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It was good to be at the track again. Great. Wonderful. Incredible. All the adjectives fall short in what I felt running at Tau Devilal this crisp morning.

The run itself, on a taper week; the fartlek efforts were fast, easy and short.

But to be amongst the boys and the girls at the track, the gang, running with them, watching the many other familiar faces at the stadium – just pure bliss.

This sport that has given me so very much, this track that is red lustre beauty.

It was fitting that the new watch started with a run at home with the young boy.

During the Covid lockdown months, I was lucky that I could run outdoors at home. I measured the driveway not only with my now retired Garmin but also with a good old fashioned measuring tape.

As suspected, a watch would not be accurate over a short distance. Thus, all running at home became stopwatch. And it continues to be so.

Today – with the new Garmin – I wanted to see if the tech had changed or improved that much more. It hasn’t. Oh – of course it must have – but possibly not for a driveway.

Or as my running friends Amit and Maneesh used to say – it’s just you.

Because the GPS seems to misbehave often (with me) whether at Nehru Park or the Golf Course Road.

At any rate, it was a fun, easy and relaxed morning. A perfect way to inaugurate a new watch, running together, watching the sun rise that thankfully pays no heed or need to technology.

Rest days that are Monday – usually for me – don’t quite translate into that word if the week starts at a manic pace.

The morning started with some easy Schumann but at work it quickly escalated to Megadeth.

Both work well.

Monday’s always does reach a crescendo with a flurry of meetings. It seems fitting that it should and from a work perspective it does suit me.

It is race week too.

While things might be manic, I am trying to keep the rest and taper aspect of things on my mind.

An easy run today was followed by training the young boy.

He wasn’t having his best day but we went through a longish warm up, drills, hurdles, a few 100m paces and some strength work.

My watch, a Garmin Fenix, that had been indefinitely loaned to me by my good friend Maneesh, finally needed a rest.

Buying a new running watch is fun, certainly a privilege.

Meanwhile, my sister, Roshini ran her first half marathon today.

After warming up for six kilometres on Niti Marg, Nehru Park shrouded in darkness, the road sparsely populated with runners beginning or warming up, I began my progression run.

Some days, the run simply comes to you. As if the run in itself is hugging you. Today was one of those magical days. Remember it. Feet flying. The tarmac racing back.

Oh, I am sure I looked like a floundering amateur, what with my right leg that kicks back askew, and my altogether ungainly gait, but cogito ergo sum.

I finished with deep satisfaction, a quiet drumbeat of exult in my body, a feeling that is not unique to me or runners, but a sense that is personal and yours alone. It spreads like sunshine, adding infinitely to the day ahead, and in these ways life comes together neatly.

When I began running this morning, dawn was just breaking through.

It seemed like a long while since I had seen the sky – the way I long to see it every day – the way it makes a day start.

Almost immediately, I saw a dead squirrel and soon after a jet black cat chased a few steps towards me before it was frightened off by the sound of a dog barking in the distance. It was very much the start of a Haruki Murakami novel.

I smiled as I thought this watching the sky, thinking about the dead squirrel, thinking the usual hackneyed existential questions.

Fortunately, the run in itself took over. To be out again. To feel cautiously optimistic after this brief bout of illness.

Undoubtedly, it seems to me that I must have lost a significant portion of any fitness gains of the last few months. Is it so? I can’t tell.

But as I finished, it was simply in that moment, in the knowledge of a step at a time, a day at a time. We’ll see.

Third day of missed running.

Better today and hoping to be back into some action tomorrow.

I am surprised that I’ve taken a turn for the worse today. A worsening cold and a burgeoning cough.

I tested for Covid and the recent strains of influenza and that seems to be all clear.

Hunger along with the runny nose is the theme for the day.

While I want to eat that tub of ice cream and snack on chocolates, I am somewhat refraining.

What I simply need is routine.

So, I miss registering for one of the worlds great marathons.

And then I fall sick. When it rains, it pours. Or perhaps I need to remember gratitude and see this as a minor set back the week before the Delhi Half.

The head feels as if of cotton wool, my back is breaking and my voice is hoarse – either with the throat ache or with the number of home remedies I am bombarding myself with.

Come on. I need to climb out of this, back to training, into race season ahead and back to fun.

It is possibly the all time dumbest thing I have ever done. After qualifying for Boston at the Bombay Marathon earlier this year, I forgot to apply during the window of application.

After all these years. After pining for it. How could I. I slept badly last night, and even as I write this today, I am simply baffled. How could this happen.

I set alarms, reminders, to-do lists and so on for much of my life. I plan – or so I believe I do. Suddenly, I am not too sure. What else could I be missing. Then I swing to the defensive – that next year Boston wasn’t seeming like too much fun with back to back work right after – that I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the city. 

But who am I kidding. Onwards and upwards, they say?

Today, fat, useless, forgetful, bad throat, sleepy, disgruntled and feeling an overall ennui, nothing much seems onwards and upwards.