Strike Seven

Hi again! So what's new today, you could ask. Well, it was pretty much the same routine, except that since I woke up a bit early - thanks in part to my son who wanted to play at 2 am - I went for my jog earlier than usual at the crack of first daylight. That gave me more time to run longer, covering an additional lap in the process. On my way to work today, I passed by a school next to where I reside which like many upstart schools in Delhi advertise the fact that they are air-conditioned. Who would have thought in our time that schools could be airconditoned - used as we were to fans and the mercies of the DESU in summer when power cuts and load sheddings happened randomly. Sure we used to perspire like pigs and it used to be real hot but we made it through. Today, when my wife demands an air-conditioner for the house for our toddler, I can only smile - how times have changed. Kids these days have access to not just the best of amenities but also luxuries. I may be wrong but kids from our time turned out to be tough and hardy, able to withstand life's hardships. These kids, used to all the comforts from such an early age, don't inspire much confidence and one has seen enough examples of them breaking down at the slightest hint of trouble. Recall the recent scare on an Indigo flight when the air hostesses - all 20 somethings - broke down when it was announced that the aircraft had some landing gear trouble! Imagine, it were the passengers on-board who consoled these young girls rather than the other way around. Today, hitting a child can get you behind bars - in our time smacking a thorny twig or a wooden scale on the knuckles or palms was standard punishment, apart from the resounding slaps on the cheeks or the twisting of ears by teachers. Today, psychologists say this can lead to mental and psychological deformities in a child - by that yardstick, my generation should be living in a lunatic outhouse! Don't get me wrong - I am not against betterment of living conditions, but air-conditioned schools?? Are we going to be a turning out a generation that's too soft, only good at geeky stuff? I am sure I don't want my son growing up in the lap of luxury - let him earn his spurs rather getting dole outs from his dad.

Breaking new ground

So I'm back! It's been some days since my last post and no, I have not skipped my morning routine. It's now six months since I started out and while February was intermittent, I have now decided to be regular come what may - and that means pushing myself out of the bed and the apartment door unfailingly despite sleepy eyes and tired legs from the previous day's work. Oh, and that doesn't include the detail of getting up earlier than usual to feed a six month old toddler who lets out a loud whelp to advertise his hunger pangs! Why am I so hard on myself, some ask. Well, because if I don't run, I know it's going to play on in my mind and basically ruin my entire day.
Anyways, yesterday morning I changed my workout ground to a better maintained park - the lawns there are so well manicured that it looks like someone's private garden rather than a public space. And cleanliness to an extent that you could pick up food droppings off the grass and eat it without fear of any infection - no really, I am not kidding. Besides this, the jogging track is much longer which allows me to push myself to cover a longer distance than usual. And so, instead of the usual 5 kilometres, I am now covering 6 kilometres on a daily basis (well, it's just been two days, so let's keep our fingers crossed, shall we?)
Of course, there were several more pretty faces in this park than in the previous but then, focussing too much on them can mean a mis-step, so an occasional glance now and then but that's about it! Looking at the gentry there one would be forgiven to think that Indians are now largely health-conscious (that could be a fallacy!). Everyone seems to be engaged in some sort of activity, be it a stroll, a brisk walk, running, jogging, yoga, calesthenics, et al. And there are some who want to remain connected and wired to the world around them even at 6 am - chattering away on their cell phones as if cutting a multi-million dollar deal in another part of the world. Some of course just come to sit and gossip and chat without exerting any part of their body except for the mouth and vocal chords. No, I am not critical of these fellas, just amazed at their sense of priority. But then, as they say, it takes all kinds to make this world and they do provide some amusement and mirth!
Yesterday though, while doing spot jogging, my attention wavered a bit by I can't recall what (it certainly wasn't a pretty face - I would have remembered!). And that nano second resulted in my foot landing improperly. It was a sudden tinge of a stretch that I felt in my knee and while there's no pain, I know I need to get it checked before it becomes any worse with advancing age. That should be a reminder to me and others - concentrate on one task at a time.

Hard promises

One of the most difficult things in life, as I have learnt to my discomfort, is keeping promises (why do I even bother making them!). Having gone public in my last post of running without fetters of time, I realised the next morning just how much my body was crying for sleep. And yet, there was no turning back - it was a promise made to myself to run, and so run I had to, albeit in two sets of 3.5 km and 2 km. I remember in winters, when I used to finish my run and collapse on the park bench, I could actually see vapours rising from my body - the extent to which I had heated up. It was a funny feeling - sweat dripping, vapours from the body and that in a way made you feel good about yourself. It was the same for the past three days, though with the temperatures rising in my part of the world with the summers knocking, it takes less and less effort to be drenched in your sweat.
In fact, the change of weather meant that I was down with a throat infection, the coughing so severely that I felt drained of all energy every morning I woke up. And so, each time I started to jog, it was with much effort. The past three days my jogging rhythm has gone for a toss and something seems amiss each time I hit the tracks. Legs are wooden, feet are lead and despite best efforts, have been dragging myself rather bouncing, which I normally do. Maybe it's the poor health for the past few days which is taking it toll. But yes, without letting go of modesty, made the extra effort to go as far as possible and succeeded to a large extent. I think that was a proud moment for me.
So what next? I have this burning desire to time myself now and am planning to buy a stop-watch to know just exactly how much time I take to cover one lap and the total distance. So far I have relied on an analogue watch which gives a rough idea. What am I hoping to achieve? I really don't know at this juncture. They say, if you do something for the love of it, something good will come out of it. I don't just love running, like I said earlier, I am addicted to it and every morning I am in my own private world where everything else is paraphernalia. Cheerio!

