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The interval sets were seemingly unchallenging. I am meant to be having an easier week and the workout looked doable. Well, they are all meant to be doable, but this looked like it was in the green side of the interval spectrum.

I was wrong. It was deceptive and it was hard as nails.

At least four to six boys ran this workout with me. Two were far ahead, the rest more or less with me. The boys – Sujit, Ashwini, Monu, Suryansh and others – put on a terrific pace right at the onset. Before I knew it, a ball of air was pushing down in the pit of my stomach and my breathing was like an engine of effort.

When I checked my timings, the kilometre efforts were fine, the 400s were blistering but the 600s were simply rubbish. How was this so? I didn’t have an answer. The effort I felt during the run – through all the repetitions and sets – was a hundred percent. I had pushed myself to the maximum.

At the end, a couple of the boys carefully bantered that I didn’t seem in form today. Ya to aaj aap ayaste the, ya hum thode tez.

I laughed and said both possibilities were simultaneously true. Whatever the watch and timing may have said, no disguise or deception here.

It seemed it had been a while since I had bounce and lightness in a run. No matter it was a short run and that too on the treadmill.

I was full of energy and ran with a springiness in my step. Today’s run was just that the right rhythm. A rare treat.

Some water weight had finally left my body but I had some ways to go. From water weight to some real kilograms to shave off – then I would approach the happy racing weight zone.

Later, Theraband glute work, burpees, push ups, core work et al circuit training rounded off an easy albeit swift workout.

RAL began standardising colours nearly a 100 years ago. This morning, down Shanti Path, the sky began its magical change at just about the 5:20 AM mark, give or take a minute or so. I wanted to remember the colour as I saw it. I looked at it hard – with as much concentration as I could – to remember a colour – that would change rapidly as dawn proceeded.

The colour I saw was RAL 5000 – Violet blue. And on another day, the shade could be a RAL 5003 – Sapphire blue.

I don’t think an artist would paint the changing sky in this manner (could an artist paint a changing sky?) but it satisfied me to find the colour I was looking for.

There was scarcely one more runner in the area when I began and perhaps a dozen when I finished an easy morning in the Nehru Park area. I had been watching videos on strides and high knees and I ended with some hundred metre efforts that felt clunky and clumsy.

It is not my effort is to be an elegant runner – I think that possibility didn’t ever exist – it is my effort in observing what tends to just touch upon aspects of running that I have barely explored. Apparently, even as I am now, lumbering away, it should add something.

At any rate, as aforementioned, at the very least it lends to observance.

Of high knee strides and RAL colours in the sky.

The workout asked for one mile intervals. The mile is 1609.344 or 1760 yards. I did it on the track. On the track, four rounds is just shy of the mile.

It’s an acceptable substitute – at least for my training. There is something desirable about running this fabled distance. It’s neither short nor long. It’s long enough for endurance to kick in and short in demanding anaerobic effort.

The Perfect Mile is an unputdownable book about the chase for the four minute mile. Perhaps in another life, I thought, thinking about that crazy time.

Today I had many of the usual boys for company. Some joined in for a part of the intervals, weaving in and out through laps and sets. After the debacle of Saturday’s intervals, I ran with a certain khundak. The timing was nearly okay but not quite there. Not yet.

But I finished satisfied, spent, happiness and heart pounding with equal measure.

It seemed like after quite a while that intervals had some spirit. Maybe it was the paranthas I ate last night.

Yesterday, when I texted my sister Roshini the time I would pick her up, she sent me something partly sarcastic and an accompanying thinking emoji. We ended up negotiating an in-between time.

But the joke was on me. Because when I woke up, my eyes were glued shut. No matter the routine. This morning, an enveloping need to sleep seeped into every pore. Somewhat groaning, I made my way to the kitchen squinting as I made mocha pot coffee. Caffeine, that miracle morning lifesaver.

She was ready and bright when I picked her up. But the early hours of the day lend to natural quietude. It was dark on the way to Nehru Park, Norah Jones played softly on the car stereo, and dark when we reached.

Already there were a few runners. And there were kids ranging from probably six to sixteen racing about in formation on roller blades with two cars flanking them, the coach yelling out instructions from the open window, and possibly in a dual role, keeping them safe from morning traffic. They looked intense, moving their arms as if in marching mode and legs splaying this way and that as they zoomed down Shanti Path.

Just as we were finishing our first loop, the sky was beginning to change colour. I remarked to my sister, but really talking to myself, that a month ago this was how the sky looked twenty minutes earlier. These slow, remarkable changes.

Some of the usual runners dotted around the loop; the roads vastly more sparse than crowded Sunday. It felt private, peaceful.

We didn’t speak much and ran on in comfortable silence, me ever so slightly ahead but keeping pace with each other. I suggested we try the routine again tomorrow – intervals at the track. There was some more negotiation about the time and later a snorting emoji followed on text.

I laughed. A good start to the running week, eyes glued shut notwithstanding.

When I stepped on the scale today I was horrified. But not surprised. It had been a week of unabated eating thrown in with a couple of night outs. Now the scale had shown the damage in my face. 

