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I found out between interval sets that the teenagers I saw every morning, before dawn, are indeed brother and sister. The person coaching them is their father. They’re still in school – which probably meant they went right after training.

I complimented him on how well they ran. 

Mehnat karenge to theek kar lenge, he said. I smiled and pressed the stopwatch button for my next lap. 

The pack joined me for the last interval set – a blistering 2k although I began to lose steam towards the last lap and half. The timing was perfectly fine but I could have paced myself better. 

In less than a a week, some of these young runners were giving the Army physical test – the Agniveer test – they said. For no reason, it reminded me of the concert last night. 

There were several stars on stage but it was Kalpana Patowary that took my breath away. I thought about her incredible voice, the range and control, but especially her self-assured poise and confidence.

In between songs, she spoke of women’s rights in India – that she dreamt of a day when women were truly treated as equals. Everyone applauded. She spoke in beautiful Hindi. Paraphrasing and translating her words in English does not do justice to her eloquence. 

Army, women’s rights, runners, musicians. Worlds very different from mine. Perhaps. Perhaps not. 

Yesterday, the way they contorted and distorted their faces and bodies, their expressions straddling the grotesque and the tragic comic, their bodies moving in spasmodic directions, it reminded me of Francis Bacon’s portraits and work. Not that the reference could be exactly true because those adjectives didn’t apply neatly to Bacon’s art. 

The three everyday imperfect bodies roamed the large stage for just under an hour with near constant frenetic, frenzied movement. Watching a contemporary dance performance with a completely untrained and novice eye; for me it could only be seen for what I observed – its capability to hold attention, my admiration of their stamina, sweat drenched bodies, streams of wet treads on the black marley when they writhed on the floor, and the thumping music that varied from sci-fi to industrial. 

There was a scene where the three were against a black wall, jerky movements pulling and pushing in different directions, limbs both fluid and robotic – it worked – worked for me – as if fighting and accepting – each other – their own self – at the same time.  

I thought about that when I was on the treadmill, eager to finish the short run and the quick workout after. 

These days, I felt hungry quickly. Within a few hours of any meal, I was hungry again. I had dark chocolate with breakfast for the first time. 

Perhaps because the training seems to have intensified since marathon season is upon us, or it is the exceptional humidity (93% today) – or both. I need to drop a couple of kilos but with this kind of eating, I wasn’t sure about that. At the same time, I couldn’t afford in the least to be energy deficient. 

I would need to accept my own paradox. I thought about this after I finished a giant second lunch of dosas (yes two), idli, papad and dahi vada. Oh well. It was just delicious. 

Sipping scalding black coffee, before leaving for the track, I watched a few classical dance videos – the dance and movement entirely unknown to me other than conjecture – but as EH Gombrich said in his magnificent The Story of Art – no doubt speaking of the visual arts but apt enough to be applied anywhere – …. a voyage of discovery … there is no telling what one might bring home from such a journey. 

I was determined to see dawn this morning. I had been arriving to run well before the light changed colours but each time I was lost in thoughts (probably; how could I know?) and before I realised it the sky had changed and I had missed that magical transition. 

Today, I kept looking towards the East, turning my head on occasion to look at the sky, the scattering of clouds – perhaps Altostratus. First the night sky Yellow, golden slivers and shards of light had begun to pierce the broken clouds. Or was it the broken sky? The colours, the painted sky, seemed to remind me of the textures in Atul Dodiya’s pandemic series and Richter’s Clouds. Both entirely different, but the sky was ever changing. First it was Dodiya, then a couple of laps later, the Richter.

It’s always an exercise in restraint to run easy loops on the track without the angst of interval training breaking the run into segments. But it is always incredible – at least to me – the understanding of time – in effort and in patience – that a 400m track brings to the fore.

By the time I had finished my third set, I felt I was in an oven. 

Today the pack was doing their own thing. The coach was amiss and surely it felt like a free period for them – like it did back in school for me.

Suryansh (whose name I thought was Suryavanch) said to me in an apologetic tone that they couldn’t join me as they were timing for a mile. I thought it endearing – the tone he used – but for the umpteenth time I wondered if the kids enjoyed running with me in the first place. 

When the final set was done, I wasn’t exhilarated, I was simply glad it was over. I had done better than the target paces,  My legs felt fluid although I am sure, if I saw a video of myself, I would look like a flailing, inelegant runner who had no right to be on the track.

But here I was, in the company of infinite grace all around me.

Gleaming, glistening bodies – better than any actor of any —— Wood of the film world, better than any advertising campaign of Calvin Klein  – simply powerful, strong, lithe, and oh-so-fast. 

Monu passed by when I was walking towards the exit. He is still recovering from a road accident. We agreed to meet tomorrow. I would be glad to have him for company.

I took the highway back. All these years, I had taken an inside route full of potholes and broken tarmac. This early, the highway was an easy drive on the near empty roads. I wondered why I never thought of this easier, cleaner road. I even ended up reaching home three minutes earlier than normal. 

What other aspects could there be in life that I had missed. It was an unsettling thought but of course ludicrous and boring. Pushing these away, I settled into a quick core routine looking forward to a cup of coffee.  

Aage dekh le, she spoke sharply to a runner coming opposite her. For a moment I thought she said it to me. I crossed her after another loop and she said Hi to me. I don’t know her name.

We wave sometimes but have never exchanged a word. We don’t run with each other. But perhaps just as I am aware of her and the other familiar faces that show up earliest at the track, she would of me.

