You Reap What You Sow.

A month and a half ago, I had a thought that would prove to have catastrophic consequences on the Airtel Delhi Half Marathon race day.

It was my second-last week in the mountains that had been my home for the past two and a half years. I was moving back to the bedlam of life in civilization soon. My training cycle had been on track. Lark on thorn, snail on wing etc.

This was the thought-

“It’s just a couple of runs. How much difference can they possibly make?”

I was traveling down from the hills, and it was a 24-hour journey that would start early on Saturday morning and see me reach Gurgaon on Sunday morning. So I would miss my planned Saturday afternoon 11k and my Sunday morning 27k.

I look back today on that fateful weekend and it’s obvious. That’s when it all started falling apart.

In hindsight, I could have run those runs. The journey had a reasonable break on Saturday, and while mildly inconvenient, I could have planned the 11k in it. And I was home at around half past six in the morning on Sunday. There was nothing stopping me from stepping out except that single, stupid thought... That it wouldn’t matter.

You see, that thought wasn’t a thought. It was a domino. It was a snowball. It was a seed. It germinated. It grew. And by the time I saw it for what it was, it had cracked the edifice it was embedded in.

Oh, but I was all like ‘What-evs, man...’

On the Monday that followed, I raced the Territorial Army Half in conditions very similar to what we had in Hyderabad. Similar temperature. Similar elevations. And I ran it a minute-and-a-half faster than Hyderabad. It was a good tune-up. I raced again at the Starry Night Half on the subsequent Saturday, tempering effort a notch lower.

Having raced twice in the week, I decided to skip the next long run too.

How much difference could it make, right? You see what’s happening here?

The next week saw me back in the hills for my last few days there. Started the week without any trouble, and then...

Well. Let’s just say that was pretty much the end of anything that remotely could be thought to resemble a ‘plan’. Missed runs began to pile up with more regularity. Hardly any speedwork got done. And I quickly stamped out all related remorse with my gift for unimpeachable self-delusion. 

By the time it hit me, I was well past redemption. Three weeks before the race, I suddenly saw that this ADHM was going to be sub-par. And there was now nothing I could do about it.

I turned to the treadmill (this was also the period when the worst of the pollution settled over us like a pall), which had never quite been my friend, and ended the cycle halfheartedly with a bunch of short and easy trundles.

On race day, I was pretty sure of what to anticipate. And it was nothing good. All things considered, I think I did better than I should have dared to expect of myself... just about a minute-and-a-half slower than my PR.

In the days that have followed, the adage ‘you reap what you sow’ has stayed with me. The race results have been exactly what they should have been, given the amount of training done and the amount missed.

I have no one to blame for this except demonetization. Or Kejriwal. Because come on! It can’t be my fault, surely...

I have a few races lined up in the coming months. I’m looking forward most to running the half at Bombay in January, with an experimental half-cycle (basically starting again where I screwed up for ADHM and doing it right this time). Also the New Delhi 10k on 17^th December should be fun. A PR there would be poetic, after this, though realistically I’m not going to catch up with Nell’s 36:54.

And I’m registered for a really long term Marathon goal. Frankfurt on 28^th October next year will be when I next take a stab at Nell’s marathon time. Stay tuned for trite, pointless, irregular and nauseating updates on that. 

And finally, for no reason at all, this is a picture of a clown.