It was raining lightly this morning. The raindrops made wonderful patterns on the dark asphalt. The drop bounced back creating thousands of pin prick splashes. The sky was just turning colours and the black road reflected back the early morning.
As I looped around Shanti Path, I saw a familiar person running towards me. I’ve seen him for years and perhaps on an occasion run with him in a group.
On instinct, I turned and asked if we could run together. He’s slightly older than me. He’s faster, runs with a stoic expression and beautiful form.
Within no time he began speaking about races around the country, the world and recent participations in mountain country. We spoke about Ladakh, Boston, Bombay, Delhi, Kinnaur, the recent Sydney marathon and everything in between.
He spoke about timings, paces, elevations and routes. About salt tablets, gels and water stations. Sometimes I forget how intense runners can be.
But it was his sentences that were punctuated with colourful language that nearly made me laugh out loud and took me by incredible surprise. The BCs were said as a comma, semi-colon, or under the breath to take a breath.
The runner who I thought was a monk turned out to be a hilariously serious potty mouth.
This gentleman reminded me of several things.
Never judge a book by its cover. Indeed.
That I was unfit and needed to get back to a different level of training pronto. A version of me six months ago would have glided in this run, even if he is the faster between us.
That it was delightful to train midweek in the roads around Nehru Park and as always I was filled with gratitude for the extraordinary company.
Writing about Running 