I'm alive !!

I awoke to a dark sultry dawn and sat hunched on the side of the bed. I looked out at the sky and a silvery moon seemed to smile, reclining on a carpet of stars. I smiled back as if I acknowledged its tacit encouragement for my longest run since I took ill. The schedule, that I'd drawn up to script my recovery, showed a two hour run but I'd decided I'd slug this one out for 3 hrs. I had good ol' Amit for company as he'd promised to run alongside. I thought it was time I'd upped the ante on my training rather than submit to my flagging strength. Better to resist like a man than conform like a slave, Dan!

It was one of those days when a whole lot more runners turn up at Aarey. I accomplished my ritual of feeding the strays that lunged impatiently at the biscuits thrown to them. After this, greetings hailed and water bottles in tow, we set off. I strode with a pack that seemed to do a pace that was more than I would be able to handle. Thankfully, the pack broke off into two, with the slower one comprising Amit, Rohit and me. The first loop of 12.45K was accomplished with a few jokes and trivial banter on the recent attack by a Leopard that had sprung on the back of a park official somewhere in India. Amit remarked that his wife warned him that a similar fate would befall him soon at Aarey; her way of getting him to spend a little more quality time at home instead of indulging in a useless and enervating pastime like running:)

Back at our start point, I stopped to drink up in an effort to stave off dehydration, that I felt was setting in. I felt a wave of exhaustion hit me briefly warning me that the second loop may well be my undoing. The decision was made though, and I set off with Amit, a wee bit at a shuffle this time. We cruised down the Aarey hill when it became clear that this one was going to be tough. Not only was there no hint of rain, but the sun peeked briefly, as if mocking our wager on the second loop. Amit was listening keenly, I could see, to my breath coming on as a gentle wheez, an indication of my distress. He endeared himself to me even more when he whispered, 'Dan, let me know when we should walk'. I nodded silently, unable to speak as hyperventilation prevented me.

At the 17K mark, I relented to the soft cry of 'slow down Dan', in my subconscious. Instinctively, as if I'd spoken to him, Amit slowed to a walk. I realised then that it was my muttered 'shucks' exhaled in resignation, that was the signal for him to do so. We recovered and picked pace again to complete another 5K before we arrived at the hill, looming impossibly before me. I walked up the hill, completely spent with Amit for company, the heat sapping us completely. The last 1.5K brought excitement and I smiled as Amit, having completed his brotherly chore of hand holding me within pissing distance of home, set off at a gallop. It was then that I saw his larger sacrifice of pulling back the reins just for me. I speeded up the last 400m to reach our start point and sank to my knees to cross myself and thank the good lord for helping me accomplish this feat. It was the 23rd of August, a saturday, exactly three months since this very day when I'd touched the hand of God and he'd said, 'No Dan, its not your time now'. I rose to Hi-5 Amit and a few runners that were waiting for me to finish. The feeling was overwhelming as I remembered the words from "America".

When the last eagle flies over the last crumbling mountain
And the last lion roars at the last dusty fountain
In the shadow of the forest though she may be old and worn
They will stare unbelieving at the last unicorn

When the first breath of winter through the flowers is icing
And you look to the north and a pale moon is rising
And it seems like all is dying and would leave the world to mourn
In the distance hear the laughter of the last unicorn

I'm alive, I'm alive

Flight of fantasy

Recovery has been slow but sure. I can feel strength creeping into my body but the heart rate and lungs get that searing sting when I try to run long. I am still walking the hill at Aarey but I feel resigned to doing it. Besides, I have gotten wiser since I know that any foolhardy attempt at coasting it, could set me back a few months.

I stirred in my bed while it was dark as a grave outside. The faint ghostly blue glow on my wrist-watch showed 00:52. Today was even worse; my insomnia usually nudges me awake at 2:30am and I am only able to drift back at 4am. I tossed around and after a while Dojo came by to enquire about the ruckus I was creating with rustling bedsheets:) I gave him a cursory scratch under the chin and he wagged his tail with bored acknowledgement of my attention. I looked at the watch again and it said 3:15am; that is 2+hrs that I have been awake! I crawled out of bed and hobbled to the kitchen, the achy limbs reminding me of yesterday' run at Aarey. I fixed myself a hot cuppa 'Earl' Grey' and munched on a 'Pain au chocolat', an indulgence from the Theobroma Patisierie that we allow ourselves on weekends. The maid stirred in her sleep and gave me an incredulous look when she saw the tea cup.

