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So my training peaks tells me. Rather Eilish, my wonderful coach inputs in.

I will try and follow the RECOVER RECOVER RECOVER mantra she wrote for the week ahead.

Hope is a word at least I lean on, after work and effort, comes only hope.

Today when I drove out, I regretted it. The fig was bad enough that I couldn’t see more than a metre or two, using the sidewalk as a guide to drive to Nehru Park. Regret might be the word, but I still persisted and drove on. What else.

When Gokul and I started we couldn’t see much in front of us. A round or two in, the light started to come up but the fog barely lifted.

But Niti Marg and Shanti Path were filling up with the stubbornness of runners through the mist, pollution, wintry temperatures and fog.

… the luckier I get. My father, Arun Vadehra has said this to me many times ever since I was a child.

I don’t usually say these kind of sayings. Not to myself anyway. When I went to sleep last night, I knew that today’s hard interval session and tempo run combination would not happen. I was tired and overwrought – a combination that isn’t helpful at all.

When I woke up, had coffee, reached the track, I saw the familiar hooded Ashwini from a distance. At least him, I thought.

I always like asking him how many rounds for warm up and like hearing the same answer: three rounds compulsory aur phir stretching.

When we started the first repetition, I wasn’t sure how it would go but it was bang on pace.

And so it went. Eventually faster than expected and a very hard and wonderful tempo run to round it off.

Some manner of work from the past paid off and came through this morning. Five degrees and misty – but Ashwini, Coach Ravi and Nikhil, the track and our shared history – that’s how it gets lucky.

Today, the young boy and I started when it was early but bright. The air had a shimmering quality about it; as if from light behind a waterfall.

It felt icy cold when we began but perhaps it was the enthusiastic conversation or simply warming up, we settled into a good rhythm. We spoke about his football match and what it meant for him to play with or against his cousin brothers.

When we finished, he put his arm around me and said, good run.

It always is, with him.

When I woke up, it was already sunrise. My sister Roshini had messaged if I was awake and if we could put in a short run together.

I swung out of bed with some reluctance, my body aching with tiredness, perhaps from the long drives yesterday. But a run sounded most tempting. The perfect antidote to lethargy.

And so we ran. Up and down. We talked for the most part, moving from conversation to conversation. At one point I announced the number of rounds remaining. Not helping, she replied.

When we finished, we fist bumped and knew we were thinking the same thing: we were glad we got it done together.

Yesterday I had requested Ashwini to come especially early to the track. When I reached, he was already there.

We had a 3 x 5k hard session today. We warmed up, to what extent it was possible in this cold weather.

Just before starting, I asked him if we should just combine the run and do fifteen kilometres all at once. Bilkul, he said giving me a thumbs up. Coach Ravi had arrived just then too, the white helmet swinging off his arm.

We began faster than prescribed pace and after one kilometre settled into a rhythm that would be, kilometre after kilometre, within a couple of seconds of each other. Lane one was just us, the track for the most part empty.

Coach Ravi stood there calling out the splits every 400m, admonishing us if we were even a second off. It helped. It encouraged. It was simply incredible.

When I left from the track itself for Kota, Rajasthan, I hoped the day ahead would be what we wished for. It turned out it was the day we brought the very young girl home.

Driving back, the young boy and the girl at the back, a new beginning, my mind wandered to the morning, the way Ashwini pulled me through the run, the determination on his face, the way he ran with effortless elegance.

A day to remember.

Running in a pack, steady, easy, simple living in lane nine is what we sometimes do best.

What started off as two runners, grew and then some, to perhaps eight to ten of us, shadows bounding, the stadium lights creating patterns and shapes across track lines.

I wanted to keep the run in control. I could see Ashwini wanted to press on into progressives. The silent language between runners familiar with each other.

Aaj easy, I said. I needn’t have. He could tell that today – at least for me – would remain in control.

There was some small talk. A bit of banter across the group. Monu was listening to music, periodically removing his ear phones to crack a joke or rib at someone.

The feel was joyous even as Suryansh or Dipasha or someone else would ask me aur kitna time.

If I could, time would at times stand still at this stadium.

Today I felt tiredness of the weekend travel and the runs.

My mind seems full and occupied and it would be good to get a time on feet tomorrow.

Sunday morning, after a road trip and a long draining Saturday, at Nehru Park was just what I needed.

A couple of kilometres into the run, I met Shikha who was already well on her way to a thirty seven this morning. We picked up the pace steadily for about ten kilometres after which we settled into a rhythm. A few seconds up and down, each kilometre feeling just at that border of easy to medium tempo. Sustainable.

The roads of Niti Marg and Shanti Path were teeming and we had to often weave through crowds of runners or be careful of oncoming traffic and runners alike. Etiquette in running has to happen not only quickly but the slightest of gestures – motioning which way to pass or giving way.

Perhaps even more so than etiquette, it’s an acknowledgement – of effort, of the act of running, of these roads and Sunday morning that for so many is the anchor of routine.

Twenty in, the young boy joined me for a steady six. The pace dropped but not by much. After that the last four was simply to get the job done.

I reached the track early enough that there were only two people warming up. I began the warm up quickly – I was in a hurry to get the run done.

As I was finishing the warm up, Ashwini was a welcome sight.

Here we go, I thought relieved. But it was not to be. Aaj time trial hai, said Ashwini. I was on my own. 400 after 400, I was on my own in Lane One. Soon the track started filling up and Suryansh came bounding up during a break. As is expected, speed improved even if by a second or two, a giant leap in intervals. It never fails to amaze amateur me how very hard it is to get those seconds down. I can only but imagine what time might mean in the professional running world.

Later on, somewhere in Rajasthan, mustard crop was waving at me, a bright sky above. I hoped for a good day ahead.