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Today was a rest day albeit pillar to post for work and meetings.

I slept late on Wednesday night and woke up early for my class. I crawled back to bed after the class but of course I couldn’t sleep.

The young boy and I decided over breakfast to run in the driveway in the evening. In between calls for me and tuitions for him.

It worked out superbly.

I reached Nehru Park for intervals exceptionally late. The traffic bore down on me. Eventually I did them in the quiet inner lane of Shanti Path.

Although the overall work was short, I couldn’t quite manage the paces today – perhaps tiredness from the Sunday racing.

I woke up and jumped on the treadmill and put in a steady hour. About midway, the young boy came to the gym room and I trained him while continuing the run.

It’s not so simple to look sideways and correct form, call out instructions and motivate, all the while on a moving belt.

At the end, we both sat quietly for a few minutes. After so much movement, the stillness is surprising.

I woke up early this morning. There was no run, no race, just a pleasant wash from yesterday. Instead I read and caught up on my work.

I nearly did not take part in the Indian Navy Half. A Saturday text from my sister convinced me. It was a perfect half marathon. It was near perfect racing.

This time, unlike Bombay, I wanted to push hard and keep an eye on the clock. By the time I was on Mathura road on the way towards India Gate, I knew I was feeling good. Now it would be a matter of holding on and climbing through the inevitable slumps that come your way in a long race.

And so it did happen exactly in that manner. Around the fourteenth kilometre, I felt sluggish and my body wasn’t moving as well. It was time to forgive, push on, but keep it moving. I had to get past ten, maybe fifteen minutes, by then I would be on the home stretch back on Lodi road.

I squeezed in my last gel around the sixteenth kilometre. A runner, an older man raced past me. I caught up to his heels. I stuck with him until around the eighteenth. By that time he was further ahead. But I had found my stride again. As I write this, his face is a blur but I thank him. It was because of him that got my engine going again.

This is an individual sport but how uniquely communal it is too.

I ran the last three kilometres as my fastest block and the last one was the quickest in the race.

It was a short one today as I am hoping to race a half marathon tomorrow. I was iffy about it, but my sister convinced me with a text.

That allowed me to sleep in today and put a short half hour run on the treadmill before training the young boy and his cousins for a ‘corridor’ workout with hurdles, agility drills, push ups, squats and walking lunges.

Rounded up the Saturday morning quite perfectly.

It was up and down from Chandigarh today. The city seemed a fry cry from the hustle and bustle of the New Delhi metropolis and I found it utterly charming.

While this was a work visit, I will try and be back for a marathon. The city seems prime for a fast, flat and clean race.

Today was a mix of an outside run and back inside to make the young boy workout.

Alas, he missed his workout hut we ended up chatting while I ran and worked out inside.

At breakfast, I had an avocado with toast. The young boy had the same. I don’t think I knew what an avocado was when I was his age. Not sourdough bread.

When I met Gaju this morning for the kilometre repeats, I was certain that I would falter. I hadn’t slept well. My tummy wasn’t feeling great.

But I decided to approach it as a fast run with the added bonus of interval breaks in between.

To think of it that way lessened the burden of thinking of it as all-out repeats (that they were) and to think of the whole rather than the parts.

When I began the first one, I was sure I would need to cut down. But I kept going back to thinking differently and at the same time, taking each repetition for itself.

It’s harder to analyse this in retrospect. To write about how it began to come together. But it worked. Like phrases of music, so it was with the repetitions. Of course, it was heart in the mouth running; all coming together for a most wonderful morning.