The tea calmed me a bit and a blissful sleep took over until I was rudely awakened by my alarm going off at 6:30am. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, stepped into my shoes and entered my own world of wafting lonely as a clod:) over hills and vales at Aarey. There was a pleasant drizzle that made things exhilarating and yet, contained my exertions. There weren't too many walkers today and I had the forest to myself. I could hear the hiss of drizzle, the rumble of a BEST bus grinding gears and the clip-clop of my shoes skiming puddles. I needed a flight of fantasy. I wished I could join my guys for an x/12 in the near future to get back my dignity - damn! why am I making a big deal of all this? I decided to be ludicruous and make myself a promise and the only way I could remind myself was thru' SPANDAU BALLET;

http://www.sortmusic.com/_s/spandau-ballet-song,tiI%27ll%20Fly%20For%20You,len.html
Passion take the wind
and break me from this tie
we're mortals on the earth
oh but God's up in the sky
I haven't got a clue
I haven't got a thing
but what I give to you
is all that I could bring

I'll give you all my time
that's everything to me
you know my only crime
is this flight of fantasy

Chorus:
because I've nothing else here for you
and just because it's easier than the truth
oh if there's nothing else that I can do
I'll fly for you

Baby steps

It is now two months since I was discharged from hospital after being taken seriously ill. The recovery process has, as it should be, been slow. Afterall, my heart had taken a beating and well, it had almost stopped....beating! Upon discharge, the ventricular ejection-fraction was low and this meant that it was not pumping to full capacity. This is especially disheartening for me as a distance runner. It means there would not be enough blood to feed the muscles in my legs, should I choose to go for a jog.

This stunning realization hit me like a ten ton truck, when I tested my legs for my first group run this week. It was just as if I was a beginner; like all the people that I have trained at the NIKE RUN CLUB. My exertions came to a grinding halt within 400m of my jog and I had to be content shuffling like an old man! So here I was, Zico the marathoner, with 23 marathons to his name, struggling to run his first km:) How much more humbling can it get? I walked a while and having recovered, resumed my jog again. This walk-run process, a toddler' measure, that I prescribe to newbies, is what I got a taste of.

I have difficulty explaining to walkers at Aarey, that have looked up to me for years, as the epitome of health & fitness, as to why I seem to walk more than run nowadays. I smile sheepishly and often state that I have been away for long or that I am enjoying the rain. I have been walking up the hill that has defined me in all these years. When I was the lone runner at Aarey in 1999, walkers looked on with amazement as I coasted along at a gallop, on that incline. I prided in never walking that hill; but, today is a different story. It is precisely this that will spur me on to getting back to what I used to be - conquering that hill at least at a canter.

Until then, I have to watch with longing as the guys doing their 12 marathons in 12 months keep their date with the run every month, their cheerleaders in tow. I have joined them for three of these runs. I realised that I am truly alone in nursing my health, emotions and bruised ego back to feeling respected and cared about with my runner friends and pupils. There are expressions of sympathy that are meant to alleviate some of the pain but real empathy that soothes the senses comes from a few good men and women. I feel lonesome, watching as they run past and I'm singing;

Lady Madonna, children at your feet
Wonder how you manage to make ends meet
Who finds the money when you pay the rent?
Did you think that money was heaven sent?

Friday night arrives without a suitcase
Sunday morning creeping like a nun
Monday's child has learned to tie his bootlegs
See how they run

Darkness at noon

It was 2:30am on Good Friday. I had promised myself I would practice abstinence from meat and alcohol and that I would completely skip a meal on this day to mourn the crucifixion of Christ. Little did I know that I would be compelled to do this and more - fast for the next 72 hours! As soon as I collected my thoughts, I felt my bowels lurch. I doubled over with a grimace as I got off the bed in my hotel room in Ludhiana where I was on business tour. I rushed to the toilet and felt a wave of relief and the deep satisfaction that suffuses you after a rather copious evacuation. This turned out to be short-lived as I then threw up and this alternate and periodic voiding of my innards went on and on and on. I was weakened and could barely stand now.

