Today I woke up late and decided to run the long run Sunday on the treadmill.

I started playing around with fast for a kilometre and easy for a couple of minutes to make the long run distance go by quicker. All was perfectly in order.

Great playlist. Good stamina. The treadmill was working out well. Alas.

I thought too soon. Suddenly the muscle on my inner left thigh seemed to give way. The hurt and pain was unlike anything I knew.

I stretched. I dabbed tiger balm. I sprayed deep ice. I got on again and tried several times but the pain was dramatic.

It seems like the abductor is pulled, pushed, strained or torn. I’ve no clue. Nothing online seems to particularly help.

All of this is fine – but I was so close to getting to my target of today’s long run – couldn’t it have waited until the end?

Yippee. I thought a run won’t happen today. I had barely slept and returned from Bombay in the morning and then straight to work.

But I got a chance in the evening to jump on the treadmill – and so I did.

It was simply wonderful and rewarding. While I missed the interval session today – I’ll happily take this instead.

I had carried running clothes but it was too much of a stretch to try and put in a short run after a long day, night and an early start.

It seems that I will miss the intervals too tomorrow. Hopefully, make up in the coming week.

I woke up early and hit the track before the flight to Bombay. It was variations of the mile and off I went after a short warm up.

The first rep didn’t go too well. But then it worked out just fine – even faster than expected.

Suryansh, Nikhil and another kid kept me company in rotation. In that while the sky overhead was dark, there was light at the track all around.

I could say that today was a repeat of yesterday. In fact I had intervals but missed them. I don’t know when I turned off the alarm because next I woke up it was past six AM.

It was back on the treadmill instead of the track – perhaps best – because I needed the sleep and the pollution was at its highest level this season.

Once again, transporting classical music for the cello filled the room but the kilometres seemed to go by quicker than yesterday.

Stretching and core work rounded up the morning.

El Cant Dels Ocells was playing through a Bluetooth speaker. It sounded especially beautiful in the early morning even as the sound of my feet on the treadmill, too, filled the room.

This and other music enveloped me as I dialled up the speed and adjusted the incline at regular intervals.

Today the music carried me through the hour, concert like, transporting and fulfilling.

The day after a long run – nearly always Monday – I am famished. Maybe it is the overeating on Sunday that leaves me craving for more.

At the end of dinner, I found myself with a bowl of halwa, and still craving for more after. Sweet tooth and all that.

During Covid, I ran a virtual half marathon around Nehru Park and submitted my “official” timing and a link to the run.

While I was cooling down, a runner ran by asking for help. So off I went again and paced Shantanu to achieve his personal best. That day we exchanged introductions, numbers and a smile.

Shantanu and I cross each other once a while on Sunday. There is a manner in which he shouts out my name that lights me up.

Today, this with Shantanu, while running with Shikha.

Running with her, silently, increasing the pace gently, curving through the quieter, leafier parts of Niti and Nyaya Marg, the sound of our feet, a steady metronome against the tarmac.

We ran ninety odd minutes together. She finished and I took off to complete the rest of my run.

Later, the young boy took the treadmill blasting Kendrick Lamar, Eminem, and a host of other rappers I hadn’t heard before. This only helped in increasing the speed dial while the music boomed through house.

A good start to the morning.

And so went my tempo efforts today. Four kilometres, three times over at the prescribed speed became unsustainable by the third set.

So much so that I had to pause for a minute before the final kilometre.

The drag I felt – it was like wearing a parachute on my back. The legs seemed to go backwards weighed down by bricks.

It happens.

I have always been amused at the terms active recovery or recovery run.

At any rate, I jumped on the treadmill for exactly that. A half hour of easy running helped by nose breathing.

I am awful and Laodicean towards stretching but I’m beginning to make an effort – an inch at a time.