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Because I arrived very late and barely got any sleep, I didn’t do the Friday optional run. I was hoping to do it in the evening but that didn’t quite work out.

On a whim, I packed my running clothes in for a day trip to Qatar. We landed before time, reached the hotel hours ahead of the meeting.

Time to put in a run. Before you could say Jack Robinson, I was on the treadmill. It was an uninspiring gym but I had the place to myself and i couldn’t fault the fancy Technogym tread. Run and workout done, Doha meetings awaited ahead.

On the young girl’s birthday, I went to track. I was a bit late but that turned out to be okay. When I reached, the wonderful Suryansh was limbering up.

Main bhi late aaya, he said. While we ran the warm up rounds, he proceeded to tell me that his bicycle broke down and that he waited for an auto for an hour, nearly going home, and then it showed up.

Le, aa hi gayi, he said. I laughed at that telling myself that I would check how well ‘le’ would translate through Google and ChatGPT.

Neither Google translate nor Google did so well. But ChatGPT got it after a couple of prompts.

Me: It can also be used to express surprise.

ChatGPT: Yes, exactly! “Le” can also be used to express surprise or shock in casual slang, especially when something unexpected happens. In such cases, it’s similar to saying “Oh, wow!” or “Seriously?” in English. The tone of voice plays a key role in conveying this meaning.

For example:

• “Le! Aisa kaise ho gaya?” (“Oh! How did this happen?”)
• “Le! Tu yahan kya kar raha hai?” (“Oh! What are you doing here?”)

Here, “le” is used to highlight surprise or disbelief about a situation.

Nearly quite so. The way Suryansh leaned on the word when he told me his morning adventure makes me laugh and think about use of language.

He did every other interval with me. A relatively new kid, Raju, did all the one kilometre long intervals. It was brutal training but thankfully I felt strong.

This was exactly what I had written about yesterday – feeling the effort – yet the training and strength backing you up.

On the young girl’s birthday, I thought of her, especially on the last interval, imagined her calling out to me, and I raced down to the finish line for a best time.

I sense that I may have used the same headliner before in a post. I woke up on the later side – I was surprised at how tired I had been last night – and still more so when I got on the treadmill.

Sometimes, it is important to listen to the body. Even after twenty odd minutes, I couldn’t take the speed dial beyond a point. I felt as if I was stretching myself already and I stayed within reasonable limits of playing with the dials.

It makes me think – what makes a run hard? I would categorise today as hard but the basic statistics of pace, speed and time wouldn’t reveal that. Perhaps if I had the watch heart rate function switched on or wore a WHOOP, maybe that would tell me where I am at. That’s not me. Pace and time is enough.

I have tried those functions at Whoop and Garmin. For me, the good old RPE is enough – a simplified version – checking in on myself. Today I was nowhere in performance and just exhausted.

Other times, at the hardest of intervals or races, it is both possible to feel a nine or at near maximum effort and yet feel like a million bucks, especially afterwards. Of course, every athlete, amateur to professional knows this. Perhaps humans know this intrinsically in other ways too.

This, I find to be fascinating.

After a full weekend, including an unexpected long run, I travelled back to Delhi and straight to work from the airport. When I got back home, I was exhausted and spent. Glad for the rest day.

This morning when I woke up, I was determined to do long run Sunday. I had made it up by running long this past Wednesday but I think I needed to wash off the excesses of the last day. Perhaps I just needed the Sunday routine.

At any rate, it was up and down the driveway until I was quite numb. When it was done, I was satisfied enough to make the most of a full day here in the hills.

I am in Mussoorie back at our friends Jayati and Mohan’s beautiful home. It has been raining here too but the weather is gorgeous and they are the perfect hosts.

After one too many last night, I woke up to do a not so easy short run in the driveway itself.

In the evening, I played pickleball with their daughter Mayana. It was enormous fun. The evening gave way to dusk and soon the floodlights were turned on to continue the game.

The young boy joined us too and the exercise, banter and running around was the perfect way to settle the day.

It rained incessantly last night. When I woke up, Coach Ravi called and said that none of the kids were coming to the track.

I peeked outside and it was still coming down hard. Usually rains don’t deter me, but I knew the roads would be messy so I decided to run on the treadmill.

Intervals on the treadmill isn’t ideal at all – especially long ones. To my coach Eilish’s surprise, I find treadmill running not easy. She says usually runners are faster on the TM. Well, not me.

At any rate I jumped on wearing racing shoes, hoping for extra bounce and a somewhat speedy run.

I did all the intervals – they were below prescribed pace speed but at any rate from an RPE point of view, I think I hit the spot.

Later, I did a hard workout, and watched the young boy on the treadmill do intervals faster than me. That rounded off a satisfying morning, especially his run.

This morning I woke up exceptionally early because I had a flight to catch. I hoped to do a treadmill run.

In bed, I blinked a few times, debated to sleep in, and then dragged myself out. I decided to skip the coffee and instead got on the treadmill as soon as possible.

I began very slow and ended at slow too. Listening to Sapiens, I stared at my reflection in the window – the night would only give way to dawn a couple of hours later.

When I had warmed up enough, I increased the speed ever so slightly, keeping it well under control. I decided that I would get off the treadmill in just under an hour – the length of the chapter I was listening to.

It worked out reasonably well albeit that it was a shorter run than what I had planned. All things considered, I accepted it.

Because of travel coming up, I switched my long run to midweek Wednesday.

I didn’t want to go to Nehru Park and run solo, so instead went to track. An hour before dawn, there were already many of the usual folks at the stadium.

At first, some of the track gang joined me on lane nine. Then all of them peeled off to do their interval workout. Except for Suryansh who stayed with me as the colours of the sky turned inky blue, then a pale grey, a faded blue wash, and finally a mix of the two. As runners and walkers came and went.

As the lady in the salwar kameez finished her intervals and did some marvellous stretches on the side of the track. At one point, as I passed her, she yelled out encouragement while she herself seemed to be in an impossible cobra type pose. Hats off, I say.

We went lap after lap. It was enjoyable to run long in the middle of the week. I made a mental note to ask my Coach to up the game for a middle of the week run. Thursday would suit best.

It was Suryansh’s longest run – perhaps he did a couple of kilometres lesser than I did – but it was all my privilege – and endless gratitude to have him right here at lane nine.