Feeling Groovy

The feeling of well-being is for two reasons: One, I felt I'd got back my groove in the speed workout today and two, I'd got a mail from Russell littered with our favorite Goan profanities, enquiring about our buddies. As I strode on to my start point already drenched in sweat due to the warm humid cloud engulfing Aarey even at that hour - 6:30am, I was apprehensive about the way my workout would end.

The ladder speed workout which gets you to finish wheezing with arms akimbo was perhaps designed by coaches who train athletes in cooler climes and not this sauna that we call summer. Nevertheless, I am wont to throw caution to the winds just to check if I can wrangle a PR in my next Marathon:-) I finished the circuits at an RPE of 9 (expected in this workout and in this weather) and must have looked pretty done in with my chest heaving and my T-shirt stuck to my body, just as I heard one of the ol'timers at Aarey telling another walker, "Yeh Saab ko dekho. Kitne saal se daudtha hai." I smiled and returned a friendly wave. Little do they realize how many years of hard work endurance involves and then there are the starry eyed who want quick fixes.

Russell enquired about Bamoo and I told him that Bamoo is in fine fettle and filling his ever expanding form with raised toast and a sneer, when you raise an eyebrow expressing the probability that he could be stricken with 'angina pectoralis' at any moment. I dread to hazard a guess about his weight:-) I had recently given Bamoo some 'urak' (a Goan spirit - not the ghostly kind:-) - and which is supposed to be a 'cooling drink' - Goans do like to delude themselves, don't they?) which he relishes with a dish made from goat' intestines. I expectedly wrinkle my nose in disgust when he shares such tribal gustatory delights with a gleam in his eyes, like I would exhibit if I had, placed before me a plate of spare ribs in Barbeque sauce. But then my taste for cuisine is not primal like it is in the case of Bamoo:-). I even told Russell that I suspect Bamoo to have been a tribal chieftain (given his girth) in a place such as Burkina Fasso, in his earlier life:-))))). Nice to have found your groove again Dan.