It was morning and about time too that I should warn my office colleagues of my condition. One look at me and they felt I had seen a ghost. With barely enough strength to dress and with unsteady bearing, we visited a local physician who advised that I be put on a drip. I looked up in alarm and shook my head, meekly admitting to the doctor that a grown man like me was petrified of needles. The smirk on his countenance would have me lecture him on the concept of phobia, should he be uninformed as such, and my momentary irritation would have him tagged a country bumpkin.

I suffered in silence periodically throwing up, even as my office colleagues, who had accompanied me on this tour, prayed for an improvement in my condition. Finally, and since my heart had begun palpitations on account of low blood volume and possible electrolyte imbalance, it became imperative that I go to a hospital. When I did arrive at the hospital at 11:15am the next day, I had to be swept into emergency services and the readout from the ECG that was strapped on me in a flurry, sent the medics into a tizzy. My heart needed the over-riding electrical impulse of an external pace-maker to subdue its runaway beats. Such cardiac intervention was alarming enough to warrant the spread, like wild-fire, of news that I had suffered a cardiac event. It caused shock and indignant denial from everyone that knows me and more so with Monsoon and Bryan, who reserved comment with stoic resolve until then reached the hospital.

I was in a daze and drifted in and out of consciousness; a brief journey to the nether world, a resurrection of sorts, is all I could recall, from the flurry of activity around me and my own intermittent blissful drift to a gamma wave sleep. My heart having attained a semblance of normalcy, I was shifted to ICU for further treatment and evaluation, as clinical parameters for my liver and renal function were still a cause for concern.

It was the brilliance of Dr Gautam Ahluwalia, who surmised that I might be afflicted with LEPTOSPIROSIS, that saved me a prolonged tenure at the hospital. I was put on a dose of Doxycycline and within 12 hours my condition had stabilized. Monsoon and Bryan reached me after an exhausting 8 hr road journey from Delhi to Ludhiana. They were informed enroute that I was fine and upon arriving at the ICU at 2am, I could sense their relief in seeing me smile.

I spent the next four days in the company of pretty nurses who exhibited a quiet efficiency and mellifluous intonation when periodically fussing over me with their pleasant ministrations. I felt reassured that I was in good hands. Such hospitality was perhaps accentuated by the delicious meals that were served me and the constant enquiry by the dietician on its sufficiency, quality and flavor. Soon I was grippped with boredom and an urgent desire to go home. After what seemed like an eternity, I was relieved to be discharged. We flew down to Mumbai and I came home to a glorious welcome from Dojo, who could not contain his excitement thru' his yelps while darting in and out of all rooms in the house.

I was blessed with good friends from the running community and felt the warm comfort and wishes of Madhu, Pramila, Ashok, Srinivas, Amit, Rohit and Ashwin, who visited my place. The chocolates and souvenirs that Madhu and Pramila gifted me from their vacation overseas, endeared them to me. A week later, I had follow up tests done to check the status of my heart and I received the news of its normalcy and function with relief and a quiet prayer to the Blessed Virgin. My friends, family and colleagues could breathe easy knowing that I had not suffered a cardiac event and that it was merely an inflammation of the cardiac muscle that had triggered complications that sent alarm bells ringing. Holy saturday at midday, the day I was admitted to hospital, brought a darkness at noon in my life; my darkest hour in a life that has otherwise been devoid of any major illness or medical emergency.

The lord is my shepherd
there is nothing I shall want
Fresh and green are the pastures
where he gives me repose

Near restful waters he leads me
to revive my drooping spirit
The lord is my shepherd
there is nothing I shall want.

