserable.

But the underlying aspect to any good run regardless of time is rhythm.

Sometimes – as was the case with me last year – the rhythm came after a full fifteen kilometres. And when it came, I was just checking off the kilometres and plucking them off.

Today even as I started on course to do a PB – quite easily – and stayed like that for two hours, I never found that rhythm. Forty five minutes later, I had begun to run-walk. Eventually, I just couldn’t do it. So I dropped out at the thirty four kilometre mark.

I don’t know what caused it. My stomach was cramping tremendously. My left calf cramped for the first time. I’m not too sure I can pin it on this or anything at all than simply accepting that it wasn’t my day, and that I didn’t find that rhythm.

As I write this, I want to shrug it off. I also want to share my disappointment if only with myself.

I want to train harder. Perhaps smarter. I want to lose weight. I want to do some long runs that will make me gain confidence back.

There is enough to be grateful for and especially in that – since this is all about running – that I have the option as an amateur runner to try again.