In an earlier post, I discussed my exploits in Singapore with the enigmatically nicknamed Caballo Oscura. I am now honoured to host this fantastic account of Caballo Oscura's journey to the milestone of 21.1km: the half marathon. If you are a runner, and even if you are not, you will find yourself identifying with much of this. And to Caballo Oscura I say - thank you for the carefully curated playlists which often gave a fillip to my runs. Not to mention the obsessive discussions on fitness at the lunch table everyday, which have almost earned us a gag order.
It’s around 7 am in the morning, the sun has been up but it has forgotten to bring its sting today, which is good because I can’t take the sting today. I quickly do a mental systems check - the thighs are holding up, (I feel a surge of pride for these hunks of solid meat), the calves have gone without any wear and tear (good going, guys), the feet, well all’s good except the rogue right toe, Hitman Joe I call it. It has been trying to kill me since about half an hour ago and is still trying to. I will deal with that later. Lower body - Check. Upper body is a different story altogether - The shoulder blades are rickety but moving, the lungs are tired, the right stomach lets me know it wants to quit every chance it gets. A cool breeze wafts in, I make the most of it, draw it in, hold it for a while and let it go. The right stomach will have to do with the wind for now. It quiets down. I keep going. The music continues playing but I don’t hear it anymore. The voice has come. It's around 7 am in the morning and I am into the 12th kilometre of my first half marathon.
I am no stranger to the voice. The voice has been with ever since I can remember. Every time in the morning when the alarm rings it is the loudest. Some days it tells me to wake up, some days it tells me to fuck everything and close my eyes. And then throughout the day, it quietly works through my life, analysing, machinating all my decisions and moves with a series of yes, no, maybe outcomes to complex questions I don’t even realise I am considering. But it is strongest on a run. When the world is shut out, when I find myself on my feet and on the ground, out there in the open, alone, it comes. I don’t know if the voice is my friend. Sometimes it whispers words of encouragement into my ears, “Go on. Come on. You can do it”, it says and sometimes it is a mean motherfucker. “Why are you doing this, What will you possibly achieve”, it asks. Like a bi-polar mentor, like a superhero who can’t make up his mind about helping people or destroying them, the voice can be good or bad depending upon the day.
It was this voice that got me started anyway. On one night about 11 months ago as I lay in bed after a terrible day. My head supported by a soft pillow in an unfamiliar city, my back creating a depression in the soft hotel mattress, I looked down upon my body trying to see my toes. I couldn’t. The mound that used to be my belly comprehensively blocked my view. That’s when the voice came in full force, laughing and taunting me. “Who are you?” it asked me and it was right, I didn’t recognise myself. All the junk I had eaten, all the exercise I had shirked had taken me forward into time and shown me a glimpse of my future if I didn’t make any changes. There was hope still, I was just 27. But how? How was I going to decelerate my descent into sickness and decay and climb up this stiff cliff towards a better life? Run of course.
Ah running! Like the woman of my fantasies, I dreamed of running. Through the woods with the wind singing for me and the sun creeping through the foliage to create a thousand patterns on my path. My hair would be slick with sweat and yet the breeze would move through it like they were narrow tunnels and my heart will pound to the rhythm of my legs. Ah running! This is all I had, this image, every time I was depressed, every time I was angry with the world, I would fantasise about running. I never went though. I would rather lie in my bed and watch a movie. Tomorrow I would promise myself. Tomorrow I will run.
On a wet and cold morning in December, getting out a friend’s apartment in London, I was finally on my feet. I was finally out for a run. My sweatshirt clung to my back and I had to cover my head afraid to catch the cold. No breeze was going to play with my hair today. After a little brisk walk on the sidewalk I started. 10 steps or couldn’t have been less, I had to sit down on the sidewalk. It was like I had run straight into an invisible wall and it had knocked the wind out of me. A cold sweat ran down my back. This was it, this was the end of my run. I walked around the block and back I went into the warmth of the apartment. The voice wasn’t going away though. A couple of days later in India, I started with the Couch to 5K program on the recommendation of a friend (who deserves a lot of credit for who I am today). The first day I had to run for just 8 minutes in 8 1-minute intervals. I was so glad when I finished that I run into a barbed wire fence blinded by exhaustion and darkness. When was I going to run through the woods? When?