Horse with no name

It seemed an exhausting journey at the end of it all. Amit and Srinivas had discovered a new trail in the Aarey forest. Yes, believe you me, in the concrete jungle that is Bombay, we live close to a veritable treasure trove of flora and fauna. It was decided that we meet up today for our weekend saturday run and they would show us the trail.

We started out at 6am and as we hit the trail, it seemed to be a rutted track in parts with dense stones strewn around, making it difficult to stride without the risk of an ankle twisting. To be fair, in parts it was dusty with the red mud and sharp inclines that tested the strength of your quads and achilles tendon. After a while it opened out into a table top that offered a breathtaking panoramic view of the city sky line, making you want to throw up at the pigeon hole apartments and the dense concrete structures. Of course the panorama was of a green valley with the rutted trail track we had traversed and a mist hanging over it like a cloud.

The trail run was exhasuting and some of the steep inclines forced most of us to walk and proceed. It would no doubt be a beautiful route to take in the monsoon on a mild rainy day with dark clouds and a drizzle to give you that blissful sting to your face upturned to the sky, like that of a wonderstruck child. I would do that run with a song in my heart; however, today, it sapped us. The loop back to the start point was done and there was that unspoken question as to whether we would do the 30K we were scheduled to do today. The inclines had drained everyone and there was one person that bit the dust; Ashwin, who had an ankle twist.

After hydrating, we set out for the second loop and this told its own story by the time we were half way thru'; we had to stop at the Gaundevi temple and drench ourselves with water from the cooler. The return journey, thru extreme heat and humidity took its toll on most by the time we had finished the second loop. Most thru' the towel into the ring and there was just Srinivas and I, heroically wanting to finish what we started:) We set out once again and it was halfway thru' this that I became delirious with fatigue.

Srinivas too was speculating on the lunacy in not heeding the other people' decision. Every step brought wincing pain in the calves and a burn in the throat that was parched to tinder. I remembered the song by America entitled above and the words rang true in my mind; in the desert you can't remember your name. This was my state for we both had our chins buried and like brothers in arms, we knew how much suffering we were enduring. When we staggered home we gave ourselves away by the way we leaned against the car and swayed as if on the verge of collapse. I guess, if I had eaten even one of the gels that Aravindan so kindly and thoughtfully offered me (a whole bunch actually - I must repay him in kind) later, I would have been able to stave off such mind numbing fatigue. Aravindan' sister gifted him the gels and he was selfless in sharing it with me and some other friends. Running has brought to me the more beautiful facet of human nature and true friendship. And now, I must share with you the song (altered to suit) that somehow seems it was meant for the trail and my exhausting junket.

On the first part of the journey
I was looking at all the life
There were plants and birds and rocks and things
There was sand and hills and rings
The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz
And the sky with no clouds
The heat was hot and the ground was dry
But the air was full of sound

I've been through the trail on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain
La, la ...

Farenheit

It seemed the perfect way to wakeup. My eyes popped open and I lay breathing easy, looking out at a dark sky, wondering whether it was an unearthly hour or close to dawn. I reached for my digital watch. It glowed to show 4:27am; just 3 mins short of my wake up alarm. I also felt well rested and wondered about Venkat, our RFL member' theory, about sleep waves and that waking up in the gamma phase causes disorientation and headaches: there was none of this.

I had too many things to do before Srinivas picks me up at 5am. This included the wash up ritual, my cuppa java, getting blocks of ice set in utensils, out of them and into an ice-box and putting together the paraphernalia I need for running a full marathon. Yes, we were scheduled to do our fourth marathon in as many months. The heat and humidity made it a daunting prospect.

We began our run at 5:40am and the first 28K were a breeze, in that, we had cerebral discussions on training requirements for running an Ultra-marathon (Comrades), real estate and of course the banter involving jokes from Kavin' repertoire. We had our angels in Madhumita, Pramila and Puneet; they have been selflessly manning an aid station for 4 - 5 hours; and, besides the usual ministrations of serving us electrolyte, or energy bars or handing out ice-water, they encouraged us with applause and cheering for every loop of 7K that we did. This time there were others that joined in to help us. There was Natasha, Ashwin, Allen and Kavin.

