Category: Uncategorized

I had a big chicken noodle meal yesterday that’s still work in its way. But at least those bars of chocolate have abated for now. I will take it easy today and hopefully have a solid interval session tomorrow.

Gaju and I ran in silence nearly through the familiar road. Except there were more dogs than usual. Except that Gaju was in pain and eventually jumped on the back of Coach Ravi’s scooter.

Back at the stadium, I still had six minutes or so to finish up the hour, so I ran loops in the stadium driveway adding twenty second strides.

The track was glistening with the overnight rain. The NCR air is at its cleanest these days with the relentless rain all over the city.

Here we were, the young boy and I out to run intervals in lane one.

Gaju and a couple of other young folks joined us.

On the way back, we played our usual alphabet game, this time matching artist and song. For us, it’s been a great way to discover music we didn’t know.

At home, a hard circuit rounded up the morning effort.

With his sloping eyebrows, lean frame, big turban and flowing wiry beard, Fauja Singh has always been an inspiration. That he died at 116 in a road accident is nuts.

Ever since I read about him running the London marathon and seeing his interview on the course, I was amazed.

Humility, simplicity.

As always a rest day but I did wake up to the news that Jannick Sinner had won Wimbledon. I like to support the underdog and it seemed to me that this guy was coming at the back of recent ghosts chasing him down. Good for him, good even for Alcatraz and the game of tennis.

A few days ago, I wrote about my 2.0 running journey. Today it was the three of us at Nehru Park. Maneesh said it had probably been a few years.

Well, if one can’t remember, it’s already been too long.

In the beginning, we took off towards the PM house, then down Safdarjung, crossed over to Lodi, ran the length of Amrita Shergil Marg and circled back to the Nehru Park parking lot.

Then the young boy joined us and we carried on towards Nyaya Marg where eventually the young boy and I finished the last few kilometres by ourselves.

At some point, he took off his shoes, and it always surprised me how fluid his form was when he ran barefoot.

A 2.0 merging into a 3.0 morning.

The young boy came with me to the track this morning. After a warm up together, we parted ways. He joined the group with the kids running 400m repeats and I had 3 minute fartlek sessions. Gaju joined me for the whole session.

It wasn’t easy but it wasn’t terribly hard. I think I’ve dropped a bit of weight this week so I did feel lighter on my feet.

After I was done, I watched the young boy go through his session which by now was 150m repeats. The weather wasn’t helping him reach his target but he was trying hard enough.

Back home, it was a solid circuit, Gaby from Portugal on my mind, to round up a reasonable Saturday morning.

I slept in today. Must be something that my body is demanding more sleep than usual. But it was early enough that I could head out for pull up sets and back in on the treadmill.

I enjoy playing around with speed and elevation on the TM hut especially elevation. Ran a steady hour with more than half playing with inclines every kilometre for 700-800-1000m. Up, down, pyramids, whatever I felt like doing.

I like to call 2015 the beginning of a new chapter in my running journey. It started off with an episode in January that led me to staying dry for nearly a year. In the meanwhile, I took to triathlon with my then coach Simon Ward.

That summer I met my good friends Maneesh.

Maneesh, Amit and I became a trio till when into the Covid years. But it is those formative years that began a journey into training unlike anything I had known before.

On one hand it was intense – what with the three sports – and on the other I learnt a playful disdain in taking the training too seriously.

Which is not to say they didn’t take their training seriously – what with countless marathons, Comrades, triathlons, duathlons, cycle tours, climbing and more. But let’s say I’ve always been more on edge, and they have always been more free.

Over these years, I’ve come to appreciate both sides of it but there remains a yearning towards their easy freedom. They taught me not to listen to music (not every time anyway) to enjoy a day out or certainly a morning out just running or cycling free, to drink half a bottle at night in a cheerful open air nightclub in Pokhara and begin all over again the next morning.

Since then, they have become near teetotallers and I jump on and off the wagon – I can never seem to remember what is what.

But those days of eating Maggi by the Nainital-Mukteshwar hills, falling off the bike on the Greater Noida expressway, running and cycling on the GFR, having breakfast after Sunday long runs at Smoke House Deli at Khan Market – memories and experiences that have left an indelible impact in my life.

Maneesh moved back to Nepal and this week he is here. It was wonderful to run a usual Gurgaon route on Golf Course road catching up on old and new times.

Back in the day, the meet up was Chai Point. That shop is now replaced with Chayoos and the meeting point is no longer our secret. Many runners and cyclists use it as a start point now.

At any rate, the intimate familiarity of the route as well as each other made for the perfect morning run.

Because of a birthday celebration, it became an off today. I need to get full on back to training.