It couldn’t have been foggier than yesterday but it was. I could barely see a couple of metres beyond my windshield. I had hard intervals today and I was practically certain that I would not be able to do them.
I calculated and re-calculated the ask per 400m for the mile repeats. A few seconds here and there would make all the difference to that poetic combination of endurance, fatigue and recovery to do it again – repetition after repetition.
Let’s see, I told myself, nearly resigning to defeat mixed with defiance.
But here was Ashwini again. In the fog. In a video taken by Coach Ravi, I can hear him calling out the splits, you can barely see a few metres of the rust coloured track surface and then nothing. A blanket of clouds. Then Ashwini emerges and races past the voice, then me. It was like that through the training.
Two intervals into the repetitions, I found the feel, that vaunted rhythm. It continued to be daunting, hard and manic, balanced with effort, rhythm and recovery.
It was much needed. And it happened because of the stoic and wonderful Ashwini.
Writing about Running 