It took me about 10 weeks, tons of resolve, a lot of pep talks and a playlist full of heart pounding music. I was finally ready to run unsupervised. Laura the voice from the Couch to 5K podcast would now be replaced with, well you guessed it, my voice. The voice who had started me on this path in the first place. And thus, it began - my dance with the voice. Sometimes it was a contest, a wrestling match and sometimes it was a synchronised dance performance. As I went further, the voice kept becoming stronger. It will cut through the music, it will cut through the noise, it didn’t respect my solitude. It was always there. Running through Deer Park once, I swear it even conjured up images of snakes on my path to make me quit. I was fighting back though. Sometimes I would rationalise, there are no snakes here, I would say and even if there were, they would sense me coming and get out of the way. At other times I will go straight into its face and ask - So what!!
And slowly, just like that, without any warning, it disappeared. I couldn't care less. I learnt to take in my surroundings more. I noticed the red canopy of bougainvillea at one corner and how the creeper had climbed high and turned itself into an inviting red arch, how the sun shone through the foliage making patters more vivid than my fantasies could ever conjure, I spotted deer, peacocks galore and sometimes they would embark upon their short flight right above my head and I would accept that momentary breeze from a natural fan on a hot day with unbound delight. Running on a small island in Helsinki once, I spotted a wild hare once, who stopped in its tracks to stare at me in surprise before bounding away and once when I was lost in a medieval moat in the park and without realising ran up to the President’s tennis grounds before turning back. I ran for these little surprises, these little twists and joys which I would miss if I stayed in my bed with my eyes glued to a screen. I almost always ran to music and I heard it sharp and clear in a meditative state. I would sometimes hear one of my songs outside my run and I would immediately yearn for a run. I was associating good things with my run and it was working. I was slowly rebuilding my life around these runs. Every new city I went to I would ask - Where can I run here? In one trip to Paris when I was running I saw more of it than all my previous trips combined.
Was it all good then? A happy communion? Hell no! There were bad days too. Sometimes the heat, sometimes a troubled knee would leave me confined. And sometimes, the voice wouldn't let me get out of the bed. The voice had become smarter. After realising that I enjoyed my runs, it had managed to secure an ally - something I enjoy just as much as running if not more - sleep. “You should sleep more, run in the evening. Enough sleep is critical”, it would say. And in the evening it would tell - “No need to go for the run now. Sleep early today so that you can wake up early and go for a run.” It is amazing how often these sorry excuses worked. I was approaching the half marathon and I was running lesser and lesser. I had started on a plan sometime back and had dropped out in middle. A strange kind of fear gripped me - what if I dropped out? What if I didn’t finish?
I was lucky that I read “Born to Run” right about then. It confirmed most of what I had suspected about running and life in general. I wasn’t running to prove anything, nor to look good or win a race. I was running because I liked how it made me feel. I could quit if I wanted to and nothing would change, I wouldn't suddenly relapse into my old self. Things had changed irreversibly. I was running not because of fitness of body but the fitness of mind it allowed me. On longer runs I had started considering things that made me angry and let go of these one by one. The longer I ran, the more I let go of. I was becoming a happier person and this is why I ran. So, the prospect of 21.1 kilometres excited me to no end, a distance I have never run before, nowhere close. What other demons will I let go of on this run, what baggage will I shed and how light would I emerge out of this ordeal. Well, we will find out.
So, on October 18th, at 7 am in the morning on the streets of Bangalore, among thousands of people the voice had finally decided to show up. “About time”, I thought. “So what is it going to be today?”, I asked. “You are doing great. Forget the pace. Forget the people overtaking you. Today is just a small piece of the larger picture. If you run the furthest, you will eventually overtake everyone”, it said. We are allies it seems, maybe friends even but I will wait a little longer for that. I spotted a cameraman up ahead me photographing the runners. As I passed him and every one of them on my journey towards the finish line I flashed them my biggest smile. I might not be the fastest runner, but I certainly was one of the happiest and if an idiotic grin is all it takes to show how I feel, so be it.
So, what have I learnt about running? A lot of things actually; a few of them bordering on spiritual voodoo and some of the things mirroring ancient philosophies about life. But I would limit myself to the practical aspects here - You run with your mind (your voice if I may call it so), your heart and your lungs. Your legs just come along for the ride. If you are friends with the voice, if you love running and if you can breathe while cruising and talking to yourself at the same time you can run. Your legs and your feet will behave. Looking right at you, Hitman Joe.
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