Unlike many
others, I run alone. There is nothing monkish about it. It might be the
contrary actually. It is just that I start later than monks who wake up at 5 am
to run. Apart from having someone who sets pace, not sure what running with a
partner does. Anyway we are not exactly chatting away while running. Running
with someone also entails that your times match with the partner which again is
not an easy job. So for all those who have running buddies, congratulations,
but I will pass.
What
running has given me apart from the solitude is an opportunity to explore
cities when I travel, even on work. What might have taken 2-3 hours of walking,
can be done in an hour. The stamina that you build over time through running
also helps in my long walks around a new town. Before I travel, I do a recce on
GMaps and also on running boards to search out nice running routes and tracks.
The Indian city that has the best running routes whether it be parks and wide
roads is Delhi – but the flip side is the torrid weather and pollution that one
has to endure for most of the year. I travelled only once to Delhi this year
but I managed to run in this lovely park that was right alongside the Lotus
Temple – it had rough terrain, inclines and greens. And running back to the
hotel, I got one of my good running photographs of the year. I don’t usually
carry a phone while running unless when I am outside home base and photos like
this make it worthwhile.
In Bombay -
Running was largely in BKC where I stayed most often. The mornings at BKC are
good to run as the offices are not yet open and the residential apartments are
few. The roads are empty and there are pavements on many roads. However for my
late starts, the humidity in Bombay can be sapping.
Bangalore
was a sad city to run in, almost tragic. To see a city that I have lived in for
long, fall into an abyss of potholed roads, broken pavements, overflowing
drainages is to see a promising childhood friend end up as a roadside drunk,
lying on the broken pavement in his vomit the morning after. My work is on the
outer ring road and there are no places to run close by to any hotel, so I pick
hotels near MG Road so that I can run near the Ulsoor lake. However inside the
Ulsoor lake park too, the track is badly graveled and the roads outside are
being relaid. It is very easy to slip on a pebble and break an angle or knee.
Madras, in
contrast, despite its reputation for bad weather gave me good running
experiences. I am ignoring the time where GMaps took me to the Marina through
some slums and fishermen colonies. Running past (stereo) typical Madras imagery
of colourful temples and churches, early morning jasmine and fish sellers,
having filter coffee on the way back from a run – are all cliched images, but
cliched because they are ubiquitous.
When I run
in other cities, I tend to run at a leisurely pace with enough stoppages for
photos and being a general flaneur.
What fills
me with sadness, and becomes stark when I travel abroad, is the struggle to
find decent roads with pavements and green areas to run, back home in India.
Even in a large urban city like Singapore, I could run near the Promenade and Marina
Bay Sands which are fairly busy areas. I noticed while visiting friends in
residential areas, that all of them had nice pavements for running and cycling.
In India it is a challenge to find an unbroken pavement, leave aside a pavement
in the first place. The second part that is immediately apparent is the clean
air – which makes running so much more pleasurable with noticeably better heart
rates and breathing.
In October/
November I had a glorious series of runs with 10 cities covered in a month
including 5 cities in US over a period of 10 days.
New York
I was staying on 23rd street, a place that was a
convenient 3 kms from Central Park. I landed in New York after a largely
sleepless flight and checked in to the hotel on a cold and drizzling evening at
7 pm. I walked around a bit for dinner – the bright lights, people huddled against
the cold in their overcoats, steam rising out of the ground - typical NY
imagery. I could not sleep much because of the jet leg and woke up at 4 am the
next morning with only 3 hours of sleep. I set out at 7 am for a run. Even at 7
am it was still dark and though it was a straight road to Central Park – it was
a bit of a pain stopping at every block for the light to turn white. Running
past Times Square was like stepping into a dystopian set like Blade Runner with
the tops of the buildings getting lost in the morning fog and the bright lights
struggling to shine through.
Central Park was lovely in the morning with lots of
runners, a manageable cold but the fog covered some of the glorious sights that
I knew from earlier like the Great Lawn, the Bow Bridge etc. It was still late
fall and the varying shades of red and yellow leaves offered too many
opportunities to take photographs. In that process I also lost my way and ended
up coming out at around the 80th street, which was 57 blocks away for me. I
wanted to run only 10 kms and now had to run longer and also had to increase my
pace, which was made worse by all the morning commuters on the pavements. New
York does start early and almost everyone has a coffee cup in their hands (what
inflation?).