Running through my mind

The last time I went running - which was two days ago, so yes, I have skipped it for two days at a stretch now - I was tired, having reached home at 2 am the previous night. All that I could think of was getting through the grind. My feet were lead that morning and moving them in tandem to form a jogging rhythm was task indeed - neither the lift-off nor the landing was smooth and effortless, like they usually are. At times like these when the overwhelming desire is to curl up in bed and snooze till the cows come home, it's bewildering what makes the body keep ticking, lap after lap. Thoughts about my infant son's disturbed sleep in the night or his poor appetite of late often flit through my mind, as also thoughts of my own personal hell which I wouldn't like to go public with right now. All these and more of course ran through my mind as I ran the track, also worried about not being able to get the equation for the cover story right. To be honest, I wasn't much enthused about the subject - it wasn't my beat, though that doesn't even qualify for a lame excuse!
Still I ran, and surprisingly, covered more ground in the first instalment than I am usually able to. I often wonder to myself what is it that I am seeking to achieve with my daily grind - honestly, I don't know. It's fun though, and sometimes I wish someone would start timing me, just to know how I fare against myself.
But two days I have been absent from the tracks now and am raring to go tomorrow, being a Sunday. Tomorrow, I shall run unfettered by the bondage of time.

Horses for courses

Running is my catharsis, it could also have been destiny some years back! I make my own equation with the track - run as long as I feel like, as fast as I like and as I like. As I go along, I make new equations - I started off with flat foot running given that I am a flat foot, running too fast initially only to discover (as is so commonly known) that I was out of my depth and breath after the first lap. Believe me, it was an effort to slow down and start off slow, going slower and slower to last the distance. One would imagine I was preparing for some event - even got some well-intentioned jibes from fellow morning joggers asking me the same! At 35? I would seriously have to be nuts (then again, people who know me will probably attest that I am!)
Admittedly, my thigh and calf muscles ached for the first few weeks and my heels hurt like hell when I wanted to walk. It took several days and weeks to adjust and figure out how to minimise the pain - landing on the ball of my heel and outside edge of the foot. I don't know if this is the correct technique, but by jolly rogers, it's worked for me. Then came sustaining myself over long distances - the whiteness of the distance on a winter morning could tire not just the eyes but also defeat the mind. In fact, everytime I tried to push myself beyond my known endurance levels of distance, I admit, the mind just gave way. It was frustrating.
Then suddenly, like the second wind, I crossed the barrier one day, the mind just willing the body to go on and on. It was exhilarating!
But the second wind was soon passe - and I soon found myself getting stuck at the two mile barrier. I don't know if it was the body which tired out or the mind, but I just threw in the towel everytime I exhausted my second wind. It was probably during one of these self-defeating times that ancient wisdom revealed itself - horse trotting. For anyone who's seen the horse carriages and tongawallahs in India will know that these horses have eye-flaps that prevent them from looking too far ahead. The thought behind that is that horses if they realised how much distance were they covering would tire sooner, and that's exactly what I followed. I started following my feet, looking down instead of straight ahead and just watchng my feet cover the ground one step at a time. I soon found that I could cover as much distance as I wanted without tiring or runnng out of breath - the only thing I used to run out of was time! What a fun!

Runners World

As a starting block, this is no great shakes - I run, therefore I am. I love running. No, not from the beginning - in fact, if anything, I used to shirk from running and would often find myself out of breath after jogging just a few hundred metres. No, my love for running developed some months back when tipping the scales at 90kg with a pot belly and a spondylitis threat and a life really going nowhere, I decided to don the track pants and running shoes and literally hit the dirt. Yes, I do feel better, even if I don't really look that much better! It's an addiction now and for a man who's pushing close to 40 (okay, there's still half a decade to catch up!), running gives me a craving start to my day - so much so that the day I skip it, I am just not happening.

I marked my progress - starting with brisk walking and then graduating to slow jogs, limited to half a mile, then a mile and so on. Today, I run as long as I feel like, sometimes pushing myself beyond my known boundaries. Yes, there are times when I have given up after setting new personal endurance levels but something on the track beckons you the next day - at times teasing, at times encouraging but mostly, just a silent companion.

For the first time, I probably realised the practical implication of the phrase 'to compete with oneself' - pushing myself to cover more and more ground in less and less time. It's strange though how the mind refuses to blank out - filling itself up with inane and mundane thoughts. Sometimes, troubled by happenings or events of the previous day, I have found myself sapped of all energy while just starting to run - focussing your energies on as simple a task as running at times appears more difficult than ever imagined.

Yes, running for me has also become an escape for the daily tribulations that life thrusts upon us - escaping into my world where the only thing that matters is pounding the track for as long as possible. Of late, running has taken precedence over my work - it excites me and consumes me and I find myself spending more and more time on the track. I enjoy it, and sometimes it scares me how much I am enslaved by it. Work is a chore - it wasn't always so! I love writing, words for me are toys to tinker around with which is why I became a journalist, giving shape to stories that would as informative as interesting. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy writing, but perhaps of my own accord rather than being thrust with some idea that I don't feel a connect with. Is it a midlife crisis that set in a wee bit early in my case or am I just craving for yet another change in my life - after chucking my well established career as a hotelier to become a scribe? As with other things in my life, I feel there are no answers - and I really envy people who find answers to their life's questions or can uncomplainingly accept what life gives them. Is it really that difficult, to get on with life on an as-is-where-is-basis or does that require some special talent which seems amiss in me? More questions! More, later...