We started for the last but one loop and there was animated discussion about how we could do the same before 11am, which was 2 hrs away. Amit was like, 'Do gante mein aaram se ho sakta hai boss' and I replied, 'Amit, the game suddenly changes'. That became the catch phrase for all later; "the game changes":). We were still fine as we had done just 28K and since I am convinced that physiologically, the wall really does not disappear, I was the lone cynic. Then it happened: Srinivas' legs buckled at 30K and he announced, 'Dan, I'm plastered man. Don't know how I'm gonna finish this one!'

At 34K I felt as if lead was being pumped into the blood vessels in my legs. This was the cold and icy clutch of fatigue gripping me. A sense of impending doom made me feel desolate, as I still had a long way to go. At 35K, with one last loop to go and feeling a bit faint, I decided to tank up on electrolyte fearing cramps. It seems to have reached a part of my innards where it mattered most, as I felt a brief spell of freshness. Then at 38K, I felt my legs buckle, but the very thought that there were just 4K to go, allowed me to hang on to Amit (who felt the strain too and was also slowing down now), so that I could finish with him. When we had 400m to go, Mahesh was ahead, but turned around and came back to run alongside me saying, 'Sir, ke saath finish karna hai.' Courtesy, humility and simplicity are the terms of endearment that define these true friends of mine.

We staggered to the finish and had our angels give us a thumping welcome. My relief was ineffable but clearly evident from the way I hobbled and sat on a nearby bench:) A while later, I felt as good as new:) There was ample post run carboloading comprising a delectable selection of fruit, sandwiches, a box of turkish delights that were aptly called Harem' Delight and a sinful looking chocolate cake; the later being a celebration, both belated and advance, for Madhu', Puneet' and Supriya' birthdays. The classic finish to the whole event was the ice cold can of TUBORG and KINGFISHER DRAUGHT, thoughtfully cooled to perfection by our angels, who leave no stone unturned to spoil us:). The 4/12 was done and in the bag, but it was one hell of a run in rising mercury. I felt the faint strains Phil Collins' song in my heart;

I call out to the woman on the street
She can see I've been crying
I've got blisters on the soles of my feet
Can't walk but I'm trying

Oh think twice, it's another day for me in paradise
Oh think twice, it's just another day for you and me in paradise

Dotage

I set the coffee pot on the gas burner to simmer and waited for the thick liquor to ooze and set free those wonderful aromatic flavors that rouse you from your sleep. I looked out at the aarey forest from my window and saw the misty haze hover like gun smoke on the trees. I never fail to marvel at how much of a difference forest cover makes to weather, just a hop, step and jump away from my concrete abode. My mind wandered to the visit our widowed neighbour paid me last evening.

She had come to hand over some Swiss chocolates and a gift as gratitude for our looking after her and her home, when she is away visiting her daughter. She was rather embarassingly effusive in her gratefulness. I could understand her feelings only when she briefly broke down, in mid-conversation, her voice catching as she said, 'loneliness is the worst scourge of old age, Daniel. And I thank God that you people are there for me. It is for this reason I have handed over our house keys to you; so that you can open the door some day - in case something happens to me!' I reassured her, as she was leaving, that we would always be there for her and that she needn't worry. As I watched her hunched and wan countenance drift past the corridor, I realised the full import and truth in her admiting the evitability of our existence.

I was feeling strong this morning and so I decided I'd go and blast my muscles a wee bit. They say you lose 1% muscle mass for every year you are over forty and I was focused on a way to preserve mine. There is this workout I learned from the US Navy Seals Physical Fitness Handbook (a treasure trove of workouts), in which the major muscle groups can be better worked using a 5 Rep max. It enthused me enough to prepare a chart of the sets, reps and weights I'd add to the bar. A different approach to working the muscles always serves to shock them into renewed hypertrophy. It seemed to work its magic; at least that' what it seemed in the bathroom mirror whilst taking a shower on reaching home. Vanity is not the sole preserve of women:) Lets hope, by God' grace, it lasts and I may humor myself with a quote:)

I complain that the years fly past, but then I look in a mirror and see that very few of them actually got past. ~Robert Brault