At any rate, this was simply curiosity. I could feel it in my face, see it in the mirror. But now that I had a number, I had to lose a few kilos to get to racing weight. 

For me, this means mindful eating more than any other formula. Slow, relaxed. For me, this isn’t simple although I suspect that some practice would go a long way.

Today, at lunch this was put to the test and I failed. Engrossed in conversation, I ended up overeating. While I seemed to notice it, I probably ignored it. The act of exchanging interesting sentences and continuing to sit at the table with food in front of me attracted ever more eating.

And so begins Monday, a bit sleepy and definitely puffy. Whether and to what extent the weight comes off is to be seen, but an easy run tomorrow will sort out the mind.

Oh well.

After sleeping just over three hours last night, I was less tired than I thought after the long run. That was a welcome surprise.

But fatigue after a long run – for me – comes later in the day and is usually felt the day after – Monday.

For now, I could enjoy the run for what it was – relaxed loops with the young boy and later by myself. I put on some music – hip hop blaring in my ears – but barely paying attention. Just running.

The week in running has been mediocre.

from French médiocre (16c.), from Latin mediocris “of middling height or state, moderate, ordinary,” … literally “halfway up a mountain.”… This is from medius “middle” … + ocris “jagged mountain”.

When I read the etymology, that is exactly how I felt. Just about a middling week. Somewhat okay. But that was the running report card of the week. Not to be confused with gratitude – to be out there. On the road, track and treadmill.

At any rate, I would rather be halfway up the mountain to enjoy a view than not at all.

I may as well have tied weights to my legs. That’s how heavy I felt today. 

Yes, the track was wet and slippery – it had rained overnight. But that is no excuse for the horrid interval session. Yes, the humidity was sauna-steam level. Probably more. But that is no excuse. 

Today I had the pack running with me. 1200s. I could feel the sliding surface under my shoes and the struggle right at the onset. I almost laughed when I saw the timing. The second set was better – way better – but not sustainable. And so it went till I finished the last set – even worse than the first. 

But it didn’t feel like drudgery. Because of the pack. Because of Sujit’s winning smile after each repetition even as he was miles ahead of me. Because of Monu. 

Because of Suryansh giving me company and saying that he felt the intervals were harder than usual. That made feel better. 

A session that should have made me feel terrible. Will certainly be labelled as one. But I didn’t feel that – I felt gratitude to these wonderful runners – for the opportunity to run the same lane as them. 

It was back on the treadmill today. Short, easy run followed by a quick but vigorous workout.

The treadmill setting was mindfully slow and once I warmed up, it was nose breathing all the way through. But, it had been a few days of overeating and I could feel the weight bouncing about in my body.

Following yesterday’s series on Apple Classical, I was listening to Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) and a search later told me about the origin and inspiration of the work.

 Transfigured described in the Cambridge Dictionary as: to change the appearance of a person or thing very much, usually in a very positive and often spiritual way.

The look of the word did not – to me – seem like the meaning at all.

Later, I searched for words that look like their meaning, and came across this excellent article that wondered if there was such a thing as ‘structural’ onomatopoeia – itself such an exquisite word.

To me, transfigured reminded me – immediately – of the Joker, my favourite villainous character. And therefore quite the opposite of the meaning of the word and the intended composition.

With these thoughts, completing the glute workout combined with burpees et al, an easy morning hour came to rest.

Because of a somewhat late night, I decided to sleep in a bit and run on the treadmill this morning.

After the usual coffee and a few rubs of my bleary eyes, I got on and started playing with the incline right away. It was the only way to wake me up.

I decided to hear the series The Story of Classical on Apple Music Classical. I choose Part V: Early 20^th Century.

The first one hour (in each of the nine parts) is a commentary explaining the context of the period narrated by Guy Jones. The story begins with the music of Igor Stravinsky and in particular his work The Rite of Spring. Here is a wonderful article on the work from the British Library calling its premiere ‘one of the most famous scandals in the history of the performing arts’.

I continue to play with the incline dial as I hear the commentary on Stravinsky, Debussy, Schoenberg, Ravel, Copland and more. It’s a lot to fit in an hour and a lot to absorb – for me certainly – and especially on the treadmill.

Or does that make it easier? That I can run and that I can listen without the other ordinary distractions of everyday modern life. But surely, I can listen to this – and any music – with more care and attention while not running?

Like at a performance.

I think these thoughts, while running, and while missing out on sentences and information that is streaming in my ears. I don’t know about others but I find it impossible not to let my thoughts wander once a while during a performance or a movie. What is absolute attention?

Perhaps I have felt it the most – and that too only symbolic in recognizing that it is in retrospect – during the final kilometres of the Bombay Marathon this year. When I just had to finish. When I was just a few kilometres away. Then just two. Then one. That burst of want and desire and need to just finish within a time limit, keeping a certain pace, I don’t think I have ever concentrated so hard.

But here I was, playing with the incline once a while, listening to a bit of this and a bit of that, careful to run at the same speed and to not lose patience.

The commentary ended a few minutes before the run. It was enough information for today.