I thought about the sharpness of her tone to the runner from the opposite side. Not just her tone but also the way her face had contorted. I was startled but I wasn’t sure why.

I finished the last two rounds and thanked Suryavanch for running with me. I hadn’t slept well the previous night and the only way to push away the brief temptation to cancel was to remember the feeling of running and the just after.

Later in the day, I thought of the girl again. Her familiar yellow T shirt and short dark hair. And sometimes it is a moment like this that stays with you for a long time.

After a long run, a day off feels anywhere between a hangover and a repose and often both at the same time. The fatigue of a long run catches up. 

At times that feels like a hangover – the rush abates and the eating, drinking and all around merriment of a Sunday catches up by the dawn of Monday morning. 

Yet there is a pocket of time. In the early Monday hours, there is quietude. I can browse the New York Times or do the crossword. Read. Write.

But soon, as dawn moves to morning, the week stretches ahead. Lists, meetings, to-dos, catch-ups.

I flick through my Training Peaks and read the sessions for the week ahead. A mix of curiosity and expectancy. The garnish in the mix, the brine of this Martini are the intervals and the speed work.

Today there is no hangover – neither literal, nor figurative. But I did feel a soft tiredness – I am glad for the day off. Tomorrow, I will lace up again.

After 5k he wanted to run barefoot. He kicked up a stride as soon as he was rid of his shoes and it was joy to see the pure, seemingly effortless running of a young child. 

When he left, the pace of my run quickened but it was solitary. Just thoughts that came and went, without perception, without attempt to think or not think. Pace and breathing.

It is easy to think about Waking Up by Sam Harris as I write this. A few years ago, the app subscription was a gift from a friend. It had lasted for a while. I wondered if I should pick it up again. 

Coming towards me, I saw Shikha, her beautiful, effortless stride from a distance. As she approached, I motioned her to join me. 

I’m slow today, she said. 

Within a kilometre we were running faster and soon at nearly tempo effort. Slow? 

We both laughed. Whatever laughter feels and sounds like between the rhythmic breathing of running. A few runners and cyclists acknowledged her and called out her name.  She had run astonishing ultra marathons and we had known each other for more than a decade. Training almost solitarily, her cadence and cap was as familiar a sight as could be at Nehru Park. As it is with many runners, we knew each other in the context of running and little else.

The Shanti Path-Niti Marg loop abutting Nehru Park was still crowded. I was alone again, this time counting down the kilometres, continuing to run at a faster pace. 

Familiar faces, bare chested runners, hydration packs, sound of music, the thwack thwack of feet, laughter of friends, selfies within groups, the Nehru Park scene was intimately known to me and yet I knew nearly no one. A wave, a smile, a nod was always enough. 

The roads at Nehru Park were our home.

Intervals are hard. They are meant to be. But sometimes it can feel like you’re fighting with yourself. 

Perhaps it was the lack of sleep or the weather. The humidity was at 90 percent. But most likely it was just me. Whatever reasons of the body and the mind that conspire to give that feeling of struggle, it was heart in the mouth running. My upper chest felt like it was knotted in ragged breaths, my legs heavy, finding no fluidity of motion. 

I hit nearly all the paces anyway – but it was they were flailing, inelegant sets. It reminded me of a friend who said that the answers to the math problems he solved in college – I think in a course called Math 55 – is not simply to find the answer in itself but the most elegant path to the answer. 

Today the track mocked me, gently as it were, and knocked out and flailing as I was, it was another run in the dock.

One of the meanings of treadmill according to the Oxford English Dictionary:

a large wheel turned by the weight of people or animals walking on steps around its inside edge, and used to operate machines. 

Wiktionary adds: It was used principally as a means of prison discipline. 

Quick looks at other websites says the word and its origin as a wheel or mill for prisoners has been in use since the early 19th century.

Two hundred years later, my treadmill is a trusty friend albeit mainly for short runs.

I start slow – it takes me forever to warm up as it always does on the TM. 

Meanwhile, the phone and the speaker refuse to connect over Bluetooth. I could do with some music.

Oxford gives the etymology of Bluetooth as a trademark:

said to be named after King Harald Bluetooth (910–85), credited with uniting Denmark and Norway, as Bluetooth technology unifies the telecommunications and computing industries.

I try connecting a few more times. No device found, it keeps saying.

Instead, on the treadmill, I toggle the incline up and down. It keeps the run interesting and is a way to kickstart the warm up. Or so I believe.

I gently increase the speed through the run. By the time I’m in some rhythm, the run is nearly over. 

When I finish, I try the Bluetooth again. Of course it connects. 

Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber is playing. I am sipping at my second cup of coffee, the composition tugging at everything inside me. How can music make one feel this way. Perhaps I should look up the science behind it, the anthropological connections that might be. 

Earlier in the morning, when I began my run, a pair of teenagers, a boy and a girl, were already racing around the track. Perhaps they were a family, perhaps friends. I couldn’t be sure. They ran beautifully – fast, graceful, tightly composed running. High above, the waning crescent moon shone like an incomplete lamp.

I thought of them as the music rose and fell through crests and waves – the visible strain on their faces yet the effortless rhythm of their legs.

Midway through the run, I was joined by Ashwini. The track had begun to appear from its pack of powdery dust. Two rounds later, there were eight of us, running the last lane – lane10 – in a tight pack, our bodies barely inches away, sweat lined arms and elbows often brushing, connecting. We were breathing the same air but also circulating each others. 

I finish the coffee and share the music with a friend. I get a reply: It has the feeling of a great big deep mental sigh. 

Sometimes the track feels like that too.