The second
New York run was two days later when I ran along 23rd street to the
East Coast River and the Stuyvesant Cove Park. The path was absolutely glorious
and I managed to time myself to reach the East River just in time to catch the sun
rise over Brooklyn. I took some lovely shots of the sunrise and then the
Williamsburg Bridge. On the return leg, I stepped onto a track where some NYU students
were practicing their runs. I got some of my best pics of US on this trip – the
runners in their long and energetic strides, the vigour of their youth against
the effulgent golden sunrays, their straining muscles and their companionship almost
made me pine for my own youth which was lost in the arduous ambitions of the
Indian middle class. The run that day was a bit more painful than the pace
suggested as my legs were tired from the long walks I had taken the previous
evening.
Atlanta
The next
run was in Atlanta. I had gone to meet my brother’s family – meeting them after
4 years. My brother too being a keen runner, he took me to a lovely wooded area
around a lake that had some gentle inclines. I did the 10 K in around 53 mins –
the woods/ the late fall colours/ the lakes and the Halloween decorations were
an absolute joy. In no Indian city, would we able to run in such areas. In
fact, even our hill stations with their poorly maintained garbage and sewage
are ridden with squalor and are sometimes worse than cities. My brother is also
a solid runner though he was slow on the inclines, which I was used to with my
Hyderabad practice. My brother couldn’t care less about the glorious sights he
was breezing past, being inured to its familiarity while I could have stayed
there all day watching the fall colours over the lake and bird and ducks by the
side.
As an
aside, Atlanta is such a delight with beautiful weather for most of the year
and quite green with lovely fall colours. It captures the best of the North
East without the bone chilling cold. Outside New York, I find it the most
multicultural – Hispanics, African American, lot of desis now and of course the
heartland of the white base in deep south.
Jersey City
I came to
Jersey city on Sunday evening and checked out the running areas near the hotel.
Thankfully there were many close by. However because of a Google Maps mess up
(which thought I could Jesus-like tread on water) ended up taking some longer
routes but finally got to the Liberty State Park that overlooks the Manhattan
Skyline. I also walked through the Empty Sky Memorial that was a tribute to the
WTC victims. I admire the understated elegance that goes into building
memorials in the West – thoughtful, sombre and deeply touching at the same
time.
Houston
The same
evening we flew to Houston and because of some flight delays and cab issues,
ended up reaching the hotel only at around 1 am. It was lightly drizzling in
the morning when I woke up, I waited for the rain to subside a bit and went for
a gentle 5 K run through some condo areas and on the pavements.
Houston was
the most unremarkable run of all the cities – just a regular city run, but that
too was on nice pavements.
SFO
The same evening I
flew to SFO. I reached at a sane time and spent the evening walking around. I
had booked a hotel near Union Square – little did I realise the squalor and
homelessness that abound downtown SFO. Most pavements were littered with drug
addicts/ homeless/ drunks…it was less scary than tragic. I spent over an hour
walking around – I was told by a friend the next day that I should not have
done that.
I checked out a
running route via GMaps and found that there was a straight road to the Golden
Gate Park and started closer to 730 am as the sunrise was post 7. No way could
I have seen the steeply inclined SFO streets and their Victorian houses if I
was gently ambling around. As I was used to inclines in Hyderabad, I could
handle the legendary elevations of SFO without killing my legs. After 3 kms or
so, I came to the Golden Gate park which might be less known than NY’s Central
Park but is actually larger. Of course it is not as elegantly laid out but
still home to many lakes and trails. If I could, I would have loved to spend
more time. But the late sunrise and the business hours, don’t leave much time
for a run beyond an hour or so. I actually thought the Golden Gate Park would
give me good views of the bridge, but it was quite far away. I later realized that
there was a better running area near the Golden Gate bridge at the Crissy
field, but that time was past.
The best
part about my runs in the US was the clean and crisp air and the gentle
pre-winter cold that helped me run more efficiently with much better heart
rates (lower by 10-15 bps) as compared to similar Indian runs.
The only Murakami book i have read is his book on running and i end this piece with a line from that book -
“All I do is keep on running in my own cozy, homemade void, my own
nostalgic silence. And this is a pretty wonderful thing. No matter what
anybody else says.”
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