Running hot and cold by Atul Singh

Oh! I did not get to run yesterday. I needed to. So today it is. I am glad I am here today. Let me do twelve miles or may be do a half marathon. No not half, I need to get back. Take Maya for her gym workout. I might get late. Let me start the watch. Oh no, it is 10:30 am already. I will just do twelve today. Tomorrow I have to take the car to the body shop. Insurance still needs to be sorted. They have not called back. Next weekend is the party. Have to put up the lights. Order food too. What? below nine? The first mile is too fast. This is supposed to be an easy run. Then there is elevation up ahead. I need to slow down. Let me slow down some. The man with dog just passed. It was just a blur. Neither saw the man nor the dog. what kind of dog was it? Don’t know.

It is humid. How come I did not notice until now. I am at a mile and a half. I didn’t even know whether it was cold or hot, dry or humid. Too much noise in my head. I am running anxious. Like a car that is running hot. Burning itself down. For what? Isn’t running something I enjoy? Then why this scramble. Let me cool down. Let me just be. Feel my breath, feel the air. The air is cool and refreshing. Deep breath. First gulp of deep breath. 

Oh! now I see my first tree. I must have passed a few hundred. But now I see one. It is not such a big one. May be ten years old? May be 25? How old are these trees anyway. Now I am here. I am here in body and mind.

There is a drizzle. Did it just start? Perhaps it did. I am kinda liking this feeling on my face. It is mile two almost and I am feeling the first raindrops landing on me and cutting through the thin t-shirt, hitting the skin. It feels like a good cup of coffee, piercing through, right to the heart. I am indeed here. 

Have I been put here to finish household chores that never end? To change the world that is constantly changing? To raise kids who instead are raising me at this point? To work a job that works me up? I don’t really know. May be I am here to be here. At-least that much must be true. But how often am I really here? Or in reality, how seldom! I am glad I am here now. Feeling my breath. Hearing my own footsteps. Feeling the drizzle. Feeling the trees. And oh! there is water. Water on both sides. I see that too now. I feel alive.

Mile two on Coppermine trail informs that the warm up is done. The elevation is beginning shortly. I have done this enough to actually look forward to running up the actual Coppermine road. Nice and easy I go. But breathing is starting to get a bit labored. I can feel my legs already. Not good. May be the alcohol from last night is talking back now. May be it is because I haven’t really run any hill since my race three weeks ago. It’s alright. I am here. And more importantly I am feeling all of it. The good, the bad and the ugly. Feeling itself is the reward. I will divert my attention from my legs. But on purpose. I want to be here. 

I am relaxed now. I am in my element now. I see everything. My breathing is deep. Arms are helping pull my frame up the hill. I don’t feel any belly at all. That morning gym is working. It’s so good. To be here, to be doing this. To feel alive like this. It is so so good. I am not running anxious anymore. 

So the watch and the speed and the cadence. Does it matter. Sometimes it does. But not all the time. Not today. Soaking it in, is all that matters today. And just like that the hill is done. Downhill is fun. I am good going downhill. I was a bit sluggish today. But it got done fast. Back to the DW canal now. Another two miles of trees and gravel and people walking by and water on both sides and stuff floating in it and leaves on the ground and bareness of trees and some others are fully green. How does that happen. 

A couple passes by with two dogs. One is a big puppy. His body is grown up and life is bursting out of him. He wants to play. He wants to play with me too. Then the owner jerks back his chain. Soon he will learn that it is not alright to play all the time. Certainly not with strangers. Some life leaked out of him then. He will calm down eventually, forgetting what he really wanted. 

May be we are all puppies. All we want to do is play. Then chains get jerked. Chains that we ourselves put on us. And some life leaks out with each jerk. Soon enough we slow down. 

But this running thing is play. I like playing. No not anxious playing, but relaxed playing. It is done. 12 miles are done. I did good. I feel good.